Spontaneous Combustion

By John Horváth

If I say seven miles southeast from

Memphis in the Delta where cotton

bites through pickers’ hands to bone

or where jazz ripples outside N’Orleans

through a clear night's air to beckon

into lust Cajun boys and soft women

near a major throughway on which cars

stream toward Big Easy’s bug-zap lights

that draw folk to the promises of quick

success, dead failure or better than

they may have been – would it be more

real, would if I said was a Black man,

Cajun or mean class, would it be more

real and his death by fire more assured

to have come to pass as told among

neighbors some nights when discussion

seems to wane and ghosts of the past

whisper out of old mouths grown tired,

unruly - would it make more sense that

he up and burned to crisp and ash, would

it be more worthy to note if he had

brown eyes and lips chapped, but none

of this explains how the burn touched

only his flesh as if God had need of

bedsheets and bed but not him as if

his soul furious to escape fired bone

and sinew so sudden flames touched

sinner only and nothing else.

So, what do you know…

Old Joe South come of age

in a two-bit time

when we reckoned on

things to make better

the more mundane and historic dullness

of our lives, a singularly

and scientific time

when church hollerin'

had ceased for good

and a jacked-up shadetree

Ford dismantled

was of no purpose

but a flower pot shined

with a wire brush.

His mam knowed it, left

him for it, to the city

with its bright lit jungle

where soul theft, pickpocket

sex, and 'lectric

music copied farmland

sequence--one season

planting or reaping

or waiting on a next

time that was right/ripe--

field hand time

but so fast you could hardly keep pace.

Old Joe South come of age

in such a time.

(And I promise you

there WAS just such a time.)

Wanted all his days to do

useful with his hands

all stubby large and mistaken

for clubs to beat

the earth callous from hard

clay to dry dry powder

in a time of near famine

and drought upon the land.

Wanted all his days to know

something, someone,

and beget a notion proper

as a Sunday's suit

that folk would admire.

Looky, they'd say, there

goes Joe wearing his fancy suit;

boy had a bright

idee. And such they'd say.

That's all he wanted.

And a pretty gal to take hold his arm

whilst walkin' to church

on Bingo nights

when the ladies' auxiliary

met to gossip--

you shore nuff got a catch, li'le miss,

they'd say and he'd be proud

to hear of it.

So he didn't mind none the much waiting

on the school to let

out of an afternoon

when he could look over the pickin's.

The one with the pink dress and black

shine shoes with the ribbon in her hair

one Friday was who he come t'settle on.

Half his age and twice

his powers she was.

Could read.

Chat easy with her neighbors.

That the one.

So he would wait for her,

follow her to home,

pray to his God for her.

Was no one listened

after a certain time when

he'd come home from the field

and settle down to pray

and she weren't paying him

no mind from day to day.

It is the way of miracles

that when you expect

then there ain't none

and when they come it

was when you hadn't said

no prayer at all.

And so on a trip

to the merchandiser Joe found

his chosen in the shop

while old Joe South

was lookin' over a hoe

what to kill weeds with

and her smile

was much like it was toward him

in every dream

he'd had of her smiling at him

then she said,

why you follow me all the time

an' you ain't said

nothin' t'me 'bout nothin'

though I can see you

always a bit out of reach

but near at hand as if,

should I need, you would

be there in a moment

like some TV hero so why

you following

unless you got something in mind.

Was a lot of breath for a small thing.

(Or maybe

he just thought she'd said it.)

He might have asked about

why always a pink

dress and black

shine shoes and a ribbon

in her hair even when she changed shoes

and dress they was pink and shine black

and she never but this once stepped out

of her way

on her way home with him following

or gave sign

she'd noticed him yonder back.

Instead he smiled

and shrugged his shoulders

and held up his hands

raw and all clubbish

in front of him

with his elbows bent, palms

turned up as if in prayer

while he tried to make his eyes

tell her how much he had come

to love her

but this forwardness

in this unlikely place

it put him off.

And he never again followed

her from school.

And the folks in town come

to say he weren't no little lamb

but that old Joe South

was some queer egg.

So he come to accept

that's why his mama

had left for the big city of lights

and pickpocket sex

that his daddy said she had gone to

so she wouldn't have

to know this of him.

But his Pa, hearing tell of it,

beat the boy blue

and black with red long welts

that was near blood

but Joe said nothing, didn't object,

neither cried

nor moved out

from under the razor strop that

fell like lightening on his back

and crossed his cheek

because the boy knew

from the moment he could think

that his Pa was up to

do it one day or other

to punish him

for chasin' off his mother.

(And folk agreed that he deserved it.)

And folk said he died like that,

never again saying

a word to no one and

never leaving the place for town

and others averred it was he run off

like his mama had and that he had died

in the big city alone begging for food

and eating cast-offs from trashbins

whilst others said the old man

had him committed to the silly farm

where likes of him could be with likes

but I'll tell you the gospel truth that

old Joe South he never died

and he never run off as they said

but he lay down in his bed

after the beating and was consumed

by the fire of his love gone bad.

Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and his

Pa finding it figured a miracle and he

never said word

of it leastwise that folk

might think him gone lunatic

thus dangerous.

So what's it supposed to mean

that he burnt

with desire and from desire

burnt hisself up?

He was a man

though a fool or a fool man

who traded his life for his soul,

a devilish bargain.

So what that no one goes

to church to holler

but they read of it

in the grocery checkout tabloid

and wonder in their souls

if such things happen

wonder between the old lady

who writes a bad check

and the cashier girl whose plain pink

lips and beribboned hair won't smile.

As you unload your wants

onto her counter top

she says almost apologetically,

I known a man

such as that.

I did. Let me tell you 'bout him,

he had hands like clubs,

raw from the cotton,

dangerous hands,

but his eyes said he had

for a long time with no good sense

come to love me…

About The Author:

Recently in Quagmire Magazine, Burningword Literary Journal (Best of 2018), Brave Voices (Zimbabwe), London Reader, Subterranean Blue). In total, Horvath has published nearly 500 poems since the 70’s.

After Vanderbilt and Florida State universities, following a bad parachute drop in Iraq leaving him 100% disabled, "Doc" Horváth taught at historically Black colleges. To promote contemporary international poetry, Horváth edited the magazine at www.poetryrepairs.com from 1997 to 2017.