Leaving Knoxville.

I found a poem going thorugh my journals and papers, and remembered the man I wrote this about. This is not so much autobiographical as it is a fiction about a family of musicians.

The man this poem is most about is a Knoxville singer-songwriter. I won't name names here. I knew him for awhile and he is the real deal. A poet.

A poet.

That has so much power in it.
The ability to tell a thing and make it real enough to imagine. To tell a thing as true as possible.

He inspired me to do that and this poem is the result of his good heart and bad ways.

* * *


First Birthday

(for all the joy
you brought us)

I know this story after the fact.
In the middle of July, mama looks out
from the photograph with dark, hard eyes.
She's holding me up in her arms, the thin
strap of her sundress off of one shoulder.
Daddy stands beside us with a little smile,
his eyes glance away down the sidewalk
with a look that isn't hard to read.

That was before he'd cut his first album or had a hit.
He'd get home late Friday and leave early on Saturday,
head off somewhere with his guitar in a case and his boots
in a pale green pillowcase. Worked all week climbing poles,
running line from Fort Smith to Fayetteville.Drove a hundred
thouand miles one year, is what he said. Mama stayed home and had
five more kids before I was out of fourth grade. Sadie Rae, Melba Jean,
Rosa Lee, Opal and Inez Lane.

But in this picture I was the only child.
Mama would sometimes take us to a show,
at the Red Gate Supper Club, the county line.
Daddy up on stage, drinking beers and laughing
with the drummer. We'd all take our baths in the
afternoon. Someone would braid my hair. One by
one, we'd have to sit on the couch until time to go.
Where's my girls? he'd say, and sing us our song.

The back of my bonnet floats white as a cloud
againt the front of my aunt's grocery on 9th street.
Gladys liked to write songs and sing harmony.
We all spent our holidays together for years.
She took the picture on my first birthday.
Caught mama looking pissed-off for the camera,
the back of my head, and my daddy
with his eyes turned away.

1994/1995
Knoxville, TN