The Snake Doctors

I   Pig

I was in the outhouse

I heard somebody at the pump

I looked out the chink hole

It was the two fishermen

They stole fish

One man gave the other one some money

He flipped a fifty-cent piece up

I lost it in the sun

I saw the snake doctors riding each other

The other man said “You lose”

He took something else out of his pocket

It shined

They had a tow sack

I thought they were cleaning fish

I looked up

I saw the snake doctors riding each other

I took my eye away

It was dark in the outhouse

I whistled

I heard the pump again

It sounded broken

I looked out the chink hole

It wasn’t the pump

It was the pig

The guitar player cut them out

The midget helped him

“Pump me some water, midget” he said

The pig ran off

The guitar player washed off his hands

The midget washed off the nuts

He got a drink

My eye hurt

He laughed

He cleaned the blood off his knife    He wiped   

      it on his leg

He started singing

The dog tried to get the nuts

But the midget kicked him

The guitar player picked them up

He put them in his pocket

The dog went over to the pig

He licked him

I pulled my pants up

I went outside

I got the pig

I walked over to the pump

I said “Don’t you ever lay a hand   

            on this pig again”

The guitar player laughed

He asked me if I wanted the nuts back

He took them out of his pocket

He spit on them

He shook them like dice

He threw them on the ground

He said “Hah”

The midget stomped on them

I had the pig under my arm

He was bleeding on my foot    I said

“Midget, I got friends on that river”

II   The Acolyte

The men rode by

I passed them on the road

They smelled like dead fish

The one in front had a guitar on his back

The other one had a chain saw

I was riding the hog

He weighed three-hundred pounds

I called him Holy Ghost

The midget flashed a knife

He thumbed the blade

He smiled at me

He called me “Pig Rider”

I rode over to Baby Gauge’s

I was on my way to church

I had to get the red cassock

I tied the hog to the front porch

Baby Gauge was swinging in a tire

Born In The Camp With Six Toes was sleeping in the icebox

Baby Gauge said “Be at the levee at three o’clock”

I put the robe on

I said “I almost got drowned last time”

“Going to have a mighty good time” he said

“Going to be an eclipse” Born In The Camp With Six Toes said

I rode the hog to church

I took the new shoes off

I lit the candles

I changed the book

I rung the bell

I was drinking the wine

I heard Baby Gauge yell

I ran down the aisle

I saw the men at the trough

They were beating the hog over the head with sledge hammers

It was like the clock in the German pilot’s shack

One of his eyes was hanging out

And the trough was running over with blood

They held his head under the water

He was rooting in his own blood

He pumped it out in a mist

Like a buck shot in the lung

It was black

He broke loose

I ran down the road yelling

I stepped on soda bottle caps

I ran through sardine cans

I tripped on the cassock

The hog was crazy

He ran into the church

He ran into tombstones

I said “Somebody throw me something”

Chinaman threw me a knife

I ran after the hog

He was heading for the river

I jumped on his back

I rode the hog

I hugged his neck

I stabbed him seven times

I wanted the knife to go into me

He kept running

I ran the knife across his throat

And the blood came out like a bird

We ran into a sycamore tree

When the cloud passed over the moon

Like a turkey shutting its eye

I rowed out into the slew

Not allowing myself to sing gospel music

I woke up in a boat

It was full of blood

My feet were dragging through the water

A knife was sticking in the prow

And the sun was black

It was dark

But I saw the snake doctors riding each other

I saw my new shoes

I put them on

They filled up with blood

I took the surplice off

I threw it in the river

I watched it sink

There was hog blood in my hair

I knelt in the prow with the knife in my mouth

I looked at myself in the water

I heard someone singing on the levee

I was buried in a boat

I woke up

I set it afire with the taper

I watched myself burn

I reached in the ashes and found a red knife

I held my head under the water

      so I wouldn’t go crazy

It was some commotion

I rowed the boat in a circle with one oar

A hundred people were in the water

They had white robes on

Some of them had umbrellas

They jumped up and down on the bank

They rowed down the levee

They were yelling and singing

One of them saw me

I saw a horse with tassels

I put my head under the water

I thought I was dead

I hit it on a cypress knee

Two Negroes came riding through the river

They rode towards me on the moon-blind horse

One of them was drinking soda water

“Where are you going, boy” Baby Gauge said

The horse swam back to the levee

I was with them

The boat drifted away

A man said “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego”

III   Hambone

They tied his hind legs together

And hung him in a tree with a log chain

I saw them

I was on Baby Gauge’s horse

I threw a knife at the midget

So they hung me up by the feet too

I saw them break his neck

I saw them pull his legs apart

    like a wishbone

I wished the dead came back

The midget stood on a bucket

He reached up in the hog’s throat

And pulled the heart out

The dog was lying on the ground

With his mouth open

It took all day to butcher the hog

I got dizzy

I saw the snake doctors riding each other

They turned the bucket over

It filled up with blood

They made a fire

The guitar player beat his hand over his leg

He put some meat on the fire

They tried to make me eat it

The midget spit a bone on the ground

The other one picked it up

He put it on his finger

He went over and got his guitar

He tried to play it like a Negro

There was too much grease on his hands

He got blood on the guitar

The midget danced around the campfire

I wanted to cut his throat

The dog bayed at the moon

And the blue Andalusian rooster played with a snake

I was bleeding out my nose

The fish bandits loaded the hog on Baby Gauge’s horse

They threw blood on the fire

And filled the bucket up with guts for fish bait

When they rode off I yelled “Peckerwoods”

