Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth

by Yusef Komunyakaa

  His name is called a third time,

  but his propped-up boots & helmet

  refuse to answer. The photo remains silent,

  & his name hangs in the high rafters.

  She tenderly hugs the pillow,

  whispering his name. The dog

  rises beside the bedroom door

  & wanders to the front door,

  & stands with its head cocked,

  listening for a name in a dead language.

  FROM

  WARHORSES

  THE HELMET

  Perhaps someone was watching

  a mud turtle or an armadillo

  skulk along an old interminable footpath,

  armored against sworn enemies,

  & then that someone shaped a model,

  nothing but the mock-up of a hunch

  into a halved, rounded, carved-out

  globe of wood covered with animal skin.

  How many battles were fought before

  bronze meant shield & breastplate,

  before iron was fired, hammered, & taught

  to outwit the brain’s glacial weather,

  to hold an edge? God-inspired,

  it was made to deflect a blow

  or blade, to make the light pivot

  on the battlefield. Did the soldiers

  first question this new piece of equipment,

  did they laugh like a squad of Hells Angels,

  saying, Is this our ration bowl for bonemeal,

  & gore? The commander’s sunrise

  was stolen from the Old Masters,

  & his coat of arms made the shadows

  kneel. The ram, the lion, the ox,

  the goat—folkloric. Horse-headed

  helmets skirted the towering cedars

  till only a lone vulture circled the sky

  as first & last decipher of the world.

  GRENADE

  There’s no rehearsal to turn flesh into dust so quickly. A hair trigger, a cocked hammer in the brain, a split second between a man & infamy. It lands on the ground—a few soldiers duck & the others are caught in a half run—& one throws himself down on the grenade. All the watches stop. A flash. Smoke. Silence. The sound fills the whole day. Flesh & earth fall into the eyes & mouths of the men. A dream trapped in mid- air. They touch their legs & arms, their groins, ears, & noses, saying, What happened? Some are crying. Others are laughing. Some are almost dancing. Someone tries to put the dead man back together. “He just dove on the damn thing, sir!” A flash. Smoke. Silence. The day blown apart. For those who can walk away, what is their burden? Shreds of flesh & bloody rags gathered up & stuffed into a bag. Each breath belongs to him. Each song. Each curse. Every prayer is his. Your body doesn’t belong to your mind & soul. Who are you? Do you remember the man left in the jungle? The others who owe their lives to this phantom, do they feel like you? Would his loved ones remember him if that little park or statue erected in his name didn’t exist, & does it enlarge their lives? You wish he’d lie down in that closed coffin, & not wander the streets or enter your bedroom at midnight. The woman you love, she’ll never understand. Who would? You remember what he used to say: “If you give a kite too much string, it’ll break free.” That unselfish certainty. But you can’t remember when you began to live his unspoken dreams.

  THE TOWERS

  Yes, dear son

  dead, but not gone,

  some were good, ordinary

  people who loved a pinch of salt

  on a slice of melon. Good,

  everyday souls gazing up

  at birds every now & then,

  a flash of wings like blood

  against the skylights. Well,

  others were good as gold

  certificates in a strongbox

  buried in the good earth. Yes,

  two or three stopped to give

  the homeless vet on the corner

  a shiny quarter or silver dime,

  while others walked dead

  into a fiery brisance, lost

  in an eternity of Vermeer.

  A few left questions blighting

  the air. Does she love me?

  How can I forgive him?

  Why does the dog growl

  when I turn the doorknob?

  Some were writing e-mails

  & embossed letters to ghosts

  when the first plane struck.

  The boom of one thousand

  trap drums was thrown against

  a metallic sky. A century of blue

  vaults opened, & rescue workers

  scrambled with their lifelines

  down into the dark, sending up

  plumes of disbelieving dust.

  They tried to soothe torn earth,

  to stretch skin back over the

  pulse beat. When old doubts

  & shame burn, do they smell

  like anything we’ve known?

