Blues for X
Blues for X
Original Text
Whylah Falls (Vancouver: Polestar Book Publishers, 1990): 62.
1Pretty boy, towel your tears,
2And robe yourself in black.
3Pretty boy, dry your tears,
4You know I'm comin' back.
5I'm your lavish lover
6And I'm slavish in the sack.
7Call me Sweet Potato,
8Sweet Pea, or Sweety Pie,
9There's sugar on my lips
10And honey in my thighs.
12But I stew pigtails in rye.
13My bones are guitar strings
14And blues the chords you strum.
15My bones are slender flutes
16And blues the bars you hum.
17You wanna stay my man,
18Serve me whisky when I come.
Notes
11] Josephine Baker: African American dancer-singer (1906-75), catapulted to fame in Paris in a musical, La Revue Nègre, in the 1920s. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
Rhyme
Form
Special Copyright
<b>This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of George Elliott Clarke or the Polestar Book permissions department.</b>