Lighting Up The Joint (Original 12 02 2009) Poem by Lee B. Mack

Lighting up the joint
From Story Town to Vegas
Stir in salty meaning
Season with a pinch of debris
Mama’s New Orleans
Kitchen opens down in the ninth
Powder the dry and juice the fruit
Nothing like cosmetic clipped hip
Chains on zoot suits down to the floor
A smile full of ecstasy a cadenza
To the soul
Mouth open river wide
A Mississippi kiss -tongue
In the gulf -head bandage
Tucked -the ice white gauze
melting from deep winter freeze
High peak tops lift their dress
To show Dakota Hills -St. Louis sides
against the French and they move to
New Orleans -The Mississippi
Elbows to make room
The red clay won’t dye the River Red
For so very long
The purple ink tears of rain -fall to turn
The Mid-West blue but things will roll
On down river to basin and bayou
The old and New Orleans
Lighting up the joint.


Lee Mack copyright 2009. ISBN # 0615318347. Do not reproduce without permission.