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Willie and Savanna Jones

                                                                         


She wore her lipstick red without regret

Heaven was a simple place where quiet was kept

Savanna slept near a set of tatty railroad tracks,

each ran parallel . . . to and fro,

as if they knew in advance witch direction they should go,

but she never heard them say

So, mislaid trains whistled by in her dreams

waking only darkness with their pointed beams

Willie’s boyish jeans would be washed by Sunday


That was when his dusty hat returned to eat dinner

She wore her lipstick red without regret

He drove countless miles to see her in a flimsy cotton sundress

Heaven was a simple place where quiet was kept,

So,

They whispered their pressing affection like warm secrets

touching toes under the table

He left his vigilant shoes at the door

Willie’s loaded walk polished the bashful floors

His reflection sparkled in her readied eyes near a set of tatty railroad tracks

Each running parallel . . . to and fro

as if they knew in advance witch direction they should go,

but she never heard them say

So,
mislaid trains whistled by in her dreams

Willie’s boyish jeans would be washed by Sunday,

for Savanna wore her lipstick red without regret
 

 

Copyright 2021 Alvin Le Blanc, III . . . Kool B . . . Wordville Publishing

01/11/2021

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For Alvin LeBlanc, a.k.a. Kool B, a veteran of poetry slams going back to 1990, the South is nothing less than “a literary haven,” with Houston in particular “primed” for poetry. “People in the South talk,” says the 54-year-old LeBlanc, who grew up in Lafayette, La., and came to Houston to study sociology at Texas Southern State University. “They see you down the street, and they want to say something. Southern people are also used to listening to orators, preachers. From all of that, poetry has an ear.” 

LeBlanc, an instructor at the Adult Reading Center, brings his poetry to the people as producer of the online show Wordville and a member of the DJ collective Rebel Crew. In performance, LeBlanc recites his poetry in a way that is fluid, yet sounds unrehearsed, as if the words were being pulled out of thin air. In a performance at the Jazz Church of Houston, with his visor wrapped around his long, braided hair, the bespectacled LeBlanc moves gracefully as he speaks, illustrating each line with slow, simple gestures, like a Tai Chi master talking jazz: A village of windblown desperados in pursuit of a gold train loaded down with precious metals, pressed into bullions that grow like sunset, Texas to California dreamin’… It was the sound of black thunder and gallop that made the canyons quake. Let’s make no mistake about it: There’s no honor among thieves and siege is how the west was won. 

Though poetry has always been a tool for political protest, LeBlanc believes the art often reveals more commonalities than differences. “It brings the races together,” says LeBlanc. “Coming from rural Louisiana, where you would get chased home if you didn’t stay on your side of the city, poetry has shown me that people can work together, that people do have the same heartbreaks and the same anger. Poetry is where you can hear the humanness in people.”

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