Reginald Lockett

Do-Wop Dreams and Cadillac Wishes

Wesley and the Smith brothers
straightened and processed their hair
into waves and huge pompadours,
styled in the latest shark skin suits
and Stacey Adams or Florsheims
to get that Jackie Wilson,
or hip Temptations look they swore
would drive the ladies wild.
They skated sideways,
like James Brown across stage,
outside on the schoolyard
or in the hall between classes,
winking at high school beauties
who smiled in admiration,
or stuck their noses in the air
in disgust of this ghetto flare.
They sang in imitation
of Brown, Jackie, and David Ruffin,
down on bended knees
near the basketball courts,
too clean to suit up for gym.
Didn't want one hair out of place
on them processes and marcels
to cramp their styles and ruin
their reps when they stepped
to the neighborhood cuties.
Wesley and the Smith brothers
never saw their names in neon lights.
Their doo-wop dreams
and Cadillac wishes faded
into the real world of work,
marriage, debt, taxes, and death.

A Ghost Story

for Jerry Thompson

He saw ghosts who walked
out of basement wall panels
in that West Oakland Victorian
as he removed dusty, yellowed,
frayed 1920s editions of Crisis,
Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier,
and Amsterdam News stacked
on weathered shelves.
Spirits of a dignified, portly preacher,
his wife, and family appeared
as he sorted through these chronicles
of events and ideas of times past.
Late one Saturday afternoon,
he peered into the vast backyard.
Apparitions of men and women
sat at tables, lounged on the grass,
and dined on ribs and chicken,
fresh from a smoldering grill,
and potato salad, peach cobbler,
coconut cake, and watermelon
awaiting hardy palettes.
Seven or eight others,
ensconced in a far corner, sipped
from pints of gin, whiskey, and rye,
rolled dice, and dealt cards.
An amorous young couple
slipped away clandestinely.
Frightened, he fled that beautiful home
without a clue about who the good reverend
and his family was, and what they wanted
to tell him to share with the world.

Jazzing on Thursdays
How he discovered that hotel
tucked away in West Oakland
no one can rightfully say.
Not much to look at
from the outside, but still standing
on a lone block of buildings
that once housed rib
and chicken shacks, small bars,
juke joints that served workers
fresh up from the South
when war industry boomed,
and Seventh Street and Fillmore
never slept.
There, in an elegant suite
of Moorish design, top floor right,
he and she would meet
on Thursdays, sip champagne,
nibble on the moment they lived in,
yesterdays and tomorrows a waste
of words and common sense.
The reeds, brass, piano keys
of Prez, Bird, Miles, Monk,
lucid cadences in Billie's, Ella's,
Sarah's, Dinah's voices
danced, laughed, loved
with them in that beautiful room
at that obscure little hotel
with the easy to miss vacancy sign,
across the street from the deserted,
neglected Southern Pacific train depot.
Their piece of heaven
on Thursdays in West Oakland .

Photograph of a Bar Scene: Gerald Cyrus, 1995

Nick and Roy, cleaner than the board of health.
Nick sporting that full-length brown leather
draped over the green wool suit,
beige button-down shirt, yellow-striped tie,
Roy sharp in that fedora, cocoa sports coat,
shirt, tie, camel hair topcoat.
Old school brothers--aging lions
on the prowl--bar hopping in Harlem .
Who says you can't still have a good time
after you're past fifty?
Young cubs then, in and out of clubs,
making all the sets, digging the music,
savoring good liquor, chasing women,
still beautiful even in their encroaching dotage
like Irma who Roy been trying to get
next to since dirt got dirty.
Irma, a solo act, a mystery then, a mystery now.
Thank you, but I can hail a gypsy cab.
Nice seeing you, too.

But Roy is relentless like he don't know
which part of no , the n or the o , means no .

Nick? His carousing was over
after he married Marge, who hates it
when he hits the streets with Roy ,
never married. Don't mean
no woman no good. Roy is like a squirrel
in Central Park foraging for a nut
anywhere he can.
Nick is happy to be home with Marge,
but simply wants to cruise and groove
once or twice a month with Roy , his road dog
from way back, and reminisce. Hey,
you can peruse the grand menu of life,
but you don't have to order.

Copyright © 1999-2007 by Reginald Lockett

Cover Design: Joseph McNair