The Last Fair Deal Blues

                   By Rudolph Lewis

There are dark, cold sleepless nights

the mind rambles like sage in mist

smiling sunshine cannot burn away

This blue feeling is no blood pact

with the devil at the crossroads

that sweet magic carries only so far

It’s a homeless man black as Adam

riding an uptown bus in the rain

searching for shelter to lay his head

It’s a subway train with a woman riding

backward who nods & dreams Billie’s

tragedy, a song that never gets old

Sometimes the truth is hard as stone

merciful as a bended knee, unchanging

& plain as a blade of grass in spring

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