Two poems - Frank Stanford

evening the priest

let three rivers flow
and a woman sing to her child

I am afraid a woman
Will burn my hair


Frank Stanford

Source: Approacheth the Ship and Wonder (Unpublished Collection, 1964)

The Last Supper - Frank Stanford

from The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You
I am afraid after reading all these so-called initiation books that some
cortege of boot lickers will enter my room while I am sleeping and suck
my eyes out with soda straws they will be older men and women much like
the amanuenses with bad breath in the principal’s office who call
up and tell on you the Unferths of the world better beware
I know Jesus would have kicked your teeth in you couldn’t pull that shit on him
he was telling his buddies one night boys I’m glad y’all decided to come on up
and eat supper with me I hadn’t got much there’s a few things I’d like to say
at this time Matthew says to Simon I sure as hell don’t know what he’s got us
here this time for I’m beginning to wonder you talked to him lately
yea I was shooting the shit with him on the mountain but I want to tell you
this Matthew don’t never come up on him when he’s alone he jumped on me
I thought he was going to kill me he was just walking around just talking
to himself waving his arms like he does he’s worse than John
Jude put his hand up to his mouth and said down the table I think Jesus is going
off his rocker get Simon to tell you what he asked me
Simon says he didn’t want to talk about politics or dreams or nothing he just said
Jude next time y’all are over in Mesopotamia why don’t you pick me up a few
bottles of that wine they make over there
sure thing Jesus I says
well now the boss is talking he is saying I asked y’all up here because frankly
I’ve been feeling a little sick lately and I want to make sure y’all know what
to do in case anything happens I know one of you is going to do me in I know
that but goddamnit y’all know those people in town are after my ass
the other night I walked down the streets in a disguise and I seen a couple
of you messing around and drinking with the soldiers what’s going to happen
if one of you gets drunk and lets it slip where I’m hiding out then I’ll
be in a fix you know if they was to find me they going to cut me y’all ever
think about that and Peter ain’t you ever going to get it straight what you’re
supposed to do give me one of those biscuits Judas and go outside and take a
look-see I got you Jesus Judas says
John leans over he says been catching any fish Peter
oh well I been getting a few of a morning they ain’t biting too good now you know
on account of this blamed weather nobody is even listening to Jesus he’s just
talking to himself like he was crazy Matthew says I believe he’s been hitting
that wine a little too hard don’t you reckon
Jesus says another thing I told all of you it’d be better if you didn’t get
involved with women
now just listen to that little two-faced bastard James the Lesser says
we all know what he’s up to shacking up with all those town girls
the other night he was dressed fit to kill and drunk as six hundred dollars
a rolling around in the mud like a hog kissing that whore’s foot why shit
I wish he’d let us in on what he really does
Thomas spoke up for once he says I know what you mean the other day Andrew
and I asked him about some scripture he said leave me alone I don’t know
nothing about that shit and then we seen him cussing out a priest over at the
temple he knew more about it than the elder did
another thing Matthew says I wish he’d start writing what he wants done down
and do it so I can read it you know as well as I do that damned Peter can’t
keep it straight he won’t get anything right
Bartholomew says don’t make no difference atoll cause Paul is going to tell
it like he wants to that’s for damned sure
all the time Jesus just mumbling to himself wine spilt all over his robe
the rest of them chattering and cussing trying to figure him out
John the Baptist about the only one Jesus can count on except for crazy John
is banging his goblet on the table he is saying now ain’t this a sight
spitting in the lord’s face at his own birthday party I’ll swan
Brother John why don’t you tell Jesus what the real problem is
the crazy one says everyone of y’all is chickenshits you are afraid to look
those elders in the eye and tell them what you think ya’ll get up on a rock
to talk and you see a soldier coming and you say anybody seen a stray mule
Jesus is saying to himself I’m going to pull those temples down if I have to
get me a rope and tie it to a pillar and a jackass and do it myself
wake up Jesus Philip says
Paul who hadn’t touched a drop gets up and gets his paper out and says
the nature of the problem Jesus is this the people don’t believe you
those fellows in the temples have got it all organized all they have to do
is send out stooges and hire a couple of rednecks who make out like they’re
crippled they have a big gathering they say the same things you say they
pull off a fake healing the redneck’s wife stands up she says LIE he ain’t lame
he’s just drunk and so all the people go home saying those christians what a
bunch of wind see Jesus they are using your material but they ain’t coming
through so that is making you an enemy of the people we just got to get
organized as is proved here today by your followers carrying on as they did
so I’m getting sold down the river by the elders and their hirelings uh
that’s right Jesus ask anybody here why I didn’t think they’d do that he says
I told you a long time ago not to keep talking with them temple people John says
you should a know’d what they was up to ain’t nobody going to understand you
why you ought to know that when we first run on to you we had second thoughts
we thought you was crazy there’s probably still some sitting down here right
this second that still thinks you are a crazy one but Jesus you should a known
we been through a lot together we go a long way back you should a listened
all they wanted was you they liable to get you yet then they won’t have no
competition they want to keep feeding the hogs the same slop
they the ones that want to get fat man you listening to me Jesus
he says ok if that’s the way they want to do things at the temple
I’m going to change my tactics I going out after these chillun more than I have
been they’ll know I’m telling the truth I still got a few things up my sleeve
left what’s that Paul says
I’m going to do a few things can’t nobody follow
we could always go back to biting the heads off fish and chickens Peter says
why don’t you let us in on it for a change Paul says we follow you around
like we were a bunch of sheep picking up your tab bailing you out of jail
coming up here all the time for supper and what do we get to eat nothing
why can’t you have a little faith in us Jesus
ok this is what we going to do he says hold on who is that walking up the steps
it’s just Judas
how does it go boy Jesus says and the other one answers just fine Jesus just fine
and John the Baptist turns around he says to the one who has just slipped in boy
didn’t I see you talking to some white folks the other day
here endeth with a chord on the guitar that’s how the men did Jesus like he was
old like he was young just like Elvis did to Big Dad Arthur I know
just like another blind singer the men come down to see with their equipment
they get his song they pay him twenty dollars and he don’t hear from them ever
again except sometimes in the mail on Christmas when one of them might send a
five dollar check there won’t nobody cash oh tell me brother how do the old men
feel who were young as purple flowers from Hawaii once when they listen to their
songs coming in over a borrowed radio tell me don’t they take up a notch in they belt
don't they tie another knot in they headband don't they wring that sweat out
have mercy Jesus deliver me from the lawyers and the teachers and the preachers
and the politicking flies can’t you hear them buzz can’t you hear them bite another
chunk out of me oh brother I am death and you are sleep I am white and you are
black brother tell me I am that which I am I am sleep and you are death we are
one person getting up and going outside naked as a blue jay rolling our bellies
at the moon oh brother tell me you love me and I’ll tell you too I want to know
how do they like it when the ones who sung shake they leg on the Television
I want to know Jesus don’t a blind man count no more some by signs others by
whispers some with a kiss and some with a gun and some with a six bit fountain
pen whoa lord help me and my brother help us get through this tookover land

