Pulp Poem of the Week

In the cool Mississippi
breeze he swung
to and fro from the dogwood tree to see
himself completely hung.
Ah! no conjure man
or ghost can
so neatly tread
this, God’s free air,
no fetish grant the steady stare
of these dead
eyes. But, oh, around my
neck the manila snake strangled the last cry
and boxed it in my throat
and what I had to say to them, I wrote
with pencilings of pain,
in blood that leaped through every vein;
I told then what I had to say
and last I stuck my tongue
far out at them to their dismay
while I flung my unwashed feet
in the last great kick; and the last great beat
within me
fled from Mississippi.
  
     Hal Ellson
     “Gumbo Hangs High”
     1936