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In the Sweet Bye and Bye
In the sweet bye and bye,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore... Skinny Jimmy Walker was there in his peroxide-white hair reminding me of his heroic deeds atop the tallest tree in Chickasaw Gardens where the rich girls lived. And over his shoulder the littlest of the Jewboys was afraid he was going to smash their faces in. I didn't blame them. Jimmy's hands and heart were always bloody from dismembering the looking glass at the Clear Pool Lounge where girls named Alice would never let us enter the holy gates of pretty white panties and padlocked bras. We blamed our inadequacies on our fathers, mine who dipped his airplane beneath the comfortable grasses of Memorial Park Cemetery, and Jimmy's because he was an imposter vice-president of some fucking bank who wore rubbers to bed. So instead of fathers God gave us booze and blues and black men. Thank you, Jesus. So instead of fathers God gave us Bo Diddley, James Brown and Little Richard. Thank you, Jesus. So instead of fathers God gave us ghetto liquor stores and Camel cigarettes. Thank you, Jesus. In the sweet bye and bye when the saints come marching in... In the sweet bye and bye. when the saints come marching in... Thank you, Jesus. Jimmy's mother understood. She was beautiful. She always smiled at me. She always bent over so I could see her breasts. Then Jimmy joined the carnival disappearing among midgets and bumper cars and Ferris wheels and hookers and merry-go-rounds to learn the lessons of maryjane and any other shit he could get his hands on. He rode the glorious freight trains across America. He hated clean white tennis shoes. He laughed at me because I went to college. He was my Odysseus. He knew I carried around poetry in empty paper sacks. He knew I was afraid. At the age of 22 Jimmy Walker came home in a box built by the United States Army. We all cried and we cried... In the sweet bye and bye. In the sweet bye and bye. |
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Issue #30, December, 2002 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.