Post by goldenmyst on Apr 28, 2023 14:38:17 GMT -6
Grandpa Blues for Grandma & Me
Deserted gas station
In pitch black cloak
Of an African American gentleman
Ambling down the street
Our guardian seraph
On this blue avenue
Where parishioners of the church congregate
And a New Jerusalem waits
The man ushers us down the aisle
What is your name I ask?
“Richard, too many people know me
Where I died in Paris
But here hardly anyone knows me.
I prefer the anonymity of my hometown.”
And the memory of a lonely sign
By the bluffs that honors the Native Son
Of literary Natchez haunts me
As I blink and he is gone.
Here the Yuletide Theater of the Soul
Is a greybeard guiding his flock
Of children
In the old ways
Of their ancestors
We sit in rapt silence
Like doves in a blackbird forest
The blues music is soul deep
Like the mud of Ole Man River
Grandpa dredged during the depression
For the Corps of engineers
A young man in his suit of dreams
Lost in a confederacy of fools
Only to awaken in the Hood
In his good luck eighties
When the closing act of this play
Finds an old friend
From the tire plant where they toiled
Shoulder to shoulder
After civil rights gifted Granddad
This brother
They hold hands like apostles
From a church that knows no color
Colorblind in a moment
Of brotherly love
Invitation to sip iced tea
On man’s country porch
Grandfather grateful
For this archangel Gabriel
Who will meet him
On the red dirt road
To the heavenly bistro
Where Satchmo blows an angel trumpet
For newcomers on the block of love
Deserted gas station
In pitch black cloak
Of an African American gentleman
Ambling down the street
Our guardian seraph
On this blue avenue
Where parishioners of the church congregate
And a New Jerusalem waits
The man ushers us down the aisle
What is your name I ask?
“Richard, too many people know me
Where I died in Paris
But here hardly anyone knows me.
I prefer the anonymity of my hometown.”
And the memory of a lonely sign
By the bluffs that honors the Native Son
Of literary Natchez haunts me
As I blink and he is gone.
Here the Yuletide Theater of the Soul
Is a greybeard guiding his flock
Of children
In the old ways
Of their ancestors
We sit in rapt silence
Like doves in a blackbird forest
The blues music is soul deep
Like the mud of Ole Man River
Grandpa dredged during the depression
For the Corps of engineers
A young man in his suit of dreams
Lost in a confederacy of fools
Only to awaken in the Hood
In his good luck eighties
When the closing act of this play
Finds an old friend
From the tire plant where they toiled
Shoulder to shoulder
After civil rights gifted Granddad
This brother
They hold hands like apostles
From a church that knows no color
Colorblind in a moment
Of brotherly love
Invitation to sip iced tea
On man’s country porch
Grandfather grateful
For this archangel Gabriel
Who will meet him
On the red dirt road
To the heavenly bistro
Where Satchmo blows an angel trumpet
For newcomers on the block of love
This is fantastic writing. As always, I can literally hear the "voice" in this and feel like I am literally there because YOU as I have said so many times are remarkable at taking us into the write with the imagery you bring to the "reader's eye" 
