Lightnin’ Hopkins’ Dream

Vincent Hostak

July 28, 2024

I'm goin' to Dallas, just to see my pony run
If I win any money, gonna bring my baby some

-Sam John “Lightnin” Hopkins

With no games of chance in Centerville

he traveled north to a brush track

to see his favorite mare

a swift filly he’s come to know

in dreams and songs and songs from dreams

Bog waters sing to him:

There’s a culvert in the bottom lands

where all the roots turned blue

They rise-up like the shackle-sores

above your driving shoes

When no one lets you speak out loud

you have no choice but to sing

you tune-up on a tailgate

bring ballads to a barrelhouse

with all your axe-gang ghosts in tow

A horsefly chants into his ear:

The track’s a steel-string flattop and

when she gallops up the fret

she hugs the rails on the clubhouse turn

into your second set

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.