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UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY
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D.B.COX
nightwatch in the gentleman’s john—defunct exxon hiding out-of-luck eyes hard as roman nails bony back to the wall dead man laughing at nothing at all shaky tones falling into a full-blown smoker’s hack bell-cracked saxophone rattling ‘round the unholy sanctuary top floor of hell holding cell that smells like a dress rehearsal for the cemetery dust-off clean-collar commuters peer from the cover of stylish shades taking secret comfort in a pathetic apparition wrapped in an army overcoat face down in a pool of piss baptized purified crucified in the mute humility of his own guilt while inside crusty rust-filled ears distant city traffic hums like a “huey”— spectral medevac searching for a soul lost forty years ago somewhere along the mekong river another good man done gone “You may bury my body down by the highway side So my old evil spirit can catch a Greyhound bus and ride” –Me & The Devil Blues by Robert Johnson spent ashes fall from a neglected cigarette jammed between metal strings running over the headstock of a pawn shop guitar like blue veins leading to the heart of the matter open chords stumble & stagger behind jagged bottleneck moans sliding along a juke-joint floor aching phrases that fill vacant outlines of ghost notes waiting to be played sweat-stained ebony face wailing a song about a hound from hell when suddenly the music stops— & Robert Johnson drops to his knees ribs heaving bleeding from the nose liver on fire clawing at his gut half-dead eyes rolling back in his head mind running down highway 61 recalling dark deals done where a twisted tree grows & two empty roads cross in the night D.B. Cox is a blues musician/poet, originally from South Carolina. After graduating from high school in 1966, he did a four year stint with the U.S. Marines, then moved to Boston to attend the Berklee School of Music, where he eventually found the blues circuit. He loves writing for the same reason he loves playing the guitar-a way to communicate how he feels at a given time, on a given day. He now resides in Watertown, Massachusetts. His writing has been published online in Zygote In My Coffee, Remark, Underground Voices, Dubliner Quarterly and others, and in print in Aesthetica, Snow Monkey, My Favorite Bullet and Open Wide Magazine. |
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© 2007 Underground Voices |
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