Simon Joyner Appendix
well i went to new orleans sling-shot through the air
and i let the hot peppers burn a hole in my tongue
i went back to my birthplace and my first taste of air
so i could bury my blues in the sound of the accordion
i went looking for my lost home in the rising sun
i went to the corner where my pa painted portraits
and i looked for the woman who sold his brushes
not much had changed since all of those rites of
passage
the mimes in the quarter sold me fresh flowers from
their buckets
and under their greasy smiles i found their frowns
and under their frowns ghost of smiles
well the pagans they sprang from the woodwork and
shadows
and somebody shouted "hey, kid get out of the street"
some children threw water from a two-story window
it splashed at my ankles and then it turned into steam
and i heard somebody laughing so it turned to see but
when i
looked up that fire escape they turned their back on me
so i left fo alabama land of the red clay
where the kudzu crawls consuming all the dead and all
the living
where the water moccasins slither in the creek
and sun is the bright hammer that bruises everything
and i saw my life go by in reverse
so i followed it down to the crossroads
i watched my mother's first house burn to the ground
and that sacred old trailer was hitched and picked
clean
then i found the graveyard where the weeds split the
stones
and i felt the parents of my parents standing under my
feet
and they were holding me up you might say
then i drove parallel to a montgomery train
and i delivered myself back into the midwest
i arrived in the night while my brothers were asleep
i said the reconstruction failed again but i passed the
test
i went looking for my lost home and found none
but now i can sleep wherever i lay my body down
