Strutting in a Cold Sweat

By Rudolph Lewis

On the lower end Druid Hill where Sugar Hill was

in the 40s and 50s is lined with trees that flower

like Chinese gardens. They not oaks like they once

were. No lemon colored sweet men with dark pencil

mustaches swanker these desperate streets. They died

like old habits, slowly. Full-lipped blacks with knots

dense as African jungles now speak ringingly clear

as gunshots in damp morning air. In dim hallways

young women with golden smiles like used to be

chandeliers are pulled down and bought for scrap.

Survival is hard and grim. For young black men

Bethlehem Steel long closed its gates to building

black families. Bologna slices & salty fatback can

be purchased to season lima beans. Out of work we

sleep whiskey dreams.  Choirs are pre-recorded gospels

at Bethel AME. Folks have forgotten how to swing

with Sweet Jesus on the cross. They packed up &

moved west and north from Pennsylvania Avenue.

At New Psalmist Baptist on Old Frederick Road, a sweet

smelling man of God baptized himself bishop of miracles

and chief administrator of the Word.  His esteemed wife

is dressed as a white angel in Woman Thou Art  Loosed

Cookbook by Bishop T.D. Jakes, a local icon of success.

Under covers they all have the spiritual gift of tongues.

I’ve read Milton’s Paradise Lost. I know the Devil ain’t

a god of poverty. The Army of the Lord receives wages

& executive bonuses.  Their blazing canons go Bang! Bang!

Bang! when they get laid as law-abiding citizens. Shades

have been drawn. The globe lights up with Shock & Awe!

Pain ain’t blues when the world grows midnight dark.

 5 February 2006 / revised 3 December 2011