It's The Blues
by Linda Lerner
For Tony Moffeit
It's that “spirit language” you hear riding a train whistle
Bourbon Street horns blowing the dead out of St. Louis
cemetery into your thoughts
it's driving on New Mexico’s red dust back roads
coyotes in the sagebrush, coyotes howling
in your head, as your car speeds your hand across the page
to New York City sending your blues my way
a hot chili pepper sun sends you ghostly visions: a dead father,
woman still waiting for you in a roadhouse cafe
you keep looking past at me you can't see
on a crowded subway car, nothing so exotic here as
a rattlesnake woman dancing for whatever I have
it’s the same homeless woman by the steps
asking, any change today, anything at all
and there's that coyote won't let you be
that trickster: he’s everywhere you look; I saw him today on the news
wearing a suit trying to sell me his opinions, posing as my landlord
saw him behind a desk in the bank, a doctor’s office, an insurance office
Indians aren't drumming for rain or the heat to let up here
we pray for the ac to keep working, something
to quench our thirst, end the drought in our lives
to make it to our station without being robbed
who've already been robbed of everything
it's that moan of lonesome you hear
crossing state lines coming my way….
by Linda Lerner
For Tony Moffeit
It's that “spirit language” you hear riding a train whistle
Bourbon Street horns blowing the dead out of St. Louis
cemetery into your thoughts
it's driving on New Mexico’s red dust back roads
coyotes in the sagebrush, coyotes howling
in your head, as your car speeds your hand across the page
to New York City sending your blues my way
a hot chili pepper sun sends you ghostly visions: a dead father,
woman still waiting for you in a roadhouse cafe
you keep looking past at me you can't see
on a crowded subway car, nothing so exotic here as
a rattlesnake woman dancing for whatever I have
it’s the same homeless woman by the steps
asking, any change today, anything at all
and there's that coyote won't let you be
that trickster: he’s everywhere you look; I saw him today on the news
wearing a suit trying to sell me his opinions, posing as my landlord
saw him behind a desk in the bank, a doctor’s office, an insurance office
Indians aren't drumming for rain or the heat to let up here
we pray for the ac to keep working, something
to quench our thirst, end the drought in our lives
to make it to our station without being robbed
who've already been robbed of everything
it's that moan of lonesome you hear
crossing state lines coming my way….
