Chain Gang

This song is not a language,

Not a thing to be remembered,

The field-holler tradition of

Teeth and knees

Cursing wind,

A concert hall of   bloody hands

Spilling the earth,

Strangling dirt,

Sledgehammer curses

Of  men busted open.

On Parchman Farm

You could hear it coming

Up through the trees,

The hammering pulpit of

Crooning men and sweat,

The tender meat of palms

Pulped like plums.

Them men gulped down the

Dawn dew air,

Let it catch in their throats,

Broke the sunrise up and

Sang hymns like hexes:

Be my woman gal, I’ll beeee your maaaaaaan    ...    

And the killing fields of  Mississippi

Fizzled down to juke joints and

The hothouse music of illegal clubs

With thick women they loved outright and

Played cards with and

Gave bourbon to when their hands

Didn’t hold sorrow like

Pickaxes and the railroad was

Just a railroad,

A way to ride north if  you could

Get your money right.

Redbone gals with rosewater sweat,

When they lifted their knees

Sunflower County was a heaven

They believed in.

Stick to the promise, gal, that you maaaaaade meeeeee    ...    

Steady now,

They turned back the clock on

Their hard, hard hands,

Let the memory of fresh linen and

Ladies’ slips like gossamer

Wings, a parade of  plump thighs,

The juju thrust of  furious bones

Spread like grease

Across starched-white sheets,

Midwife them out of ol’ Parchman Farm

And back to the cockfights and gambling,

Back when they had ambition,

Back when they had a sweet woman

To hold, her fat wrists

Soft as butter,

Limp as rain.

When she walk, she reel and rock beeeeeehind

Mississippi’s where the cock crowed,

A hoodwink if ever there was one,

But see how a man can make a

Steeple outta his hands,

See how he can break away

From his hurt and be God

If  he wants to,

How he can keep his mind

Wrapped in yesterday,

Drown out memory

Like rain drumming

Down like hornets

Yeahhhhhh.

Them Parchman men,

Ants in single file,

Draft dodgers

Digging trenches

Pounding concrete

Laying tracks

Pretending it’s Christmas

So they can keep their hands

Away from the colic of axe handles,

The sputtering earth

Snarling under their feet.

Warden says every man

Gotta pay his way on Parchman Farm

Same as the outside.

Yessuh. They remember what it was like to be a man,

To know that didn’t mean put a gun in your hand

Or go lookin’ for somebody to take down, naw.

They sang ’til the hurt was just an

Experiment in forgetfulness and they

Were back in clean clothes makin’ plans and

Tryin’ to get a little money

To buy tobacco and

A pint with a little left over

To get somethin’ sweet

For the women who were wet

Underneath them, crooning

A tumorless midnight.

The moans of  wild women

Are specific:

A whisper of  hell danced pink

By the rosewater sweat and mewling,

Questions they ask when

Their clothes are off.

When you gon’ take me to the movies?

We goin’ Saturday, baby

When you gon’ get you a steady job?

Workin’ on it everyday, baby

Why you love me anyway, man?

Ain’t a man alive who could help it

The dance, you know, the dance of  being a free man

That never shows its fullness to you ’til

It’s stripped down and gobbled up

By railroad tracks and guards in high towers

With rifles watching your back,

Bend to question mark

Under a sun that won’t mind its business,

When the only part of  your living life left

Is in the things you remember

About a woman who hung

Pantyhose off her porch to

Dry and made you peach cobbler

In the middle of the night

If you asked nice and

Danced with you to songs

Written on the back of a

Watermelon truck by folk who

Knew something about longing,

And those are the songs you give her now

While you bust the earth open.

Cuz your heart is a burial plot

So stony.

Can’t ask nothin’ of a grave.

Everybody knows that.

So you dig and

Pound and

Snatch and

Haul and

Scrape and

Lift and

Tote and

Hammer.

                    Lay it down, man!

                              Pick it up again, man!

You’re knuckles and

Dreams deferred in a place

Where every stone,

Every goddamn stone

Is important!

I go free, lawd, I goooooooo free    ...