Delta Songs, Collection Two
By
Lisa Maraventano
Copyright 2026
1. The Deal at the Crossroads
Do you know
The legend of the crossroads?
Two highways, forty-nine and sixty-one
One goes to Arkansas
One goes to New Orleans
This crossroads is where
A man is said to have
Sold his soul in order
To master his instrument
He sang the blues
I came to this place
When I was forty-nine
And have lingered at
The crossroads
For three years now
I’m setting up house here
Planting a garden
I believe in the devil, but
I follow the Son
Who redeemed my soul
I’ve been to New Orleans
I’ve been to Arkansas
Both have pieces of my life
So I’ve come to the crossroads
Backtracked to this intersection
In the heart of the Delta
I found my way
I found my way without you
The one to whom I gave my heart
And I will settle in
Like I was told
In my favorite book,
A satire—
No surprise there
I will tend my own garden
Master my instrument
Stop wearing out my shoes
Looking for something
On lonely roads
Wait for the devil
Wait for the Son
Watching and waiting
See who wanders
on down the highway
See who else
Has holes in their shoes
2. To Heather
Musicians, my friends, onstage
You speak to each other
In a language without words
Mute, I listen and watch
If I could speak I would ask
How does it feel
to pull that note out of that string
to make that chord
to find that groove
to hear what is not already there
in the structure of the music then
to put the breath of your soul
into the harp
to hear it sing
to know what comes next,
The solos, the keys
to touch
to take two sticks
to Keep Time
to solve therefore
Life’s most complex riddle
to play love songs
With your ex-lover
to decide how to split the Pot
and when to end
to not get too old
to cling to life
Bend pitches
Hook
Slide
Play the licks you came up with
What applause feels like
How not to fear
The watchful eyes
And ears and cameras and critics
to keep playing to an empty room
to get the movers dancing
to load out what you loaded in
How heavy an amp feels
At the end of the night
I am learning from you
how to do that, how to speak
How not to feel shame, embarrassment
At being, to listen
To that language
To find my own voice and
Sing.
3. Chosen
I prefer to
Sit here
Bored broke and alone
Staring at my patch of bright blue sky
Through the old and dirty window
Than festoon myself with your degrees
And accolades and bend and scrape
To check all of the boxes
On the forms you create.
I would rather
Live and die alone
On my patch of dark delta earth
But free from expectation commitment
Obligation
To a system designed to entrap and control me
I retire to this place
Where no one cares what you do
There’s always a drink in your hand
And someone singing
The blues
Somewhere
Sure, I am dreaming
Of Seville in April
And Rome in May
I may get there, I may not
Let’s see if I can even
Take the dog for a walk today.
Because there is something gravitational
About this blue chair in my kitchen
And the luxury
Of having to do nothing
But stare at a patch of sky
And the stack of dishes
From last night’s revelries.
I am confident
They will get washed.
4. A fist down his throat
It was another Sunday night
Sitting outside the hostel in Clarksdale
Virgo time, September
The sun settled behind the trees
And power poles and wires
And all the ugly things
Disappeared
There was magic now
In our elixir we drink
And the blue air we breathe
And all the things we poured into us
Were poured out in laughter
Then he spit on me.
And it wasn’t the first or last time
Slim spit on someone
And his spit landed on my lips
I made eye contact with Mason
Saying help, help me survive this moment
Marc was behind the door
I didn’t want to pay five dollars
To listen to the kid from Nashville
Sing the same songs
When I had just fallen for a
Beautiful blues man from Chicago
That afternoon
But Marc kindly let me in
For free to get a drink
Sarah gave me vodka to purify my lips
Offered to blot them
With a vodka-soaked paper towel
When I told her what had happened
And that was before
the foot fetishist arrived
So we started this poem
To commemorate the moment
Marie said the first line should be
“A fist down his throat
Just to stop the spray of spittle”
But that’s more her style than mine
And her style is both bold and beautiful
Essential in our little jigsaw puzzle we inhabit
All of us pieces of the whole picture
Put together every Sunday night
At the corner, Delta and Second
Although I am okay, and
Sometimes happy,
Amused by the absurd
The question always remains unanswered
Why you let me go
When I so wanted to be held
We had all the pieces then
And could have been whole
Slim didn’t mean to spit on me
He was just speaking his Italian
With exuberance, and he rarely
Speaks to me, and it’s always
An honor when the heroes of legends
Or at least the subject of some good stories
Speak Italian at you.
