The reMemory of an Old Jazz Funeral

Paul Bearers

The Mississippi River is greater than the River Styx. At least at Styx the spirits can chose a side and the water doesn’t carry ghosts on its surface. Ghosts of slave ships. Ghosts of pirates. Ghosts of a sad longing to escape and drown in the city of New Orleans.

She couldn’t sleep in the hotel that night, but kept her eyes closed so she couldn’t see whatever might creep up and reach its fingers into her ear, injecting her brain with an ancient pain she could never understand.
That feeling was back from before.
One that pushed her stomach into her hear and wrung them until she almost choked up words that turned into bile – into vomit – into tiny hairs that lined her throat.
A perpetual itch that sat in her tubes as a curse.
One eye opened and she saw an arm. Turning onto the other side she saw a leg.
Limbs.
They cluttered her room.
Dismembered but still functioning.
Hands and toes and halves of faces and noses and knees and shoulders and backs and scars.
Scars.
Scars.
Scars.
Eyes shut.
Deep breath.
Scratch.
She heard a scratching on the door that pulled at the itch in her throat.
Scratch.
Eyes open – face.
Eyes into her eyes.
She wept for the ghost that couldn’t cry.
She wept herself to sleep.

She told the other girl the next morning – the one who cried for the land.
With the itch in her throat she asked – why do you like it here so much?
The girl who cried dripped stories of her first time and the blanket of sadness that sat brooding on her shoulders when she first got there.
The film covered her and oozed behind her as she walked the streets.
It filled her footprints and dragged on her shadows trying to suck her in – into this inexplicable sadness – into the indefinable itch.
So she cried.
She looked down and saw that the sludge moved.
There was a dent in the ground and when she looked in it she saw blood and scars and sorrow and a glimmer of relief.
The place was in pain.
She told her that the place was old and that it had collected sorrow. Imprinted by bare soles that had been hollowed of hope.
So she cried for them.
She told her that she didn’t have to – but for her it was the salve for her itch and that she would always sit as the one who cried for the land.


Hymnal

Yea these old bones shall live!
Shackle
Water
Slave
Vomit
Blood
Slave
Yea these old bones shall live!
Shackle
March
Slave
Block
Sold
Slave
Yea these old bones shall live!
Love
Breeding
Slave
Concubine
Tearing
Slave
Yea these old bones shall live!
Noose
Guns
Slave
Running
Slave
Yea these old bones shall live!
Guns
War
Slave
Slave
Slave
Re-enslaved
Yea these old bones shall live!
Boom
Water
Tears
Rust
Tears
Re-enslaved
Yea these old bones shall live!
Thirst
Fountain
Water
Parched
Tears
Re-enslaved
Yea these old bones shall live!
(heart)Beat
String
Breath
(heart)Beat
Tap
Tap
Yea these old bones shall live!
Water
Water
Water
Boom
Water
Water
Yea these old bones shall live!
Dark
Water
Tears
Water
Drown
Re-enslaved
Yea these old bones shall live!
Shackle
Ghost
Scars
Ghost
Block
Ghost
Yea these old bones shall live!
Guns
Ghost
Noose
Ghost
Re-enslaved
Ghost
Yea these old bones shall live!
Thirst
Ghost
Blues
Ghost
(heart)Beat
Ghost
Yea these old bones shall live!
Water
Ghost
Tears
Ghost
Slave
Ghost
Yea these old bones shall live!
X
X
X
X
Ghost
Re-enslaved
Yea these old bones shall live!
Ghost
Restoration
Can these bones live?
O ye dry bones hear the word
Of the Lord!
Can these bones live?
Yea these old bones shall live!


