Dr. sam
TO MISS GRACE KING
Down in the old French quarter,
Just out of Rampart street,
I wend my way
At close of day
Unto the quaint retreat
Where lives the Voodoo Doctor
By some esteemed a sham,
Yet I’ll declare there’s none elsewhere
So skilled as Doctor Sam
With the claws of a deviled crawfish,
The juice of the prickly prune,
And the quivering dew
From a yarb that grew
In the light of a midnight moon!
I never should have known him
But for the colored folk
That here obtain
And ne’er in vain
That wizard’s art invoke;
For when the Eye that’s Evil
Would him and his’n damn,
The negro’s grief gets quick relief
Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam.
With the caul of an alligator,
The plume of an unborn loon,
And the poison wrung
From a serpent’s tongue
By the light of a midnight moon!
In all neurotic ailments
I hear that he excels,
And he insures
Immediate cures
Of weird, uncanny spells;
The most unruly patient
Gets docile as a lamb
And is freed from ill by the potent skill
Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam;
Feathers of strangled chickens,
Moss from the dank lagoon,
And plasters wet
With spider sweat
In the light of a midnight moon!
They say when nights are grewsome
And hours are, oh! so late,
Old Sam steals out
And hunts about
For charms that hoodoos hate!
That from the moaning river
And from the haunted glen
He silently brings what eerie things
Give peace to hoodooed men:
The tongue of a piebald ‘possum,
The tooth of a senile ‘coon,
The buzzard’s breath that smells of death,
And the film that lies
On a lizard’s eyes
In the light of a midnight moon!
Related poetry:
- Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens Last night I dreamed of chickens, There were chickens everywhere, They were standing on my stomach, They were nesting in my hair, They were pecking at my pillow, They were hopping on my head, They were ruffling up their feathers As they raced about my bed. They were on the chairs and tables, They were […]...
- The Light By The Barn The light by the barn that shines all night Pales at dawn when a little breeze comes. A little breeze comes breathing the fields From their sleep and waking the slow windmill. The slow windmill sings the long day About anguish and loss to the chickens at work. The little breeze follows the slow windmill […]...
- Sonnet 66: Tired with all these, for restful death I cry Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disablèd And art made tongue-tied by authority, And […]...
- Sonnet LXVI Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And guilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And […]...
- Angina Pectoris If half my heart is here, doctor, the other half is in China With the army flowing toward the Yellow River. And, every morning, doctor, Every morning at sunrise my heart is shot in Greece. And every night, c doctor, When the prisoners are asleep and the infirmary is deserted, My heart stops at a […]...
- Full Moon and Little Frieda A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket – And you listening. A spider’s web, tense for the dew’s touch. A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror To tempt a first star to a tremor. Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with […]...
- You'll know it as you know 'tis Noon You’ll know it as you know ’tis Noon By Glory As you do the Sun By Glory As you will in Heaven Know God the Father and the Son. By intuition, Mightiest Things Assert themselves and not by terms “I’m Midnight” need the Midnight say “I’m Sunrise” Need the Majesty? Omnipotence had not a Tongue […]...
- The bouncing spider schnyder schnyder The bouncing spider Had a song Wound up inside her She’d had it taped On a silken spool This was the song She sang as a rule O little fly Come be my friend I have fly’s gold For you to spend I’ll wrap you in silks To make you pretty If you […]...
- THE QUADROON GIRL The Slaver in the broad lagoon Lay moored with idle sail; He waited for the rising moon, And for the evening gale. Under the shore his boat was tied, And all her listless crew Watched the gray alligator slide Into the still bayou. Odors of orange-flowers, and spice, Reached them from time to time, Like […]...
- The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly Once I loved a spider When I was born a fly, A velvet-footed spider With a gown of rainbow-dye. She ate my wings and gloated. She bound me with a hair. She drove me to her parlor Above her winding stair. To educate young spiders She took me all apart. My ghost came back to […]...