NOTES: lines 3001-3199.

Frank Stanford

Man is so afraid - Frank Stanford

Man is so afraid, he look down at cock, long ago many
centuries ships land on the enemy’s beach, take down
mast in the dark, climb up cliffs in the fog, ram
enemy’s door, do bad things in castle, oh yea, man
go crazy play in blood like baby with duck in bathtub,
man think about favorite dog, got worms in heart, takes
dog to field trial, dog sniffs out man’s lies, point
at fool in frozen water, fool man, dead dog, man look
at leaf frozen in pond, man think about woman in new
cabin beside fire, walls bleeding rosin, man forget about
dog, man want son, boy strong, call boy elephant, man
cannot sleep right, have bad itch in butthole, man think
cancer maybe, man wake up beside woman, moon come
in window, man glad he has no city, city can die for all
he cares, man smells fingers, smell bad, man gets up
to wash fingers, man steps on broken glass, sits down
on commode and sucks his foot, man thinks about God,
man says to God If I eat right will You take away cancer,
God no say, man flush pot, man decides go to India,
study other God, other God take away cancer, bring back
dog, make women go crazy, man go visit little
naked man on mountain, man give him all his money,
little naked man say go back home, stand on head with
fresh egg in asshole three times a day, man does what
he says, oh yea, man think about troopships, man is so
afraid, man take chill, man get old real quick man nobody,
everything dark, man spit in papersack, man look at medicine
on table beside bed, man look at TV, Tarzan movie already over,
so sad so sad, man call doctor, say to make him young,
doctor look at secretary pulling up panties, say oh yea,
take man’s money, man get young, man decide go to
Africa, man think everything swell when he get back
home, put many heads on wall, many skins, first night
wife run off, fool man, so man read book, man like,
so man read another book, soon man read book all time,
don’t care about money, don’t care about woman, only
thing man remember is what he read, on weekends
go to old cabin, look at pine knots, think about what he
read, think about history, look down at cock,
man learn, once was another man become king, but king
had no sons, king get old, get sad, king get so afraid, look
at his cock, oh yea, one night king run everybody out of
castle, have private dinner, just with family, and favorite
dog, tell daughter to hop up on table, king takes pheasant
gravy, pours on daughter, rubs daughter’s thighs with
gravy, picks up dog, tells dog lick daughter, king tells daughter
not to be afraid, not be sad, tell daughter be strong, daughter
strong, daughter looks at mother, says watch, daughter
takes dog by the mouth, breaks jaws, king says daughter strong,
man know lot about history, man afraid, man go crazy on
street one day, man go jail, man call lawyer tell lawyer shoot two women
save my life, man give lawyer lot of money, lawyer go out
to eat, talks about man, man get out of jail, oh yea
man like imagine too, man like to clip cut back of magazine,
man like sendoff, man also like guns,
life strange,

