CROSSROADIN’ (REVISED)

 

scroll down for a YouTube video

 

Ah, so wanted to play
Performance-quality
Guitar
Right next door’s the swamp
Don’t have to walk far
Flooded this week
Put on rubber boots
Satellite picture guiding me
But tripped over some roots
Looking for the crossroads
Pictured on GPS
Swamps tend to change
When it storms in excess
My mind cried out “Anomaly!”
Because it wasn’t a perfect X
Still, I heard guitar playing
Saw Robert Johnson on his knees
Inconsistency
Two realms touched
Causing a liminality
Yet half-heartedly
I cried, “What the hell?
My soul to sell?
No, no way!”
The Bluesman lived from 1911 to 1938

Holy Hades, maybe the first

Of the 27 Club

Musicians dead at the age of 27:

Jimi, Jim, Janis, Kurt, Amy and more

So I looked for them in the swamp
Thinking
Get me out of here
Snake City
Don’t want a gator committee
On my way
Wish me home
In pre-dawn dark
Heard Papa Legba laugh
Closed my eyes
Willed me safe
Woke up in bed
Grabbed my guitar and played
Sounded like dead lead
But that’s ok
It’s fun
Turns the rain into sun
I’m done
Crossroadin’
I think, while I strum…

 

(c) 2018, 2025 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Robert Johnson

YouTube video Robert Johnson, Crossroads https://youtu.be/Yd60nI4sa9A