A field holler, a dusty page
from the Hebrew children's tome.
Changing pitch and crying
from potter's field.
Trying to speak but can't even swallow
it's own dried spit.
A slave to love and only freed
to become the blues.

No madrigal singing over us.
Only fisted grunts and moans rising
like the heat off the backs of cattle in the barn.
Part milk, part piss, part manure.
A woolly triune like the God
we can't wrap our heads around
but only warp in music
played out in spiritual toots.

Hunted and haunting and holding onto life
like the next breath will be the one to escape the body.
But the soul goes on
playing the joker for a trump card.
Goes on living like gin, jazz and the cotton mills
and a field holler birthing the blues.