Bubber
- Bubberfor bubber miley
james miley playing plumber unclogging drains turning his trumpet into a toilet his blowing into a bordello he some low down dirty mean old mamie smith hound dog growling gut bucket blues shouts, we was a polite dance band until bubber got us drunk with the dismals, with a groove that gangsters might like, with some conjuring like king oliver, with a message that moans, groans and testifies with a wah wah wah wah east st. louis toodle-o-boogie, black and tan, black beauty, black and white keys on a black baby grand behind him blasting out hot and bothered hop heads that bloom blue bubbles and birmingham breakdowns doing the voom voom and wobbling all the way to washington [End Page 155] and if you need a creole love call the best drain man in town can stomp out your troubles or make you dance the night away with just a plunger . . .
Brian Gilmore is an attorney who lives and works in Washington, DC. Elvis Presley Is Alive and Well and Living in Harlem, his first volume of poems, was published by Third World Press (Chicago) in 1993. He has also published poems and essays in a number of anthologies and periodicals, including Soulfires, In Search of Color Everywhere, Obsidian II, and Nation.
