ChickenBones: A Journal

for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes

   

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All Night Blues is dressed in red / Some lives end in jail cells. There’s

no rescue from the hanging noose / Purple shadows slash tombstones

   

Keeping It Trim & Burning

                      —for Fannie Lou Hamer

                        By Rudolph Lewis

Philosophers dine in their drawing

rooms. Holy war & secret citizens

 

rage in Ruleville. I’ll laugh to keep

down the tears. Her chord sounds

 

Seekers, poets, & madmen rave

Bootleggers block the pain. But

 

her screams hard as train whistles

All Night Blues is dressed in red

 

Some lives end in jail cells. There’s

no rescue from the hanging noose

 

Purple shadows slash tombstones

In the gunmen’s hand peace ends

 

its debut. Fannie Lou is her gown

Her sky blue gloves shoot into dirt

 

Responses

Fannie Lou would love that one—in all her righteous indignation—at what's going on.  -- Miriam

posted 23 February 2006

 

 

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