Frank Stanford

You - Frank Stanford

Sometimes in our sleep we touch
The body of another woman
And we wake up
And we know the first nights
With summer visitors
In the three storied house of our childhood.
Whatever we remember,
The darkest hair being brushed
In front of the darkest mirror
In the darkest room.

Frank Stanford

What About This - Frank Stanford

A guy comes walking out of the garden
Playing Dark Eyes on the accordian.
We’re sitting on the porch,
Drinking and spitting, lying.
We shut our eyes, snap our fingers.
Dewhurst goes out to his truck
Like he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing
And brings back three-half-pints.
A little whirlwind occurs in the road,
Carrying dust away like a pail of water.
We’re drinking serious now, and O.Z.
Wants to break in the store for some head cheese,
But the others won’t let him.
Everybody laughs, dances.
The crossroads are all quiet
Except for the little man on the accordian.
Things are dying down, the moon spills its water.
Dewhurst says he smells rain.
O.Z. says if it rains he’ll still make a crop.
We wait there all night, looking for rain.
We haven’t been to sleep, so the blue lizards
On the side of the white porch
Lose their tails when we try to dream.
The man playing the music looks at us,
Noticing what we’re up to. He backs off,
Holding up his hands in front, smiling,
Shaking his head, but before he gets half way
Down the road that O.Z. shoots him in the belly.
All summer his accordian rotted in the ditch,
Like an armadillo turning into a house payment.

Frank Stanford

Weariness of Men - Frank Stanford

My grandmother said when she was young
The grass was so wild and high
You couldn’t see a man on horseback.

In the fields she made out
Three barns,
Dark and blown down from the weather
Like her husbands.

She remembers them in the dark,
Cursing the beasts,
And how they would leave the bed
In the morning,
The dead grass of their eyes
Stacked against her.

Frank Stanford

Wanted - Frank Stanford

Luis Buñuel

A white bull, a cassock, an antique mirror
The famous ones have passed hours in front of,
A midnight blue tuxedo, a fainting couch, a key
To a box of lewd photographs, a swastika,
Twelve bales of hay, three grave plots, a statue
Of Christ holding a heart pierced by a dagger,
A black patch, all kinds of utensils for the sick—
Including thirty-nine feet of catheter tubing,
A houseboat, a dog, a baby grand, an oar
Said to have been carved from a lovely river
And a woman’s hat by Alfred Jarry, a mattress,
A shotgun, a diving helmet, an essay on The Art
Of Taxidermy and a clitoris mounted on a ring
Like quartz, a crescent wrench, a bulldozer.

