MEMPHIS
John Horvath Jr.
Up from the nigger brown river,
through the cotton faced wide valley,
over the small smoky folded mountains,
into the patioed fringe of the country
the poet comes brawling
into the bars, the low brow sanctuaries
of the quick morning, slow noon,
forever night of his acceptance.
Unspoken “I love you, Memphis,” in the
upspoken comfort of Boston and the East:
He wraps himself in linen-garment lies
and tells the hell of his middle-class exile.
Sugar coated stories for the ladies of Los Angeles
who love him rough from the “prairie or wherever,”
raw from the bluff Blues town, river town, Memphis.
To the soft cultured, pliant fad-country people
he must lie, he that is of purer fire,
he that served long years for passing moments
in the East and West, pandering hick hog-swill
about his home away from tidal fringes.
It is merciful to let them think themselves
better, advanced, rather than hanging on
to the edges of the country and its culture.
It is like telling front trench troops
that they are the braver boys.
Children of the wide valley whore,
blast furnace, chaff-raw folk;
sons of Wichita; Chicago; Omaha;
Blues town, river town, Memphis;
we must lie, we of purer fire.