5. Time to let go?
I’m thinking again
About the news of men
When they talk they tell stories
Plot-driven, action
Fear plagues them, but
Sometimes they try
Really always they try
To overcome their own cowardice
I’m thinking again
About this world of men
The news never new
In its baseness
Tiberius, Caligula
We’ve seen it all before
Employment—that word
“Ploy” fixed inside
Making a living, missing life
I’m crying again
For the love of men
Although I should know better by now
We should all know better
Here I am again
In this world of men
New love
Same old story
When I cry mercy I see
We are the mercy they need
We who are not men
The rocks, the trees, the sun
The sky, water, wind, women
We who are not men
Hold this world together
So you tell me, you who see—
Only the undeserving require mercy
6. Trauma Bond
So here we are in Clarksdale
Where we can’t drink the water
Or breathe the air full of cotton
Houses sinking in the soft earth
Mosquito truck
Mosquitoes
Mildew, mold, lead paint
All these health hazards jeopardizing us daily
And yet—
Propped up on booze and smoke
We stand together
Through this strange shifting time
The rumor is the earth
Is shifting frequencies
Upleveling, the Schumann resonance
Whiting out, off the chart
And that would make sense
The new earth is coming
Jesus is coming
And all the former things
Will pass way
The trump will sound
The dead will be raised
Imperishable
And we will be changed
Hear Handel’s Messiah
The cascading notes singing
The same tune as waterfalls everywhere
For this corruptible
Must put on incorruption
Immortality
So we trauma bond here
In Clarksdale, Mississippi
It will all soon be finished
One way or the other
It is illusion or delusion
Meanwhile the beer is cold
The gossip is good
The weather is cooperating
For another festival weekend
We will listen to some blues
And fall in love a little bit
With something, or someone
And that will be enough
Until the time to come
Changes us in the twinkling
Of an eye.
7. Shack Up Inn, October
And this is where I landed
After a long free fall
Through dark space
This chunk of Highway 49 South
Cotton within view
Celia at my side, talking on the phone
With one of her kids up in Memphis
Libby Rae is setting up to play music
And I hear the tinfoil being unpeeled
From the fried chicken
Erin, Robin, and Steber talking, spinning tales
As intricate as spiderwebs
So I will settle
Into this lawn chair
Ignore the bugs
Be happy
And do you know how
fucking precious that is?
How remarkable in these days?
Earlier this morning I greeted
Two Italian friends
And observed all the beautiful people
From around the world
Who show up, six months later
After our juke joint spring
We’ve all made it this far
Through another part of a year
And for that
We are thankful
And for this
We will endure the coming winter.
8. Lost Monarch
Lost monarch butterfly
Doesn’t care where she wanders
Just going
This way, that way
Wherever the wind blows
And guess what?
She’s fine.
Maybe she won’t make it to Mexico
Or tomorrow
But she’s here today
In Clarksdale, Mississippi
While Frenchie and Stan and Cricket play
Tulsa Time
And Andy is giving me Abitas
And the sun is still hot in October
Cindy and Ray Cashman just got here
To Hambone, the Hopeless Case Bar
On East Second Street
This Saturday afternoon
After working on their house
And there is a wedding tonight
To celebrate
All the things we go through
In this sacred place
Life and death
All the hours
All the days
That make up our journey
Through time and space
All the moments
That keep us alive
All on wings
We never see
9. I am late for my nap
The wide world
Full of terrorists
Causing chaos and trauma
Dragging us to the
Chasm abyss void
Can’t catch me
I move too slow
Become invisible
And so it goes
Vodka is clear, and so
Is my mind, no clouds
Water is clear, and so
Is intention, no mud
To get stuck in
This fine spring day
The joy is in the disappearing
Disconnection from that
Wide, wild world
Let go and be
Simple, really
And yet the examination
Most are destined to fail.
It is eighteen minutes after three
And I’m late for my nap
At five I will walk the dog, and
At half past five do yoga
At Saint George’s Episcopal Church
In Clarksdale, Mississippi
I will walk in the door
With the stained glass
Depicting how the saint slayed the dragon.
And this is how I too slay
The dragon always breathing
Fire down our necks
9. Oh shit they found us
Oh shit they found us
The youngsters
My land of lotus eaters
And nineteen twenties Paris
I looked for my whole life
That’s okay I guess
I was getting tired
Of hearing about geriatric maladies
And they’re not that young
Anymore, the kids
Millennials and Z
Finding their way
Making their way
In this wild world
Trying something new
Lo-fi, slow living
Soft girls and boys
Just trying
Trying to believe
In something besides the program,
system, matrix
Lies
Come sing to me
Come drink with us
Sit on these old couches
Be, be real
Be here, and
Enjoy the honeyed flowers
10. And then this happened…
Going up the country, Be sang
Saturday afternoon at Hambone
Football on the TV, Ole Miss and Tulane
The sun was shining
Hot in December, Delta day
Longest night—solstice tomorrow
And we can’t wait, we can’t wait
These long nights have given us
Some good times
We don’t remember clearly
Just that we laughed and danced and sang
But the days are coming
Glory and peace
All this will fade away
The shadows and shame
Sorrow and pain
Madness and misery
All that shit will be gone
Now Be is talking about
Going back to England
To get his favorite sweater
And I think that is poetry
And worth all the money
So then this happens
I meet a writer and traveler
Who is turned around
Pointing the wrong way to New Orleans
We all lose direction every now and then
But it doesn’t matter
It doesn’t matter one bit
We get turned around
But we will find our way
Whatever road we follow
All lead back here, not Rome
Or even New Orleans
But the crossroads
The place where souls are sold
And bought back
Like a pawn shop
Of cosmic redemption