One day we were just lying around trying to key the sound.

Trying to sound the wound, make it bend, loop it through.

Fishbone scar let loose from the forehead,

swim upriver, what touch is to someone alone.

We brought melon and honey, cheap liquor for the task. Gold fill. Gold leaf fill.

Sought sound of a man born in the Crossroads, thirty miles

south, a four-corner out near Marksville, Louisiana.

Marksville, Louisiana, with its French signs.

Sound if you wait twelve o’clock a black cat.

Sound if tall man with red eyes appears all you see is red.

Every time you open your mouth it’s red.

What flesh is to bone.

That boy has a nice tone.

Spit easing down

a child’s toy come rain. Fish fell from the sky in Marksville, 1947.



Fish fell. We were just lying around trying to key the sound.

Eventually a bone went straight to the forehead.

Small 10-hole Hohner Marine Band harmonica then cheapo harmonica

brought to the brink on one easily overloaded, state-owned, then state-discarded,

public address amplifier.

Sound that removed our heads from our back-sides, sound

we could lay in, drape, then pour its honey onto

and glisten with, the spider web left at the dark Apollo.



Marksville population 5,537

at 2000 census, total area 4.1 square miles, of which

10.6km² is land, 0.24%, water.

Where once was the Crossroads.

Marksville, Louisiana with its French signs.

Let us break down the farm of Louis Leviage on Drupines Road.

Knock on the door of the shotgun shack beside.

Death is our greatest front man.

That and a bullet-shaped microphone.

The humble mouth organ.

Once harmonica 25 cents after Little Walter 10 dollar.

Today even jackhammer got the juke

cracking up pipeline breaking through wall into sun again.

Instrument saying to its player, thanks man, thanks Marion Walter Jacobs.



What flesh is to bone you must pass to pass through.

Sprinkle sachet powders down deep personal valleys.

Breaking through wall into sun again

Tina knew how to Turn and Run.

Carla got the ropy veins.

Knocking on the door of the shotgun shack beside.

What flesh is to bone.

Every time you open your mouth it’s red.



What he did, he took advantage of himself being himself, on himself, you know?

Sashay Little Walter.

What flesh is to bone.

High rolling, passing through.

Gold fill. Gold leaf fill. Thereby shall we have increase of the light.



Liquor golden. Knife shut. How men get. Fist pulled back and stuck into pocket.

Head from your backside. Forehead smoothed. Gold fill. Gold leaf fill.



That isn’t Death in the middle that’s a minor stream.

A tall man with red eyes appears all you see is red.

That isn’t breath on the downside that’s another minor stream.



That boy has a nice tone.

A public address amplifier thereby shall we have increase of the light.

Small 10-hole Hohner Marine band harmonica

cheapo harmonica then

Little Walter holding a black cat before a man with a white cane.

Fish fell. Four corners spread wide open. Stab wounds in the dirt.

Knocking on the door of the shotgun shack beside. Gold fill. Gold leaf fill.

Carla and Tina rose and fell

Tina still rising.



A blue peal bent so far back it’s red.

Little Walter, beasts looking solemn at you

from the other side.

Tina still rising.

Turn and Run.

Gold fill,

Gold leaf fill.

Fishbone thereby shall we see the light.

A silver pickup at the yellow end.

Gold fill,

Gold leaf fill.

Like gold into scar

a twister in the skull.



Fish scales

rising in the tub

and the river.

A beast’s molecular

snore and drone

on the other shore.

Carla rising

running with Tina.

A masterhood

that bet

you missed a note

and grooved thereby.



Now a carven turkey

once a wild hoot

a harmonica clung to

and fell from.

Carla rising running with Tina.

What he did.

Like gold into scar a twister in the skull.

Thank you, man.



Beast looking solemn at the sun shown up for supper.

Knives lifting the four corners

shook out chains molt to moebis a pierce into the blueness.

Turn and Run.

Cetripedal, centripetal.



Gold fill, gold leaf fill.

Crying and wailing with our toy harmonicas

in a space gone unbolt into

a blueness sucking in the sun

sun on the liquor golden

sun down the farm

sun on the door of the shotgun

your mouth it’s red

to bone.

to bone.

sun on the spit easing down.

pipeline through wall.

every time you open

instrument saying

thereby shall we

someone alone

One day

sun down deep

what flesh

fell from

break down

the

forehead

the

sky

every time

touch is

day

you open your mouth

pass through