The Black & Blue Blues

by Jim Moreno, Summer 2018

She was a short-haired, big girl blonde,
He was a long-haired carrot top rock and roll blues,
He played the Hammond B-3 on the Chitlin Circuit,
Those gigs in the Southern woods where moon shine
And fun shared the same cup, the main
Escape from broke and Jim Crow, the all Black
Crowd dancing, drinking, and falling in love with
The lead singer, his songs, the horn section, and
That big black band rhythm & blues soul sound.

He was a Southern white man, sang with a country drawl,
His one solo, a Dooby Brothers tune, made that organ sing,
A bad rock man pulling blues out of ebony and ivory.
She outweighed him a good 50 pounds, said he liked
A woman he could get a hold of in the night,
Or was it she outweighed him 50 pounds on account
Of his diet of rum, cocaine, pills, and pot.
In the sweat of summertime they’d make love and
She’d lose all the pounding of her child beat dad.
She was devoted to blues man―friends, parents, locals
Understood one had it made, one had it bad.
Scholars call it unrequited, I called it quits.

Life took me away from them, from her miserable ecstasy
When he’d leave to play his music on the long gone road,
She’d sink into the depths of the pain river, the hurt lake,
The blues sea―despondent with dread, holding her breath
Until she heard his chopper roaring in the reach between
The road and the driveway, raising her spirits, heating her blood.

They were star-crossed lovers in a love-starved world,
A son & daughter of the heart’s inequities: one has it made, the
Other has it bad—Be careful, I wanted to tell them. If you’re not
You’ll feel the burn of the black and blue blues. Love is not
A muscle of why? Love is the dreamy walk of the moon.