SOUTHERN VISIT

For Louis
By Gary Johnston

notheast of the rising sun we go south to richmond, durham & beyond hidden hills, stone mountain, cobb county, the chattahoochee coming like a don't look back. there is no place to stumble when you can't fall down & the best consider you a gone shadow breathing southern rain. the sometimes great art that grows great pain, thousand mile want soaked in cognac, walks by the graveside of greater men driven to an edge sharp as a tongue that has swolled too much pain atlanta in the winter is still cold

no matter how far you go there you are more alive than dead more distant than close looking after houses that have never known people. among red clay, birch & pine you wear a sadness old from absence, carry a body forward to nowhere you remember. no race memory smile hidden in the way. the better half of you is gone & offers of proof are not worth the effort whatever else is left is dry as the soil you walk on, the air you breath along memorial drive, windchase lane, these hills of georgia, the long ride back.

THE DEATH OF ROMANCE
November 2 1994

By Gary Johnston

i believed in magic, cycle of stars, seasons, the universe unfolding as it should. urban bush doctor, heartsong, clarence the gap-toothed boy coming on a moment, unanswered alibies, dead noise in a room of silence. i have wandered across the bloody page of my notebook, looked for resurrection in the dark eyes of a woman yet everywhere i turned there was war, signs of war. the death of romance, a child stillborn. you can't throw down with the devil, sit with the beast & not get burned & when all you ask requires tolls at a bridge better to be an abstract thought, a clock face than flesh & bone, real & breathing. after all just cause a man is paranoid doesn't mean they're not after him. my father after eighty

years of rage, wisdom born of a pennsylvania coal mine, harlem & the south bronx told me a black man in America who is not schizophrenic is crazy & when the days come in like winter a phone does not ring & there is nothing to hold on to not even professed sanity, than you better draw battle plans in your notebook, plot the destruction of enemies. i don't mean to be vindictive. but we all get what we deserve or at least we pay for everything we get. so i will throw the bones, conjure up dust & juju, mark names in the book of the dead & remember it's a poor rat that only got one hole & the only way to get to heaven or hell is to pay the price before you get to the door.

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