Featured Writer: D.B. Cox

Exit

“Even death will have exits like a dark theatre”

--- Charles Bukowski

Too spent to calculate

the sum of scattered thoughts,

he sits bent forward,

hands folded in front of his face,

like that Sunday school painting

of Jesus in the garden,

praying for a way out.

He’ll spend the little time left

holding to slippery half-truths,

trying to convince himself

that he did what he had to do.

Pushed to the edge,

he lost all balance & stumbled

into a hole so deep

there was no way to gauge the fall.

Suddenly, as if stunned

by his own desperation,

his body shudders & a short moan,

like the parting sound of hope,

escapes from some dark place

very near his soul.

Just to be moving,

he gets to his feet & walks

to the small cell window,

where he watches a thin cloud

slowly shroud the half-moon.

In his head,

he begins to gather

fractured images,

struggling to frame

the still distorted scene…

II.

…Standing just out of range

of the street lamp,

he eyes a cab as it crawls along

an otherwise deserted avenue.

His attention shifts

to a small, unlit house on the corner.

When he spots the beat-up blue Chevy,

that belongs to her new friend

still sitting in the driveway,

something close to a smile

plays along his face.

Every lousy little detail,

behind those cheap curtains,

burned, by time, into his brain:

every corner, every crack in the floor,

every angry scar on every faded wall,

every broken glass, & every broken promise.

Every meaningless minute spent

begging mercy for every wrong thing.

Feeling strangely numb,

his hand moves against

the cool metal of the .45

tucked inside his jacket pocket.

Somewhere, a lost dog howls…

Slowly, as if on cue,

he lets a spent cigarette

drop from his left hand,

steps from the curb,

& is taken,

like a wind-blown bird,

into the crazy night…

III.

…No last words

He lies flat on his back,

Arms & legs strapped tight

to the contemporary cross.

Staring straight up

into an overhead light,

he fights hard to stay awake

as the fatal fix roars,

like an express train,

through his veins.

For the first time in weeks

things slow down

enough to allow

his brain to latch

onto a clear thought…

Still,

no answers,

only one

last question…

Jesus,

if you’re real,

& can look

through this

concrete & steel.

After having seen

what you’ve seen,

& knowing

what you know,

can you still

stand by

that altruistic suicide?

Passing For Blue

--- For D.N.K.

“The blues is a black man’s music, and whites diminish it at best or steal it at worst”

– Ralph J. Gleason – Jazz Critic

My best friend

died last year,

in a 24-hour store --

shot by some shaky kid

when he walked

in on a 32 dollar holdup

to buy a pack

of Marlboros.

He was a blues-man.

He knew more

about Robert Johnson

and Tampa Red

than Amiri Baraka -- or Leroi Jones.

He used up most of his time,

and all of his options

preaching to the blue

multitudes, jammed

into the cheap neon

playgrounds, along

the whore-haunted streets

of late-night Memphis;

where no accusing eyes

ever questioned the

heartfelt disguise, he wore

like an invisible man.

And on the day

his ashes were

tossed toward

the rain-polished sky,

there were no

sad fans weeping,

no sanctifying poetry

from Langston Hughes,

just a southbound

breeze to ride on,

for the white boy --

passing for blue.

At The Station

-- For Woodrow

He’s sitting alone

with some of the others

in what’s called the day-room.

For months now,

he’s been wasting away

one burnt-out cell at a time.

Now, his spent body

seems as fragile

as a kite frame.

Color images, from

the muted television,

spill pointlessly into

a monochrome world

where old distractions

have been rendered,,

unnecessary.

I ache to walk over,

reach in, & slide back

that steel-gray shade,

just long enough

to say a few things

I forgot to say.

Like; thanks for everything,

& I’m sorry I never returned

all the favors.

But for him,

there’s nothing left

except a desire to be finished.

Suitcases are packed

for travel, & the ticket’s

stamped & paid for.

Clouded eyes

scan the distance

for any purposeful movement

as he waits,

with simple human grace,

for a train.

The one his mother used to sing about.

Road Like A River

The bus drifts

up an off-ramp,

somewhere on I-95.

We’re moving toward

the second show of the day.

Two is nothing new.

It’s 1968,

& business is good.

Behind me,

the trumpet man

blows quietly into his horn.

Warming up.

His solo’s down cold;

all heart & soul.

Miles couldn’t play

TAPS any sadder.

All group moves,

choreographed in:

"one of the few",

"dress blue" -- precision

[Fire the rifles]

… blank eyes don’t blink

[Blow the horn]

… machines don’t feel

[Fold the flag]

… numb minds don’t think

[Pass it over]

… make the scene look real

[hand-salute]

… that's a wrap

back on the long gray bus, & gone…

Yeah, we’ve got it made

out here on the highway.

Just keep the conscious clean,

& don’t fuck with the machine.

Riding a road, like a river

with rapid black water,

pulling us on

further & faster...

All of us --

bound for that

vanishing point

somewhere,

in the heat-shadowed distance.

Heshu
---" On October 12, 2002, Heshu Yones, a sixteen-year old Iraqi Kurd who was
planning to run away from her family home in London had her throat cut by
her father, because he believed she was dating a non-muslim and had become
too westernized" --- from Harper's Magazine

and when he had slaughtered
his wayward, western daughter,
the one he could not comprehend,,
him crazy --- out of control,
like some blind and willful beast.

when his anger was spent,
and the silent room began
to whisper its accusations.

what then?

did he scream out her name?
did he bend to touch
her perfect face, and gaze
into staring, black eyes?

did his blood-stained fingers
trace the long, dark
waterfall of her hair
to where it flowed
into that cruel, red river
just below her throat?

did he now, in utter despair
of his own fatal vision,
turn the blade on himself
and write a fitting end to this
pathetic, one-act play?

or?

did he coldly
lay the knife
on the killing floor,
place a call,
and wait ______

D.B. Cox is a blues musician/poet, originally from South Carolina, but now resides in Watertown Massachusetts. He is a virtual newcomer. Some of his poetry has recently been published in a 2004 edition of Ken*Again and has also appeared in the Spring Edition of Adagio Verse Quarterly.

Email: D.B. Cox

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