Memphis: A Response to William Blake's London
By Sean Barnes
I wonder if you would wander
near the Mississippi river
view,
to mark the proud and the
humbler,
mark the liars and mark the
true.
In the thunder of the night
heat,
in the crack of the horse's
heel,
in heavy voices, in heavy
streets,
some hear the call of the
blue Beale.
Music flows like cheap beer
to the floor.
A musician's paint, a
painter's hymn,
escape for the rich, for the
poor,
a poet's prose and writer's
rhythm.
But as the night gives way to
day,
cool air sobers the waking
dead.
They all stumble down and
away,
and off to the safety of bed.
2011
