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Bobby Copeland Aug 2021
Up before the birds
Have anything to say, preferring--
Except the owls--
Daylight to this protracted night
And none of them in the odd habit or need
Of recording that which might not otherwise
Be remembered, this linear
Declension of an oral pass along.
The cats are glad for an early meal,
Before returning to their torpor,
And my lover--whom I'm careful
Not to rouse--
Has better sleeping habits than
My own,
And will listen,
Once the birds are singing,
To this redacted song.
Bobby Copeland Aug 2021
That sound--that sound you hear
That makes you come alive,
That makes explosions + relief,
That blues broke down
In a  half-filled bar on Beale Street,
On an ordinary Wednesday night,
An ordinary woman
With dark curls and a small face,
Blue eyes, who walks in
Through the front door, past
Your table in a modest, patterned
Mid-length dress, pleasantly round,
Not tall and about your age
Or a little more
And you think maybe
She's come for the night shift,
Pouring drinks, serving
The occasional pizza, cheeseburger, wings
And steps instead onto the riser,
Nods to the band
And takes the microphone.


                        II

Old black guitar player Herman &
The trumpet player,
****** thin and white as flour,
Who accepts the occasional, ordinary
Hummer from your friend Jane--
Not Chet Baker but he's got
Chops--
An adequate sunburned drummer,
Double bass obscuring all but an Afro.


                         III

Smell of blue tobacco smoke,
With just a little ******
And in the dim light you reach out,
Put your hand on top of your lover's hand
As soon as you hear that sound,
Echoing Etta--Steal Away.
And then she parks the mic
Back on its stand and leaves,
And the glow of just lit
Cigarets
Is all the evidence
The evening needs.
Bobby Copeland Jul 2021
Where I'm not thinking
Right tonight could be
That place you left,
Reflecting like a looking glass--flawed,
Picked up cheap
At an antique store.
Bobby Copeland Jul 2021
On cold mornings, before school,
And before the mill started,
I could earn two dollars
By shoveling down the top
Of the sawdust pile
As steam rose around me.
A drag chain brought bits of wood
From under the circular saw
That cut railroad ties,
Two by fours and tobacco sticks.
Twenty feet high, the view
An eagle's,  I had not read
Of Sisyphus, though when I did
It came with understanding gained
From those mornings,
The smell of fresh cut oak
And the need to rearrange that dust,
So it wouldn't throw the chain
Off its sprocket.
Bobby Copeland Jul 2021
Sunday evenings,  once a month,
Instead of going back to church
We drove to my grandparents' house,
Parked in two rows beside sedans
Belonging to my uncles--
A prison guard, two factory
Workers and a farmer.

Women brought food from the kitchen,
To men who put out cigarettes
To take a plate and a soft drink,
Then rounded up the kids outside.
Should I have been more than quiet,
When uncle told a racist joke?
Bobby Copeland Jul 2021
Tonight no doubt you see through this,
You might say an attempt
Ongoing at seduction,
As popular as
A lost art
Can ever
Be.
Your flesh inspires a raft of words;
Beseeching poetry,
Phone calls and texts--
No one writes letters anymore.
Bobby Copeland Jul 2021
Where do you go,
When you're back in town?
Do you drive by
The torn down church?
The old graveyard famous
For fornication, or the old-style
Dairy Queen with the good
Milkshakes?
Downtown's too young now--
Let's put it that way--
No one there you'd know.
Try to remember
Where you left your heart,
When you see me
Looking up the road.
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