Ghazals for Fat Possum Records
By Zak Mucha
They ran out of North Mississippi bluesmen grown
old with swollen ankles, bad hearts, and diabetes,
shirtless in their front yards, cigarettes dangling,
posing as if they didn’t give a damn or as
if they didn’t know any eyes were on them. Or
as if they had no say or as if maybe they
were in on the white boys’ opportunism long
after the first waves of dry recitations.
R.L. slipped from the hospital like Lazarus
calling for a wire transfer to the casino.
More white boys who couldn’t sit behind the beat
brought the first Theremin to Oxford screaming drunk.
One Rockefeller cannot feed a whole tribe.
R.L. reimagined trickster tales of late-night
Zak Mucha, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst and president of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. He spent seven years working as the supervisor of an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, providing 24/7 services to persons suffering from severe psychosis, substance use issues, and homelessness. He is the author of Emotional Abuse: A Manual for Self-Defense and Swimming to the Horizon: Crack, Psychosis, and Street-Corner Social Work as well as two collections of poetry.
