Passing For Blue

--- For D.N.K.

My best friend

died last year,

in a 24-hour store --

shot by some shaky kid

 

when he walked

in on a 32 dollar holdup

to buy a pack

of Marlboros.

 

He was a blues-man.

 

He knew more

about Robert Johnson

and Tampa Red

than Amiri Baraka -- or Leroi Jones.

 

He used up most of his time,

and all of his options

preaching to the blue

multitudes, jammed

 

into the cheap neon

playgrounds, along

the whore-haunted streets

of late-night Memphis;

 

where no accusing eyes

ever questioned the

heartfelt disguise, he wore

like an invisible man.

 

And on the day

his ashes were

tossed toward

the rain-polished sky,

 

there were no

sad fans weeping,

no sanctifying poetry

from Langston Hughes,

 

just a southbound

breeze to ride on,

for the white boy

passing for blue.

(This poem first appeared in The Circle, Summer 2004 - Volume 8, Issue 3)

©2005 D.D. Cox. Used here by permission.