- A Study Light cloud pavilion light rain Dark yard day weary open Sit look green moss colour About to on person clothes come There’s light cloud, and drizzle round the pavilion, In the dark yard, I wearily open a gate. I sit and look at the colour of green moss, Ready for people’s clothing to pick up....
- Far Rockaway Night till Morning WHAT can we say of the night? The fog night, the moon night, the fog moon night last night? There swept out of the sea a song. There swept out of the sea-torn white plungers. There came on the coast wind drive In the spit of a driven spray, On the boom of foam and […]...
- "In White": Frost's Early Version Of Design A dented spider like a snow drop white On a white Heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of lifeless satin cloth – Saw ever curious eye so strange a sight? – Portent in little, assorted death and blight Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth? – The beady spider, the flower like […]...
- Modern Love I: By This He Knew She Wept By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand’s light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away […]...
- Round About Midnight Jazz radio on a midnight kick, Round about Midnight. Sitting on the bed, With a jazz type chick Round about Midnight, Piano laughter, in my ears, Round about Midnight. Stirring up laughter, dying tears, Round about Midnight. Soft blue voices, muted grins, Excited voices, Father’s sins, Round about Midnight. Come on baby, take off your […]...
- Deer Enclosure Empty hill not see person Yet hear person voice sound Return scene enter deep forest Duplicate light green moss on Hills are empty, no man is seen, Yet the sound of people’s voices is heard. Light is cast into the deep forest, And shines again on green moss....
- Sea Lullaby The old moon is tarnished With smoke of the flood, The dead leaves are varnished With colour like blood. A treacherous smiler With teeth white as milk, A savage beguiler In sheathings of silk The sea creeps to pillage, She leaps on her prey; A child of the village Was murdered today. She came up […]...
- Design I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings […]...
- The Spider “Oh, look at that great ugly spider!” said Ann; And screaming, she brush’d it away with her fan; “‘Tis a frightful black creature as ever can be, I wish that it would not come crawling on me. ” “Indeed,” said her mother, “I’ll venture to say, The poor thing will try to keep out of […]...
- Hamlet Off-Stage: Snail Peels Off For quick mental hygiene, the snail’s my white Mobile clinic, Dr. Hoodoo inside. Seriously. The snail’s my man. He’s shy, Shows speedy patience and plays safe, keeps his Hard hat on should a curve come on too fast. And paves his road in case he must return. That’s not timid. That’s prudently Roman....
- Claribel Where Claribel low-lieth The breezes pause and die, Letting the rose-leaves fall: But the solemn oak-tree sigheth, Thick-leaved, ambrosial, With an ancient melody Of an inward agony, Where Claribel low-lieth. At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone: At noon the wild bee hummeth About the moss’d headstone: At midnight the moon cometh, And […]...
- Just Before April Came THE SNOW piles in dark places are gone. Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear. The gravel of all shallow places shines. A white pigeon reels and somersaults. Frogs plutter and squdge-and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody. Crows go in fives and tens; they march their black feathers […]...
- Dawn Opposite me two Germans snore and sweat. Through sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar. We have been here for ever: even yet A dim watch tells two hours, two aeons, more. The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet With a night’s foetor. There are two hours more; Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours […]...
- Child Moon The child’s wonder At the old moon Comes back nightly. She points her finger To the far silent yellow thing Shining through the branches Filtering on the leaves a golden sand, Crying with her little tongue, “See the moon!” And in her bed fading to sleep With babblings of the moon on her little mouth....
- Beginning The moon drops one or two feathers into the fiels. The dark wheat listens. Be still. Now. There they are, the moon’s young, trying Their wings. Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone Wholly, into the air. I […]...
- Solomon And The Witch And thus declared that Arab lady: ‘Last night, where under the wild moon On grassy mattress I had laid me, Within my arms great Solomon, I suddenly cried out in a strange tongue Not his, not mine.’ Who understood Whatever has been said, sighed, sung, Howled, miau-d, barked, brayed, belled, yelled, cried, crowed, Thereon replied: […]...
