The Blues Machine Has Stopped
In memory of Cora Walton “Koko” Taylor, 1928-2009
Between numbers
Willie Dixon
used to explain
what constitutes
the blues
thus creating
the College of Pentatonic Engineers (COPE)
and standing out
among a standout faculty
Koko Taylor
demonstrated
that a woman singing
the blues
could indeed
move the Earth.
Her exams
were neither
written nor voiced
but danced
and if you could dance
that was singing
the blues you were a bluesman
or blueswoman and this blues,
this testimony,
was a bridge between us
and by shaking the Earth
all together,
stone and earth and clay
might yield before
that kingdom
implicit in the language
of the blues,
a lunar,
reflective tongue.
We are time and tide
together Our ships groan
like great oaks
which slough off
stout limbs
as they stretch
yet we are
inexorable Coil hawks
stifle hungry cries
across quilted hills Antares in occultation,
the silent code
exchanged
pinpoint to pinpoint
in arabesque meadows
of silken tips
and braided ends
lies bereft of secrets,
whispering,
When we say the blues
we ain’t talkin’ no hydrangeas There are some finer points,
however Say you meet
the Devil All I can say is you better smile
and act like a lady
Hah huh huh And if you meet a lady
things gonna get a little complicated
and this is why we sing the blues.
And though the sky itself
heaves shrunken,
the ends of bare wires
sputter and pop
and the howl templars
of hoodoo
are stifled
and the wing-ding
wang dang doodle
that spilled night into
so many long days
has spun to an end,
that span,
a transposition
of sidereal keys,
not quite amphibious
but like some
blue terrapin
across time and tide,
an ancient passage
such as a poem,
awaits
discovery.
