Mona Lisa Saloy.
“Word Works.”
I’m about how words
work up a gumbo of culture,
stamped and certified African,
delivered on southern American soil.
In my word house,
we spit out articles and prepositions
like bitter chewing tobacco.
We lean on words that
paint pictures of galait
and grits and good times,
sittin’ under gallery shades,
sippin’ lemonade,
wearin’ the afternoon
like a new dress.
This, my birthright,
gives a sense of place
that gets under your skin
like a swamp leech or a good story
out for blood.
The region gives you toast
or beignets with jam.
The R & B, Blues, Jazz, and Reggae rhythms spice
Saturday-night suppers
and street parades,
when the Grand Marshall
leads the Second line
after a funeral or
any good excuse to party
where umbrellas dance.
Folks all colored
from pale and yellow
to midnight blue-black
never just stand back and watch
they gon’ say it how they see it
how they feel,
’bout everything and then some,
from roaches to do-rags,
from daddy-do right
to David Ku-Klux Duke,
to sisters wringing
the barest budget for another meal.
So, here’s a taste,
begun in a roux,
sauteed in lines like
“Trust a man as far as you can see him,
cause you know,
stiff stuff don’t have no conscience”
Sista Sarah said.
She had nine kids
and three grand kids,
didn’t look a day over 40.
Said she was preserved because
“she left the fun box in and
took the trouble box out.”
Then Hebert cut in from the curb,
and fun was all he heard.
Said he was
“the women’s pet
the sissy’s regret
and the whore’s lollipop.”
And Sista Sarah said well
“pass the bread, cause
that’s baloney for true!”
So, call this a Crescent City mambo,
of days in peopled streets,
or nights in low-lighted clubs
on boulevards,
where passers-by pale and bloom
like days-old irises or azaleas,
the places where neighborhood front porches
and side galleries stand vigil
for tall talkers
and pass-the-time rappers,
here, in my house,
a crescent city mambo in words.
Works
Saloy, Mona Lisa. Red Beans and Ricely Yours: Poems. New Odyssey Series. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Pr., 2005.
Saloy, Mona Lisa. Second Line Home: New Orleans Poems. New Odyssey Series. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Pr., 2014.
Page prepared by:
- Bruce R. Magee