Remembering

She sat in the hotel room alone again watching the river down below.
Itch. Itch. Itch. Scratch. Itch.
The scars returned – pulling along the limbs that housed them.
Itch. Itch. Itch. Scratch. Itch.
This time there were eyes too, that unassumingly searched for hers to ask her if she believed in God. When she saw them they vanished to go seek out God for themselves. There was water outside. Lots and lots of water that soon made he feel like she swaying back and forth – buoyant in this thick sadness.
Itch. Itch. Itch. Scratch. Cough.
The rain on her window reminded her of an old blues song – then of her parched throat. Maybe you had to have a parched heart to sing the blues. Or maybe the city was parched so the rain gave it enough water to survive – or to drown.
Itch. Itch. Itch. Scratch. Vomit.
All the eyes and noses and fingers pointed at her upheaval that created a stench that saturated the floor – slowly growing to thinly coat the room. Joined by smells of stale urine and feces – not of her own but of something old and tired. She wished the waves that cascaded along her window would wash them away.
Itch. Itch. Itch. Scratch. Cry.
She is lonely even though she is not alone, searching in the darkness among these vile smells for something familiar. For familiar scars or limbs. Her coated eyes followed the sounds of waves until she stopped at a dismembered shackled ankle connected to chains.
Itch. Itch. Itch. Scratch. Wail.
Slaves.
Slaves.
Slaves.
The limbs reassembled themselves into bodies - into stories as the eyes still worked to meet hers to beg for a memory.
Slaves. Slaves. Slaves. Itch. Slaves
They watched her as her stomach clenched her heart and she sunk into submission and into a puddle of her own sweat and tears –as if there weren’t enough liquids in the ghost of the ship bringing her to defeat.
Slaves. Slaves. Slaves. Slaves. Slaves.


Eulogy

Even the houses have ghosts
Concrete steps leading to the memory of a door
Still good for sitting on to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes
Or for holding your head on your hands and violently shivering
Thinking of the three nights spent on the roof
Three nights in complete, absolute, unforgiving
Darkness
Covered in the currents of the mighty Mississippi
The same river that imported bodies
That at one point were allowed to have souls
And auctioned their pounds of flesh
At Congo Square
This water took your children too
And shackled you to the shingles of your roof
Yes Master
Now the ghost of the house sits stagnant in the thick air
It too is still remembering those three long nights
It sang too, that night
They sang old hymnals that traveled in the air
Negro spirituals
Just to let you know that you are not alone
Even the dirt sang that night
Reliving the old tradition of the Freedom Train
Except this was another type of slavery
Still wallowing in the same sadness
The old arthritic sadness that the city inherited
And now this is your stump of stairs
Amputated from its purpose and wishing for phantom pains
So it can remember
As it now sits as a headstone
For the life you once had
It makes you wonder if the waters will ever stop rising
Or if you’ll ever stop dreaming of the wave that swept your daughter
From the clench of your arms
But the call of the ancestors was too great
And the same water that brought her family here
Now took her back
And you’re still stuck here on this stoop
Keeping company with ghosts
Writing your eulogy on the headstone with tears


Reparations

I don’t know if I can ever be ready for this place
I am unsure if it will ever want me
Or if it only wishes that I clench the arms of others
As I walk through the streets and alleys
And my only explanation is
Something very bad happened here – right here
Is that the reparation this city begs of me?

I don’t know if I can ever be strong for this place
The memory of pain burdens my shoulders
And after a day of walking around
I notice a slight rope burn around my neck
And a soreness around my wrists and ankles
I feel the likeness of scars on my back
Is this the stigmata of the truly sacrificed?

I don’t know if I can ever believe in this place
Despite the church bells and priests
I know that it was not built on faith
But on a longing to shake fate free from God
And construct it’s own destiny
Putting original sin to shame
Is this the piety required for the canon?

I don’t know if I can ever mourn for this place
I know that it lingers in an open grave
Like the mausoleums that were yawning after the storm
And the bodies inside could peek out at the aftermath
Before they had to be mourned and rested once again
Pushing the number of times you can grieve
Is this the lamentation the land haunts for?

I don’t know if I can ever love this place
Even though I know that it will keep me
It has locked my tears and my visions
And has given me gris-gris
That will always tug at my pain
When the city needs me to cry
Is this the type of remembering that it needs?