- AT MIDNIGHT HOUR [Goethe relates that a remarkable situation He was in one bright moonlight night led to the composition of this Sweet song, which was “the dearer to him because he could not say Whence it came and whither it would.”] AT midnight hour I went, not willingly, A little, little boy, yon churchyard past, To Father […]...
- While Gazing on the Moon's Light While gazing on the moon’s light, A moment from her smile I turn’d, To look at orbs that, more bright, In lone and distant glory burn’d. But too far Each proud star, For me to feel its warming flame; Much more dear That mild sphere, Which near our planet smiling came; Thus, Mary, be but […]...
- Identity 1) An individual spider web Identifies a species: An order of instinct prevails through all accidents of circumstance, though possibility is High along the peripheries of Spider webs: you can go all around the fringing attachments and find Disorder ripe, Entropy rich, high levels of random, numerous occasions of accident: 2) the possible settings Of […]...
- Maveric Maveric Prowles Had Rumbling Bowles That thundered in the night. It shook the bedrooms all around And gave the folks a fright. The doctor called; He was appalled When through his stethoscope He heard the sound of a baying hound, And the acrid smell of smoke. Was there a cure? ‘The higher the fewer’ The […]...
- Ars Poetica A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit, Dumb As old medallions to the thumb, Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds. * A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs, Leaving, as […]...
- To Dan STEP me now a bridal measure, Work give way to love and leisure, Hearts be free and hearts be gay Doctor Dan doth wed to-day. Diagnosis, cease your squalling Check that scalpel’s senseless bawling, Put that ugly knife away Doctor Dan doth wed to-day. ‘Tis no time for things unsightly, Life’s the day and life […]...
- In Mind There’s in my mind a woman Of innocence, unadorned but Fair-featured and smelling of Apples or grass. She wears A utopian smock or shift, her hair Is light brown and smooth, and she Is kind and very clean without Ostentation- But she has No imagination And there’s a Turbulent moon-ridden girl Or old woman, or […]...
- Camomile Tea Outside the sky is light with stars; There’s a hollow roaring from the sea. And, alas! for the little almond flowers, The wind is shaking the almond tree. How little I thought, a year ago, In the horrible cottage upon the Lee That he and I should be sitting so And sipping a cup of […]...
- Adolescence II Although it is night, I sit in the bathroom, waiting. Sweat prickles behind my knees, the baby-breasts are alert. Venetian blinds slice up the moon; the tiles quiver in pale strips. Then they come, the three seal men with eyes as round As dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines. They bring the scent of […]...
- To Various Persons Talked To All At Once You have helped hold me together. I’d like you to be still. Stop talking or doing anything else for a minute. No. Please. For three minutes, maybe five minutes. Tell me which walk to take over the hill. Is there a bridge there? Will I want company? Tell me about the old people who built […]...
- Sorrowing Love And again the flowers are come, And the light shakes, And no tiny voice is dumb, And a bud breaks On the humble bush and the proud restless tree. Come with me! Look, this little flower is pink, And this one white. Here’s a pearl cup for your drink, Here’s for your delight A yellow […]...
- A. E. F THERE will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart, The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust. A spider will make a silver string nest in the darkest, warmest corner of it. The trigger and the range-finder, they too will be rusty. And no hands will polish the gun, and it will hang on […]...
- A Spider sewed at Night A Spider sewed at Night Without a Light Upon an Arc of White. If Ruff it was of Dame Or Shroud of Gnome Himself himself inform. Of Immortality His Strategy Was Physiognomy....
- Celebates They must not wed the Doctor said, For they were far from strong, And children of their marriage bed Might not live overlong. And yet each eve I saw them pass With rapt and eager air, As fit a seeming lad and lass As ought to pair. For twenty years I went away And scoured […]...