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