got to pay your dues
if you want to sing the blues
–Ringo Starr
I’m melancholy enough to sing the blues.
There’s surely no shortage of sadness
to birth despondent, lyrical quatrains;
my voice just a coke & crackers away
from that gravelly, soulful sound
that makes an authentic virtuoso.
But then there’s my name –
with no notable ailment or physical loss
to grant entry to that Hall of Misery:
Blind Lemon Jefferson, Peg Leg Howell,
Cripple Clarence Lofton, Blind Willie Johnson,
James ‘Stump’ Johnson, Leukemia Louis Brown
Let’s be perfectly honest:
Stubbed-Toe Charlie doesn’t cut it,
and Runny Nose Ron isn’t worthy
to strum of endless pain and woe,
to garner empathy from the folks
who’d pick Chess Records from the stacks,
their singer in midnight shades,
who knows of poverty, oppression, infirmity;
that I in my tripping-over-the-cat
can never comprehend.
Andreas Gripp
RF Image
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