Watching Willie Hall Keep Time at Rosa’s Lounge

On set break he sips
a long island iced tea
& tells me the house kit

sounds like shit & that
the last time he was here
was half-a-century back

to film Blues Brothers,
& how each morning
for those six weeks he

woke with the stunt crew
& rosy-fingered dawn
to watch the wrecks get made—

& here he is, a bullshit gig,
backing a bluesman who
muscle-memories his way

through predictable licks—
& when another song starts
upside down the bluesman

stops & lifts the hands
of the bassist & pianist
from their instruments—

& Willie Hall keeps
keeping time, the kick,
the snare, Willie Hall,

who beat pulse into
Isaac Hayes’ insatiable
hot-buttered vamps,

who held Pops Staples’
sanctified syncopation,
who locked himself

in echo chambers
to smoke dope &
double-drum all night

with Al Jackson Jr—
red-tracksuit, hood-up,
& dark sunglasses on,

Willie Hall knows
how to recognize
the easy mark—

the one who’s been
around enough
to swap some stories

but is still fool
enough to leave
an open tab

Source: Poetry (October 2025)