REDEMPTION

slingblading
dixie ditches
under nasty
bone-white skies
guards in
shotguns & shades
look on
with blue-barrel tenderness
as fifty malfunctioning
sons-of-bitches
with nothing else
to learn about shame
count their sins
with every swipe
at unyielding underbrush
no visions
no shocking moments
of revelation
no consolation
in the situation
sometimes hurt
is just hurt—across
a two-lane blacktop stands
the “welcome baptist church”
stone statue of jesus
keeping watch
before closed
double doors
arms extended
palms toward the sky
like a buzzard
drying his wings

DB Cox can be found in the early-morning hours, bent over a Fender Strat, in roadhouses and juke joints throughout the south. He describes his playing style as “a look at life through drunken, godless eyes” To quiet his tortured soul, he writes. He has published three books of poetry. His first chapbook is entitled “Passing For Blue”, and is available from Rank Stranger Press. Two other chapbooks, “Lowdown” and “Ordinary Sorrows”, are available from Pudding House Publications. His latest full size collection called “Empty Frames” can be picked up on-line at Main Street Rag Publishing or Amazon.Com.