2015 Waterfront Blues Festival T-Shirt

With thanks to Gary Houston, Voodoo Catbox, and the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival

They don’t make them like me any more.

I’m the 2015 Voodoo Catbox poster,
Crossroads. Robert Johnson and the Devil

printed over burgundy 100% ultra cotton
long sleeves. Too hot for summer.

Too hot for days when the festival puts up
sprinkler tents to ward off heatstroke.

Days when there’s no breath of breeze
on the river where the ospreys hunt.

Years when the grass was burnt dead brown
before the music even started

when the Safeway booth’s refrigeration died
and a man ran through the crowd throwing

boxes of popsicles, ice cream sandwiches,
Fudgsicles, Haagen-Dazs vanilla almond bars

to anyone who wanted them. The sky was white
with dust. The blues were red-hot brass.

I soaked up all that heat. I’m a winter-weight shirt.
I can warm you with just the color of my fabric,

the memory of drums shaking the Crossroads Stage
sweltering under shade cloth. The cross-hatched shading

on Robert’s hands, the Devil’s hellfire sneer.
I’ve got it all right here. They don’t make them.

They don’t make them like me any more.

Books Available
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Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
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