Willie Smith- Two Poems

THE HYPNOTIST

I come walking up the sidewalk to see you,

to see you

I keep walking up the sidewalk,

walking up the sidewalk, the

sidewalk is walking up to you,

the sidewalk is coming up to you,

the sidewalk is falling,

you are falling at the sidewalk,

you are falling

and are now asleep.

Listen to the colors of my speech.

Inhale the nascence of sensation,

feel the ebony idols of the unconscious

incandesce. The colors of my speech

reflect acceptance, from violet yes

to scarlet yes, your acceptance

of obedience. I command you

to obey black,

obey like Atlas,

like machinery without complaint

and without oil other than

the colors of my speech. I command you to

obey black.

The subject awakes on command.

The hypnotist holds before the subject

a blackboard. The subject

picks up the chalk and writes on the slate:

I obey.

  

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

I’m smoking midnight special

on the night train,

waiting above the market

on a corner on vine

in vain for a lift

beyond the half-dream

of nicotine and wine.

Another puff, another glug,

no other goal

than to drain the pain.

Rain streaks the fog in the

cone of a streetlight whose pole  

I lean against alone, feet

on the curb, nothing

to disturb the soul, save the spice

of that unattainable plane.

Another glug, another puff

on another link to the chain,

no other goal than

to myself to complain.

Maintain the rhyme, repeat the beat,

hold an old gold inside the mind.

Stain the teeth, cure the lungs,

pickle the brain. Just so

my complaint remains

this refrain: I’m

smoking midnight special

on the night train.


First appeared in Hobo Camp.