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Thursday, July 31, 2014

My Family lived in the Sonoran Desert

This is a blues poem set in Arizona. The blues poets often “borrow lines” from other famous poets in this genre. I borrowed a verse from Robert Johnson’s famous poem “Hellhound on my Trail.”

by Susan Fox









A tarantula dueled to the death on our garage floor.
We kindly removed his carcass next day.
His scrappy adversary would have met the same fate.
But the scorpion woke up and ran away.


Gotta keep movin’
Gotta keep movin’
Hell hound on my trail*


Wolf spider hunted the same ground.
Someone came around.
Thought he was safe crawling under the car
“Back up!” I shouted. Scrunch. What a sound!

Gotta keep movin’
Gotta keep movin’
Hell hound on my tail

His ladylove had more brains.
The moon illumined her get away.
She madly scampered over the rough red clay,
chased by a madman swinging a  broom.

Gotta move
Gotta move
Hell hound sniffing my trail

Lacey red brown lady, frightened, circled my tub.
“Darling, I can’t get you out alive
without risking harm to myself.”
A whistle for the brute with the knife; scorpion joined the dead club.

Gotta move
Gotta move
Hell hound finding my trail

The boy stared into the mirror
A red brown lady on his shoulder stared back.
His sub-processors formed the response before the thought hit the main frame.
He smashed the scorpion with his bare fingers, flung it to its tomb.*
Post-Mortem: Body squashed, tail intact on opposite sides of the room.

Gotta keep movin’
Gotta keep movin’
Hell hound took my tail


An injured spider limped across the floor,
his love for living passionate and pure.
Do you realize the terror he suffers before the final blow?

He lives in a world peopled by ugly giants with deadly brooms.
Their tiniest finger is a killing machine.
Her merest whistle signals his doom.

Gotta move
Gotta move
Hell hound found my trail
Our back yard view in the Sonoran Desert
in Gold Canyon, Arizona 2002-2012


*This verse is from Robert Johnson’s famous poem “Hellhound on my Trail.”
*Yes, my 14-year-old son crushed a scorpion --that he found sitting on his shoulder -- with his bare fingers.