Connie Johnson

On This Blues Highway 

As my rock of jubilation you make all things clear: 

the silver and the agate, all pathways of understanding. 

Stars of awakening!

I’m a feral girl amongst 

the tumbleweeds; My reflexes 

are sharp and I rarely stumble.

I remember when all of my journeys took place underground. 

I remember bullet holes in the walls of a seedy, Southern motel. 

I remember the silver and agate rings that denoted 

me as your chosen one. 

A struck match sheds only a tiny bit of light and I’m going to need 

a little splash of whatever it is you’re drinking.  It’s 5AM and this 

is such a lonely stretch of  highway, O soul husband!  

My rock of jubilation

My path of all understanding

This inborn dread of endless travel has left me 

feeling stranded.  And if it wasn’t for the sassy swoon 

of Blue Lu Barker on “Don’t You Make Me High,” 

I never, ever would have made it home.   

Nightlife: Haiku

You’re a P.M. femme

Hooked on the nightlife of jazz

The stars surround you

Inexplicable

The way you can improvise

Art Tatum’s Moonglow

Hipster jazz rules here

All of our references

So impeccable

A nightful of questions

Ella tries her hand at one:

How High the Moon?

Smoky contralto

Shirley Horn heats up the room

Embers and Ashes

A kiss from Nellie

Nice Work if You Can Get It

Thelonious smiles

Paging King Pleasure!

Ruling us with vocalese

Aristocracy 

It’s London by Night

Sultry vixen at the mic

Julie is her name

Take us traveling

To a Night in Tunisia

I’ve got my passport!

Ornithology

On a night of bebop bliss!

Bird is taking flight 

He’s late coming home

And lipstick stains his collar

Don’t Explain, you say

Blasted Smithereens 

In the one hundred miles 

Of a coerced confession, I sit and 

Consider your deserted streets. Not a 

Witness to be found, old as dirt and options 

Slim; newspapers crunched with age gather 

At your feet. 

Time has brought us to the blasted

Smithereens of our dreams.  You are

The ten dollar mojo bag that I found

 

In Kentucky; I’m every juke 

House broad you met in 

New Orleans. 

Hold onto redemption as you

Disembark from the Greyhound that 

Brought you here: “You hold no sway 

with me.....we’re beyond all that now”

I’m an Irma Thomas radio dedication

And you’re the boozy pub crawl to all

Bad intentions!

I ponder your gestures, exaggerated;  

You ponder the swivel of my hips 

You are the arc of my story, though

My version differs from yours; 

I am the lie of omission 

On all of your lonely

And star-lit 

Avenues.