Crazy Woman Blues.

Crazy Woman Blues

I ain't never left Chicago
But I been around the world
Spent every day in dis here city
But I'se traveled 'round the world
Got me a crazy woman
And she done took me fo' a twirl
(Usedta picture myself lucky
To court a Southside Chi-town girl)

Got me a crazy woman
Put me out but won't let me go
Got me a pretty crazy woman
Throw me out the front
   Then drag me through the back door
She make up her first mind--quick
But she got a dozen mo' to go
(Say she got mo'n one mind
But don't you tell her I said so)

Quick--not easy--she fix her first mind
To love me right and love me true
Claim she made it in her right mind
To love me mo'n my mama do
When I reckon all I done for her
Make me think I'm crazy, too
(I need to shake this rattlin' woman
All the shit she put me through)

When I reckon what I ain't yet done
I thinks to do it by myself
When I adds up what I ain't yet seen
Need mo' fingers than I got left
Fifty ways to leave a lover
Need a dead ringer to put her down
(Don't you dare go off an' warn her
Or I'll put you in the ground
(Ya know I'se jivin' 'bout that last part
Ya know the way I likes to clown))

But straight an' skinny, don't go laughin'
Don't shoot yo' mouth off all through town
She got mo' ears than she got minds
And she keeps 'em to the ground
That woman s eyes is like a hawk's
So don't go foolin' her aroun'
(Pray to Cod you never meet her
Or you'll wish you was in the ground)

Pray to yo' God you never meet her
If you do--you don't know me
Pray on three knees you never meet her
If you do--you ain't seen me
I'm off to merry England.
For dried up biscuits, beef and tea
Change my name to Jean-Pierre
And wander 'round in gay Pa-ri
(Find me another crazy woman
In polite society)

Duriel E. Harris, a graduate of Yale and NYU, holds her doctorate from the University of Illinois. Her manuscript DRAG has been a finalist for several first-book prizes, and her writing has most recently appeared in Step Into a World, Works & Days, nocturnes, and Fence. Currently at work on Sorna, a sound recording, she has received grants from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Chicago Bar Association. Harris is the Poetry Editor for Obsidian III, a co-founder of Black Tool Collective, and the recipient of a 2002-2003 Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship.