Villon / Leadbelly

By Yusef Komunyakaa

Two bad actors canonized by ballads

flowering into dusk, crowned with hoarfrost.

But the final blows weren't dealt in Meung-

sur-Loire or the Angola pen. "Irene,

Irene, I'll see you in my dreams."

Unmoved by the hangman's leer,

these two roughhouse bards ignored

his finger traveling down the list.

They followed every season's penniless

last will & testament. Their songs

bleed together years. A bridge,

more than a ledger of bones.

Ghosts under the skin in bedlam,

Princes of Fools, they prowled

syncopated nights of wolfbane

& gin mills of starlight

at The Golden Mortar & The Bucket

of Blood, double-daring men across

thresholds, living down the list,

strung on on immortality's rag.

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