Frank Stanford

Transcendence of Janus - Frank Stanford

I am not asleep, but I see
a limb, the fingers of death, the ghost
of an anonymous painter
leaving the prints of death
on the wall; the bright feathers
of soft birds blowing
away in the forest;
the bones of fish and
the white backs of strange women;
your breathing
like the slow thunder
on the other side of some river
as you sleep beside me; old
dancing teachers weeping in their offices;
toads with bellies as quiet
as girls asleep in mansions, dreaming
of saddles and pulling the sheets
between their legs; fireflies
going to sleep on moonseed flowers
around a plantation gazebo at dawn;
a girl sweating in bed; hawks drifting
through the moon; a woman’s hair,
the flavor of death, floating
in the fog like a flag
on a ship full of ghosts,
the ghosts of soldiers
searching for the graves of their mothers; june bugs
listening to Leoncavallo;
christ weeping on Coney Island,
inevitable, like a fissure
in a faggot’s ass; a widower
with no sons, a lonesome janitor,
a worm in the sun, the dusty sockets
of poets, who have lost their eyes, their

Frank Stanford

The Wolves - Frank Stanford

At night while the dogs
were barking
Baby Gauge and I crawled under the fence
with knives
we made out like the rattlesnake melons
were men we didn’t like
the new moon ones were wolves
I would cut a belly this way
he would cut a belly that way
the flies
came around the sweet juice
it was blood to us
we tasted it we licked it off the blades
we decided not to kill the wolves
we wanted to be wolves
we stuck the knives in the ground
the moon shined on them
we turned the pilot caps inside out
so the fur would show
that way when we crawled
under the bob wire
a little piece would get caught
we wouldn’t though
we wanted to leave trails
but no scents
we tore the melons open we licked the blood off our paws
we wanted to be wolves
and in the morning all those dead men
with their hearts eat out

Frank Stanford

The Truth - Frank Stanford

Nicanor Parra

I’m not going to lie
Through my teeth to you
Like the poets from Minnesota,
The South, and the West,
And New York City.

Most of all in life
I would like to fuck a thirteen-year-old again,
And I don’t have any hesitations
About saying I’d rather be Marlon Brando
Than I would T. S. Eliot, etc.

I have more respect for Muhammad Ali
Than any other living man.
Of course I’ve tried Esquire,
But my shoes aren’t platforms
And I don’t know shit about canoes.

Although I can’t prove it,
Most poets work for the highway dept.
There are more of them than there are
Flies and engineers.
And I stink like a dead mule under an overpass.

Frank Stanford

The Snake Doctors - Frank Stanford

for Nicholas Fuhrmann
I Pig

I was in the outhouse
I heard somebody at the pump
I looked out the chink hole
It was the two fishermen
They stole fish

One man gave the other one some money
He flipped a fifty-cent piece up
I lost it in the sun
I saw the snake doctors riding each other
The other man said “You lose”
He took something else out of his pocket
It shined
They had a tow sack
I thought they were cleaning fish
I looked up
I saw the snake doctors riding each other

I took my eye away
It was dark in the outhouse
I whistled

I heard the pump again
It sounded broken
I looked out the chink hole
It wasn’t the pump
It was the pig

The guitar player cut them out
The midget helped him
“Pump me some water, midget” he said

The pig ran off

The guitar player washed off his hands
The midget washed off the nuts
He got a drink
My eye hurt

He laughed
He cleaned the blood off his knife He wiped
it on his leg
He started singing
The dog tried to get the nuts
But the midget kicked him

The guitar player picked them up
He put them in his pocket
The dog went over to the pig
He licked him

I pulled my pants up
I went outside

I got the pig
I walked over to the pump
I said “Don’t you ever lay a hand
on this pig again”
The guitar player laughed

He asked me if I wanted the nuts back
He took them out of his pocket
He spit on them
He shook them like dice
He threw them on the ground
He said “Hah”
The midget stomped on them

I had the pig under my arm
He was bleeding on my foot I said
“Midget, I got friends on that river”


II The Acolyte

The men rode by

I passed them on the road
They smelled like dead fish

The one in front had a guitar on his back
The other one had a chain saw

I was riding the hog
He weighed three-hundred pounds
I called him Holy Ghost

The midget flashed a knife
He thumbed the blade
He smiled at me
He called me “Pig Rider”

I rode over to Baby Gauge’s
I was on my way to church
I had to get the red cassock
I tied the hog to the front porch
Baby Gauge was swinging in a tire
Born In The Camp With Six Toes was sleeping in the icebox

Baby Gauge said “Be at the levee at three o’clock”
I put the robe on
I said “I almost got drowned last time”
“Going to have a mighty good time” he said
“Going to be an eclipse” Born In The Camp With Six Toes said

I rode the hog to church

I took the new shoes off
I lit the candles
I changed the book
I rung the bell

I was drinking the wine
I heard Baby Gauge yell

I ran down the aisle
I saw the men at the trough
They were beating the hog over the head with sledge hammers
It was like the clock in the German pilot’s shack

