..................................................................................................................................................
The Poetry Of.
Marie Gail Stratford.....................
Blue Rag
to entertain
in syncopated rhythms
left behind
some dog-eared night
red-eyed by morning
in the weary light
of this cheap-drink hotel
grown tired
of its own existence
past the sweeping pace
of Charleston
now crouched
in a dusty corner
haunted
with the bleary affect
of a drunken ghost
forgotten by the masses
inhabiting us all
Ella at the Emporium
Baby in a black dress croons
jagged shades of blue
in the fog of a room colored
same as the song by smoke
from fifty cigarettes
sucked between thin lips
smoldering between fingers
of music-hungry guests
pale as ghosts and blinded
by her music to the hue of skin
shade of the crow
that is her right by birth
as is her voice--
strained by overuse and
secondhand tar--
molded as much by talent
as by fate
into her private emancipation.
Claudia
My baby with the white boots on
croons the blues more plaintively
than Ella or Billie ever could,
then comes to me for comfort,
nestling her head upon my chest,
humming softly with her eyes closed
as she dreams of her next bowl of milk.
