To Greet Yourself Arriving

Louis Armstrong

Named Satchmo after his school-boy

satchel vanished, his voice reinvented

a nation tumbling on its knees,

conjuring steamships and poker buy-ins

up the delta mouth of Old Muddy and quadrilles

circling round dance floors. His cornet

shook middle earth's groove, invoking

ragtime hits down Bourbon Street's

bedlam latitudes. He emerged from

nothing's torn retina to blossom-stroke

May magnolias. His childhood

double-timed as the Jazz Age

walked in from the future,

no more wanna-shoe-shine

mister rattling his octave mouth.

No more newspaper ink dashing

the day's events across his skin.

No more waiting outside doors for

his mother, hoping she earned enough.

Howlin' Wolf

I can hear the train coming

filled with smokestack lightning,

gold-winged sparks polishing

this slate-black Mississippi night.

Mama left before I could spell

my name. I walked barefoot miles

under telephone lines. Followed them to

Papa's towering hug. A dead man stepped

out the graveyard and tuned my

first guitar with spirit ears. Give me

a standard blues progression in A

and I'll show you what misery is.

Even near death, I could never half-ass

the stage. Although I was a tree

of a man, she made me cry last time

I saw her. Scratched glass clear cross

my eyes. Called me Satan with my

rolling, hard-stone living. Most don't know,

hell is a mama that never wanted you.

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From To Greet Yourself Arriving by Michael Fraser 2016. Published by Tightrope Books.