Contents
Acknowledgments
Firecrackers
Part I. Press In
Dark Corner
Telephoning
Soul-Selling Ritual
Honey Behind the Sun
Driftwood
Mawu Names Her Chief Assistant
Art in Heaven
Lord, Make Me a Sheep
Last Song for Brother Langston
Part II. The Wild Yonder Blues
From a Nationally Televised Press Conference Starring the Poetic Sheriff, Joseph Kilpatrick Conway, After a Van Gogh Painting Is Stolen from a Little Rock Exhibit and Recovered in Monroe County
All of This Only Fifty Miles from the Former Home of L. Frank Baum, Creator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Mailbox
The Palm Tree Soliloquies
Marble to Flesh, Flesh to Marble
Vanilla Home Run
The Love Song of Jephthah’s Daughter
She Dances with Tornadoes
Sex and Pentecost
Boy in the Buttonbush
Little Lotty Knox
Panjandrum
Confession
Mystery
Part III. Becoming Hot Tamale Charlie
Carlo Silvestrini, Child of Sunnyside
Carlo on the Hog Slaughter
Carlo Flunks the Seventh Grade
Carlo Finds Out Where His New Friend’s Name Came From
Carlo Cuts a Rose for Splendi Pretti
Carlo Goes to the New Catholic Churchnear Sunnyside
Carlo Learns About Betrayal When His Girlfriend Leaves Him for “Glittery Eyes”
Carlo Speaks of Hot Tamales
Carlo Silvestrini Becomes Hot Tamale Charlie
Hot Tamale Charlie Works Downtown Wilmot
Hot Tamale Charlie Speaks of Rabbit Ice
Part IV. Ghosts
Arkansas Blacks
Jook House in Burning Season
Goblin Song
A Welder’s New Year’s Eve
Tableland at Zero
Waking Up in Baghdad
Terror
A Soldier Gets Home
A Swiss Vintner in the Land of Muscadines
Black and Sticky
The Cold Tile Blues
The Magic of Song
Holy Ghost Man
The Mysterious Bar-B-Q Grill of Turkey Scratch, Arkansas
Notes