In a Lisboa Jazz bar around midnight on Rua da Rosa
I’m talking to Marcos the twenty something seminarian
soon to be Catholic priest who tells me about
his secret love affair with what he gleefully calls
“The Devil’s music”— and what the saints
on the walls of this small smoky club call THE BLUES:

In black and white photos over the bar mysterious
Robert Nighthawk plays his slide guitar on Maxwell St.
in Chicago back in the day, to his left Muddy Waters
eyes shut strummin’ his guitar and hummin’

Then there’s Miles caressing his charismatic horn
and on the opposite wall, in a dusty gold frame, Lady Day
face and necklace aglow in Satchmo’s shining trumpet

A million miles from home I can’t but grin and shake
my head while sincere, celibate Marcos belts out
“Crossroads Blues” and the Holy Spirit transports us
back to the Mississippi Delta where the blues was born
when black folks were crucified on the cross of king cotton

Then he pulls out his B-flat-harp and it’s Kansas City
St. Louis, Memphis and Chicago…Christ, am I really
in Bairro Alto diggin’ the blues in candle light?

In the back, in the dim light of Moorish lamps
two ladies in black strapless fado* dresses
are sippin’ and shakin’ their shapely derrières

while over their heads under glass Diz in that black
beret, stands one foot crossing the other on tip toe
his back arched, blissfully wailing, cradling that horn
close to his heart

*Portuguese blues music

Juvenile Justice is a caste system
where shackled and chained kids of color
replay the tearful trek
from plantation to prison—

America’s new slavery

Young lives languishing in cell blocks
where the light of day is lost
in a dungeon of desperation
and despair

America’s new slavery

Why are they there?
To protect society?

Do we dare defeat the evils of poverty
race privilege and war?
Destroy the prison-industrial machine?

America’s new slavery

I’m strollin’ Babylon by the Bay
in North Beach when the storm
swamps the Bay Bridge
blowing down trees on Telegraph Ave.

Treasure Island is underwater and
Alcatraz is sinking in surf
The sign on the de Young museum
reads “closed due to inclement weather”

A streetcar is stuck on Nob Hill
the strip joints and bars
are nearly empty on Broadway
and lunch is canceled in Chinatown

While the mayor is getting toasted
at Town Hall I’m groovin’ with Buddha
in the Old Shanghai where Jazz is still alive
on Steward Street in San Francisco

i

sitting on a comfy couch before the big bay window
marveling at Mama Nature’s scenic slide show—
First comes hail then sleet and finally snow falling
as the wanton wind carries me upstream
past waterfalls ferns spruce and cedar
then up Old Columbia Highway to Crown Point
where I watch snow evaporate in white smoke
rising from a pulp factory polluting the spawning
ground of the sacred salmon and sturgeon

ii

sipping tea in the Daly Café in downtown Portland
after feasting on a salad of eggplant and tuna
then browsing in Powell’s Book store
and worshipping the written word
I read The Confessions of Nat Turner
Inspired I walk out into the pouring rain
without an umbrella in the Pearl District
where the year ends at Huber’s bar & grill
celebrating my freedom with friends and champagne

tomas 08

The pale half moon
with her ghostly silver halo
hangs in star studded sky
smiling at the quiet casas
sitting on the hill
as the urban river flows
through the canyons
winding its way south
to the border
where on the other side
lights flicker
like diamonds in the dark