Nels Hanson’s most recent poem to appear here was “Road and Flower” (January 2019).
Happy Birthday Manse Lipscomb
By Nels Hanson
Today, July 30th, 2017, celebrating
your birth in Texas near Navasota in
1895, a Facebook page ran old black
and white clip of you picking wood
blues guitar, a closed jackknife for
a bottleneck, your third strumming
finger bandaged, singing the Jack of
Diamonds is a hard card to play, as
maybe most cards are, not a mystery
the hand you drew, your voice telling
what gamblers rarely show, the fatal
Deuce and Trey, that Jack of Spades.
Brings back memories of Maverick.