Home Ain't No Cakewalk

By Rudolph Lewis  

What did I do wrong

I can’t come home

I want you to tell me

You ought to have been

on that river summer 2005

when hunger & thirst drove

women & children like ugly

men—dead bodies, face down

every where I oared

The moon did look pretty

as our homes moved away

I ain’t weary, I been drinking

Homelessness they say ain’t 

no cause to be blue when

the glass is half full. The sun

will shine. The stench don’t

bother me. I could tell you

I am satisfied. I got a mojo

—moves to drive the blues

away. But the junk man’s got

my heart. Where my woman be?

After the last check, they told

me no more. I won’t be back

until they change their mind

Tell me, sweet mama—can I

count on you? I want to be home

standing—in my last dress suit.

It’s dark: let me lay down & rest.

*   *   *   *   *

Responses

That has a blues sound and rhythm like the last train leaving the station.  Makes me wanna weep. -- Miriam

"Home Ain't No Cakewalk" so sad. I always love to hear that line in blues, "Don't the moon look pretty" . . . behind the trees It's so visual. I always picture a big full moon getting real low and tree branches obscuring part of it, sky midnight and everything is perfectly still. But on that first night in New Orleans and nights after  . . . it was a horror and will always be in the minds of those who lived there (lived through it) . A moon and a lake instead of neighborhoods. -- Anita

posted 16 January 2006