Whiskey Hymn

for The Beloved, a night at Nedjima Bar (Ankara, Turkey)

… hypnosis shattered by atomic jiggling, salivation of song on your brow,
channeled chaos of body, spastic sound, tantrum of dark delight unbuttoned
and flung over the up-ended chariot of the moon,
vibration – stuttering – thunder of slap-happy bass thumping
the roots of “sweet home chicago”,
you and I beard-to-beard, the
pomegranate purple of your breath singeing my whiskers with
notes insanely bent in the blush of your voodoo blood
and throbbing with “go, johnny, go”,
johnny be bad in prickly heat needling a conflagration consuming my pores,
revival of beat-howling preacher on knees of confession in harmonica valley,
drumsticks masturbating the crazy, crazed hymen of rhythm ravishing
sin and redemption in our eyes testing the high-wire between us, fluttering,
fanning the flame, tongue-flailing the invocation:
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, do you have your dancing shoes,
are you ready for some blues flames, some rock ‘n roll rantin’,
Do you like dogs?
You see, the boys in the band are going to let the dogs out,
all the dogs, all the way out and it’s going to get scorching hot in here because
hallelujah, amen and great balls of fire!”
here is your raving medicine-man
screaming joy through the microphone,
alley-catwallering yowl uprooting our chakras
along the silken storm of strings
strutting, spitting, rattling snake-eyes of resonant doom along “route sixty-six” curving
around our shoulders in the “t-bone shuffle” of your right shoe, my left one,
black, red, “blue suede shoes” and “well, it’s one for the money, two for the show”
neural earthquake, volcanic sermon shakin’, blessin’ and cursin’
down on “mustang sally”
“uh-huh, uh-huh
guess you better slow your Mustang down ’cause you been runnin’ all over town”
lawd, “guess I have to put your flat feet on the groun’,”
uh-huh, uh-huh
“mustang sally” docidoing with “caledonia” mocking yo’ momma, teasing yo’ daddy
and tell ‘em I’m comin’ ’cause your name’s caledonia dripping with “sweet alabama”,
sulphuric scripture, reprobate weeping sugar, third eye of beer and limbo games under my scarf
shouting, laughing, you at one end, me tracing the vale of “sad, so, sad”
’cause “I got a woman way over town”
got a, got a woman way over, way over town,
so promise me to love her first and me second ’cause “I’m the hoochie-coochie man”,
not way over there, but here because we have to get our feet right off the ground
along the path of the soaring, skin-disdaining
serpent probing our souls believin’ our believin’ eyes in askin’,
do you be “secret agent man?”
because they’ve taken your number and given me your name I
raise in exultation of bone-bred pain screaming for a strangling
of questions “in the shadow of the city” risen from scorched, grinning alleys
strewn with fragile hope-seeds born in the spittle of fertility, ancient
moments still watching over the sacred egg from which we
came – and shriven of barrenness I throw back my head to yell,
“you ain’t nothin’ but a houn’ dawg”
nothin’, nothin’ but a
houn’ dawg, houn’ dawg
runnin’ tongue-led along my trail joined
to your redolent thread, us sweetly inflamed with “bad, bad whiskey – and we’ve lost our home”,
bad, bad, bad, bad whiskey, highway of liquid-burning sin and yelping salvation
from heaven and hell to the beyond of the subway station confessed with “I love you”,
and the only answer I need is redemption of the night
steeped in the beautiful, bad bad whiskey
of your eyes…
… and the whispering hymn of the wind…