I dreamed I saw Holy Ghost walking around the campfire

He was a wild hog with blood on his tushes

Along about midnight I heard a boat

    but no rowing

Somebody short came walking out of the woods

With a light on his head

The light went out I couldn’t see

He drew something out of his boot

He grabbed me by the hair

I saw a knife in the moonlight

“Sweet Jesus” I said

Born In The Camp With Six Toes cut me down

IV   Chainsaw

The man cut his hand off at dawn

I heard him yell

I set up in bed

He ran past the window

“Don’t let the dog get it” he said

I got out of bed

I had the long handles on

It was cold

I threw some wood on the fire

I put the dime around my ankle

I put my boots on

I put a knife in the boot

I walked out to the road

The blue Andalusian rooster followed me

It was dark

I heard the chainsaw in the woods

I heard him singing all night

He was cutting firewood

He was drunk

The dog quit barking

I drew the knife out of my boot

I looked for the midget

I saw the blood and I tracked it

I saw the sun and the moon

I saw the snake doctors riding each other

The hand was in the sawdust

It was moving

The hambone was on the finger

It was morning

The dog didn’t get it

I did

There was blood on the chainsaw

I told the blue rooster

“He thought it was a guitar”

I walked around the hand seven times

I poked it with a stick

I sung to it

I picked it up like a snake

I took the hambone off the finger

I put Holy Ghost’s bone in my boot

I put the hand on a stump

I danced on the hand

I peed on it

I broke a wine bottle over it

I threw it up in the air and a hawk

    hit it

The dog licked the blood out of the dust

I saw the fish bandit’s guitar

The blue rooster pecked it

I beat the hand with it

I threw the guitar in the river

The snake doctors lit on it

It floated away

I went down to the bank

I got a pole

I put a hook through the hand

I washed it off

When I touched the wound with my knife

    it rolled up in a fist

Somebody came by in a boat

They held up a big fish

So I held up the hand

They jumped out of the boat

They thought I crossed them

One of them said “That wasn’t no hoodoo, was it”

It was Baby Gauge

I said “No, it was the guitar player’s hand”

They swam to the bank

I told them how I came by it

Born In The Camp With Six Toes said “It won’t

Take another fish off my lines”

I asked them “You want to shake it”

Baby Gauge said “No, I want to spit on it”

We spit on the hand

They left

I wrapped it up in newspaper like fish

I took it home

I put it under Jimmy’s pillow

and he knocked my teeth out

I put it in a cigar box with a picture

      of Elvis Presley

I took it to town

I walked over to the dance hall

The guitar player was bleeding in the back of the pickup

I gave him the cigar box

He passed out

The midget pulled a knife on me

I picked up the hand

He ran off

On the way home I ran folks off the road

When the truck came by the house

The guitar player raised up in the bed

He said “Give me my hand back”

When it was dark

I tied fish line to it and hung it

    in the outhouse

I sung to it

The moon shined through the chink hole

on the hand

I took it down

I threw it in a yellow jacket nest

I stomped on it

I took it to the palm reader

I said “Sister, read this”

A lot of evenings I listened for them

I knew they would come back

When a stranger got a drink at night

I thought it was the Holy Ghost

And sometimes a cloud went by like a three-legged dog

And the thunder was someone with a shotgun

Letting him have it

Now the moon was a fifty-cent piece

It was a belly I wanted

      to cut open

When the flies got bad

I kept the hand in the smokehouse

V   Swimming at Night

The midget ran his finger across his neck

The other one said “Give it back”

I waited in the outhouse

I had a sawed-off shotgun

The men rode off

In the afternoon they sold fish

They cleaned them at the pump

The scales dried up on their faces

They loaded the meat on stolen horses

At night they rode up shooting pistols

I slept with an ice pick under my pillow

One night they rode up drunk

The midget was sitting in the guitar player’s lap

He said “Come on out”

They tied a bale of hay to Baby Gauge’s horse

They poured coal oil on it

They set it on fire

They laughed

The horse with the moon eye pranced around them

He galloped home

I carved wild hog out of a cypress knee

I made it the handle

I made four tushes out of the hambone

I used the blade I brought out of the fire

And sealed the pig with

It was the blade I put the burning horse to sleep with

I called the knife the Holy Ghost

To make me go crazy

I took all my clothes off

And jumped down the hole in the outhouse

I grabbed the yellow jacket nest

And held it over my heart

I pumped cold water over myself

And wallowed in the mud

I walked through the snake den barefooted

I swam the river at midnight

With the hand and a blue feather in my mouth

And the Holy Ghost around my neck

And the hooks caught in my arms    they caught in my legs

I cut the trot lines in two

I saw the guitar player stealing the fish

I was swimming beneath the shack

Under the sleeping midget

With the fish bandit’s hand in my mouth

I climbed through the trap door

I crawled under the bed

I cut the hooks out

I believe I was snake bit

I put the hand in the slop jar

I reached up and tickled his nose with the feather

He got out of bed

He turned the lights on

He let down his pants

He reached under the bed for the slop jar

He took the lid off

He screamed

I brought the knife across his leg

I hamstrung the midget

I swam under the water

With the hand in my mouth

I came up near the guitar player’s boat

He was running the lines

I swam to the other end of the trot line

I put the hand on a hook

I jerked the lines like a big fish

The guitar player worked his way down

He thought he had a good one

I let go of the line

He saw his left hand

He screamed

He fell out of the boat

I swam back through the river

I buried the knife in the levee

I was sleeping in the Negro’s lap

He was spitting snuff on my wounds

Born In The Camp With Six Toes cut me with a knife

Baby Gauge sucked the poison out

Oh Sweet Jesus the levees that break in my heart