HEAVEN’S GONNA HAVE A HONKY-TONK
by Nancy Dillingham
Inspired by Dale Watson’s candid discussions about the time he “went crazy” with grief after the death of a girlfriend in an automobile accident and the artist’s audacity to entitle his 2015 album from Red House Records (featuring the song “Heaven’s Gonna Have a Honky-Tonk”) and his subsequent tour, Call Me Insane.
In 2002 Dale Watson went crazy with grief
hearing voices and having
“tortuous dealings with Satan”
unable to distinguish what was real
and what was not
committed himself to the Austin State Hospital
Grappling with the death of a girlfriend
in a car accident after an argument with him
the silver-haired singer of Texas roadhouse fame
endured years of guilt and three suicide attempts
one by cop when he holed up
in the Town Lake Holiday Inn
with two bottles of wine and a fistful of pills
finally found comfort sitting for hours in front
of a cross somebody put up marking the spot
of the crash where she was killed
going back to replace it
when they widened the highway
and took it away
He says he nursed himself back to health
with the help of “the Good Book
counseling and a cast of angels”
Veteran of honky-tonk and rockabilly
Western swing and country outlaw
the pompadoured Ameripolitan pioneer
imagines himself in heaven
at a table with his musical heroes
Jennings and Jones
Nelson and Haggard and Cash
having a celestial beer
Nancy Dillingham is associate editor of the online poetry journal Speckled Trout Review and coeditor of four anthologies of western North Carolina women writers. Her poetry collection Home was nominated for a SIBA Her latest publications are the chapbooks Evanescence of Spring and Promise, and her new memoir is entitled No Time Like the Present: A Memoir in Essays. Forthcoming works include Curves: Collected Stories and the chapbook Longing. She lives in Asheville, NC.
by Nancy Dillingham
Inspired by Dale Watson’s candid discussions about the time he “went crazy” with grief after the death of a girlfriend in an automobile accident and the artist’s audacity to entitle his 2015 album from Red House Records (featuring the song “Heaven’s Gonna Have a Honky-Tonk”) and his subsequent tour, Call Me Insane.
In 2002 Dale Watson went crazy with grief
hearing voices and having
“tortuous dealings with Satan”
unable to distinguish what was real
and what was not
committed himself to the Austin State Hospital
Grappling with the death of a girlfriend
in a car accident after an argument with him
the silver-haired singer of Texas roadhouse fame
endured years of guilt and three suicide attempts
one by cop when he holed up
in the Town Lake Holiday Inn
with two bottles of wine and a fistful of pills
finally found comfort sitting for hours in front
of a cross somebody put up marking the spot
of the crash where she was killed
going back to replace it
when they widened the highway
and took it away
He says he nursed himself back to health
with the help of “the Good Book
counseling and a cast of angels”
Veteran of honky-tonk and rockabilly
Western swing and country outlaw
the pompadoured Ameripolitan pioneer
imagines himself in heaven
at a table with his musical heroes
Jennings and Jones
Nelson and Haggard and Cash
having a celestial beer
Nancy Dillingham is associate editor of the online poetry journal Speckled Trout Review and coeditor of four anthologies of western North Carolina women writers. Her poetry collection Home was nominated for a SIBA Her latest publications are the chapbooks Evanescence of Spring and Promise, and her new memoir is entitled No Time Like the Present: A Memoir in Essays. Forthcoming works include Curves: Collected Stories and the chapbook Longing. She lives in Asheville, NC.