One of his eyes was hanging out
And the trough was running over with blood

They held his head under the water
He was rooting in his own blood
He pumped it out in a mist
Like a buck shot in the lung
It was black

He broke loose

I ran down the road yelling
I stepped on soda bottle caps
I ran through sardine cans
I tripped on the cassock

The hog was crazy
He ran into the church
He ran into tombstones

I said “Somebody throw me something”
Chinaman threw me a knife

I ran after the hog
He was heading for the river
I jumped on his back

I rode the hog
I hugged his neck
I stabbed him seven times
I wanted the knife to go into me
He kept running
I ran the knife across his throat
And the blood came out like a bird

We ran into a sycamore tree

When the cloud passed over the moon
Like a turkey shutting its eye
I rowed out into the slew
Not allowing myself to sing gospel music

I woke up in a boat
It was full of blood
My feet were dragging through the water
A knife was sticking in the prow
And the sun was black

It was dark
But I saw the snake doctors riding each other

I saw my new shoes
I put them on
They filled up with blood

I took the surplice off
I threw it in the river
I watched it sink
There was hog blood in my hair

I knelt in the prow with the knife in my mouth
I looked at myself in the water
I heard someone singing on the levee

I was buried in a boat
I woke up
I set it afire with the taper
I watched myself burn
I reached in the ashes and found a red knife

I held my head under the water
so I wouldn’t go crazy
It was some commotion
I rowed the boat in a circle with one oar

A hundred people were in the water
They had white robes on
Some of them had umbrellas
They jumped up and down on the bank
They rowed down the levee
They were yelling and singing
One of them saw me
I saw a horse with tassels

I put my head under the water
I thought I was dead
I hit it on a cypress knee

Two Negroes came riding through the river
They rode towards me on the moon-blind horse

One of them was drinking soda water
“Where are you going, boy” Baby Gauge said

The horse swam back to the levee
I was with them
The boat drifted away
A man said “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego”



III Hambone

They tied his hind legs together
And hung him in a tree with a log chain

I saw them
I was on Baby Gauge’s horse
I threw a knife at the midget
So they hung me up by the feet too

I saw them break his neck
I saw them pull his legs apart
like a wishbone
I wished the dead came back

The midget stood on a bucket
He reached up in the hog’s throat
And pulled the heart out

The dog was lying on the ground
With his mouth open

It took all day to butcher the hog
I got dizzy
I saw the snake doctors riding each other

They turned the bucket over
It filled up with blood

They made a fire

The guitar player beat his hand over his leg
He put some meat on the fire

They tried to make me eat it

The midget spit a bone on the ground

The other one picked it up
He put it on his finger

He went over and got his guitar
He tried to play it like a Negro
There was too much grease on his hands
He got blood on the guitar

The midget danced around the campfire
I wanted to cut his throat

The dog bayed at the moon
And the blue Andalusian rooster played with a snake
I was bleeding out my nose

The fish bandits loaded the hog on Baby Gauge’s horse
They threw blood on the fire
And filled the bucket up with guts for fish bait
When they rode off I yelled “Peckerwoods”

I dreamed I saw Holy Ghost walking around the campfire
He was a wild hog with blood on his tushes

Along about midnight I heard a boat
but no rowing
Somebody short came walking out of the woods
With a light on his head
The light went out I couldn’t see
He drew something out of his boot
He grabbed me by the hair
I saw a knife in the moonlight
“Sweet Jesus” I said

Born In The Camp With Six Toes cut me down


IV Chainsaw

The man cut his hand off at dawn
I heard him yell
I set up in bed

He ran past the window
“Don’t let the dog get it” he said

I got out of bed
I had the long handles on
It was cold
I threw some wood on the fire
I put the dime around my ankle
I put my boots on
I put a knife in the boot

I walked out to the road
The blue Andalusian rooster followed me
It was dark

I heard the chainsaw in the woods
I heard him singing all night
He was cutting firewood
He was drunk

The dog quit barking

I drew the knife out of my boot
I looked for the midget
I saw the blood and I tracked it
I saw the sun and the moon
I saw the snake doctors riding each other

The hand was in the sawdust
It was moving

The hambone was on the finger
It was morning
The dog didn’t get it
I did

There was blood on the chainsaw
I told the blue rooster
“He thought it was a guitar”

I walked around the hand seven times
I poked it with a stick
I sung to it
I picked it up like a snake
I took the hambone off the finger
I put Holy Ghost’s bone in my boot
I put the hand on a stump

