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Exit
“Even death will have exits like a dark theatre”--- Charles Bukowski
I.
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?
Copyright © 2004 D.B. COX. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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.
Copyright © 2004 D.B. COX. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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.
Copyright © 2004 D.B. COX. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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.
Copyright © 2004 D.B. COX. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Heshu---"
On October 12, 2002, Heshu Yones, a sixteen-year old Iraqi Kurd who wasplanning 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 ______
Copyright © 2004 D.B. COX. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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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