Unforgetable Delta Blue Poem by Curtis Johnson

Unforgettable Delta Blue Curtis Johnson
Many musical giants sprang from small places in the region of my birth.
I heard some of them live as they played their guitar or harmonica.

Others I heard by way of radio from fancy faraway and distant places.
Their discovered talent had made them famous and taken them away.

They had lived where I live; we walked the same delta dusty roads.
Their stories like mine originated from the cotton fields of Mississippi.

Some of us drank away our misery and pain; others sang and played their pain.
The songs were called 'the blues'; that 's why I call that region Delta Blue.

It is said that fame is fleeting, and I believe it to be true in that sense.
But in another sense, it is also true, because it makes the famous flee.

Away they fled to places North, because they refused captivity by misery.
I knew them from afar, because they became bigger than their place of birth.

Their humble abodes and inhumane experiences often made them sad and blue.
Such experiences were internalized and recycled into great sounds of popular songs.

Yes, from Delta Blue I too did sprang, but I sing neither happy nor sad musical tones.
Moreover, when I hear those home grown sounds from Delta Blue, I understand them.
03112017cj PH; PS