I danced on the hand
I peed on it
I broke a wine bottle over it
I threw it up in the air and a hawk
hit it
The dog licked the blood out of the dust

I saw the fish bandit’s guitar
The blue rooster pecked it
I beat the hand with it
I threw the guitar in the river
The snake doctors lit on it
It floated away

I went down to the bank
I got a pole
I put a hook through the hand
I washed it off
When I touched the wound with my knife
it rolled up in a fist

Somebody came by in a boat
They held up a big fish
So I held up the hand

They jumped out of the boat
They thought I crossed them
One of them said “That wasn’t no hoodoo, was it”
It was Baby Gauge
I said “No, it was the guitar player’s hand”
They swam to the bank
I told them how I came by it
Born In The Camp With Six Toes said “It won’t
Take another fish off my lines”

I asked them “You want to shake it”
Baby Gauge said “No, I want to spit on it”
We spit on the hand

They left

I wrapped it up in newspaper like fish
I took it home

I put it under Jimmy’s pillow
and he knocked my teeth out
I put it in a cigar box with a picture
of Elvis Presley
I took it to town

I walked over to the dance hall
The guitar player was bleeding in the back of the pickup

I gave him the cigar box
He passed out

The midget pulled a knife on me
I picked up the hand
He ran off

On the way home I ran folks off the road
When the truck came by the house
The guitar player raised up in the bed
He said “Give me my hand back”

When it was dark
I tied fish line to it and hung it
in the outhouse
I sung to it
The moon shined through the chink hole
on the hand

I took it down
I threw it in a yellow jacket nest
I stomped on it

I took it to the palm reader
I said “Sister, read this”

A lot of evenings I listened for them
I knew they would come back

When a stranger got a drink at night
I thought it was the Holy Ghost
And sometimes a cloud went by like a three-legged dog
And the thunder was someone with a shotgun
Letting him have it

Now the moon was a fifty-cent piece
It was a belly I wanted
to cut open

When the flies got bad
I kept the hand in the smokehouse


V Swimming at Night

The midget ran his finger across his neck
The other one said “Give it back”

I waited in the outhouse
I had a sawed-off shotgun
The men rode off

In the afternoon they sold fish
They cleaned them at the pump
The scales dried up on their faces
They loaded the meat on stolen horses

At night they rode up shooting pistols
I slept with an ice pick under my pillow

One night they rode up drunk
The midget was sitting in the guitar player’s lap
He said “Come on out”

They tied a bale of hay to Baby Gauge’s horse
They poured coal oil on it
They set it on fire
They laughed

The horse with the moon eye pranced around them
He galloped home

I carved wild hog out of a cypress knee
I made it the handle
I made four tushes out of the hambone
I used the blade I brought out of the fire
And sealed the pig with
It was the blade I put the burning horse to sleep with
I called the knife the Holy Ghost

To make me go crazy
I took all my clothes off
And jumped down the hole in the outhouse
I grabbed the yellow jacket nest
And held it over my heart
I pumped cold water over myself
And wallowed in the mud
I walked through the snake den barefooted
I swam the river at midnight
With the hand and a blue feather in my mouth
And the Holy Ghost around my neck

And the hooks caught in my arms they caught in my legs
I cut the trot lines in two
I saw the guitar player stealing the fish

I was swimming beneath the shack
Under the sleeping midget
With the fish bandit’s hand in my mouth

I climbed through the trap door
I crawled under the bed
I cut the hooks out
I believe I was snake bit
I put the hand in the slop jar
I reached up and tickled his nose with the feather

He got out of bed
He turned the lights on
He let down his pants
He reached under the bed for the slop jar
He took the lid off
He screamed
I brought the knife across his leg
I hamstrung the midget

I swam under the water
With the hand in my mouth

I came up near the guitar player’s boat
He was running the lines

I swam to the other end of the trot line
I put the hand on a hook
I jerked the lines like a big fish

The guitar player worked his way down
He thought he had a good one

I let go of the line
He saw his left hand
He screamed
He fell out of the boat

I swam back through the river
I buried the knife in the levee

I was sleeping in the Negro’s lap
He was spitting snuff on my wounds

Born In The Camp With Six Toes cut me with a knife
Baby Gauge sucked the poison out
Oh Sweet Jesus the levees that break in my heart

Frank Stanford