Blues and Bliss: The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke

Ballad of a Hanged Man

Ballad of a Hanged Man Geo: Their drinks to my drinks feels different. I’ll stomach a stammering teaspoon full, but Roach laps up half the half bottle. He slups glass for glass with the best. I sidled in, easy, the taxi with a hammer, harsh, in my pocket. See, as a wed man, I don’t care if I wear uglified overalls. But I ain’t gonna hear my child starve. I had the intention to ruck some money. In my own heart, I had that, to rape money, because I was fucked, in my own heart. I took scared, shaking inside of me. I knows Fredericton reporters can prove zoot-suit vines style not my viciousness. I was shaking all that evening, my mind, shaking. But my child was hungered. Have you ever gone in your life, going two days without eating, and whenever you get money, you’re gonna eat and eat regardless of all the bastards in Fredericton was bust in the head, skull jimmied open? This is what I’m sermonizing in English: homemade brew, dug up fresh, tastes like molasses. We had some. Some good. Logic does not break down these things, sir. If I hadn’t dropped the hammer, laughing, Silver would be laughing now. Laughing. Silver moon and snow dropped on the ground. 22 / Blues and Bliss Two pieces of bone driven two inches deep in his brain. What’s deeper still? The bones of the skull were bashed into the brain. Blood railed out. I was so mixed up, my mind bent crooked. Silver’s neck, face, and hand bleached cold. Inside the sedan 19-black-49 sobbing Ford. Outside, snow and ice smelling red-stained. I ain’t dressed this story up. I am enough disgraced. I swear to the truths I know. I wanted to uphold my wife and child. Hang me and I’ll not hold them again. The Poetry of George Elliott Clarke / 23 ...