  When happiness is caught off

  guard, when it beats its wings

  bloody against the bony cage,

  does it die screaming or laughing?

  No,

  none,

  not a single one

  possessed wings as agile

  & unabashedly decorous as yours,

  son. Not even those lovers who

  grabbed each other’s hand & leapt

  through the exploding windows.

  Pieces of sky fell with the glass,

  bricks, & charred mortar. Nothing

  held together anymore. Machines

  grunted & groaned into the heap

  like gigantic dung beetles. After

  planes had flown out of a scenario

  in Hollywood, few now believed

  their own feet touched the ground.

  Signed deeds & promissory notes

  floated over the tangled streets,

  & some hobbled in broken shoes

  toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

  The cash registers stopped on

  decimal points, in a cloud bank

  of dead cell phones & dross.

  Search dogs crawled into tombs

  of burning silence. September

  could hardly hold itself upright,

  but no one donned any feathers.

  Apollo was at Ground Zero

  because he knows everything

  about bandaging up wounds.

  Men dug hands into quavering

  flotsam, & they were blinded by

  the moon’s indifference. No,

  Voice, I don’t know anything

  about infidels, though I can see

  those men shaving their bodies

  before facing a malicious god

  in the mirror. The searchlights

  throbbed. No, I’m not Daedalus,

  but I’ve walked miles in a circle,

  questioning your wings of beeswax

  & crepe singed beyond belief.

  HEAVY METAL SOLILOQUY

  After a nightlong white-hot hellfire

  of blue steel, we rolled into Baghdad,

  plugged into government-issued earphones,

  hearing hard rock. The drum machines

  & revved-up guitars roared in our heads.

  All their gods were crawling on all fours.

  These bloated replicas of horned beetles

  drew us to targets, as if they could breathe

  & think. The turrets rotated 360 degrees.

  The infrared scopes could see through stone.

  There were mounds of silver in the oily dark.

  Our helmets were the only shape of the world.

  Lightning was inside our titanium tanks,

  & the music was almost holy, even if blood

  was now leaking from our eardrums.

  We were moving to a predestined score

  as bodies slumped under the bright heft

  & weight of thunderous falling sky.

  Locked in, shielded off from desert sand

  & equator
ial eyes, I was inside a womb,

  a carmine world, caught in a limbo,

  my finger on the trigger, getting ready to die,

  getting ready to be born.

  THE WARLORD’S GARDEN

  He has bribed the thorns

  to guard his poppies.

  They intoxicate the valley

  with their forbidden scent,

  reddening the horizon

  till it is almost as if

  they aren’t there.

  Maybe the guns guard

  only the notorious

  dreams in his head.

  The weather is kind

  to every bloom,

  & the fat greenish bulbs

  form a galaxy of fantasies

  & beautiful nightmares.

  After they’re harvested

  & molded into kilo sacks

  of malleable brown powder,

  they cross the country

  on horseback,

  on river rafts

  following some falling star,

  & then ride men’s shoulders

  down to the underworld,

  down to rigged scales

  where money changers

  & gunrunners linger

  in the pistol-whipped hush

  of broad daylight. No,

  now, it shouldn’t be long

  before the needle’s bright tip

  holds a drop of woeful bliss,

  before the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse

  gallops again the night streets of Europe.

  SURGE

  Always more. No, we aren’t too ashamed to prod celestial beings

  into our machines. Always more body bags & body counts for oath takers

  & sharpshooters. Always more. More meat for the gibbous grinder

  & midnight mover. There’s always someone standing on a hill, half lost

  behind dark aviation glasses, saying, If you asked me, buddy, you know,

  it could always be worse. A lost arm & leg? Well, you could be stone dead.

  Here comes another column of apparitions to dig a lifetime of roadside graves.

  Listen to the wind beg. Always more young, strong, healthy bodies. Always.

  Yes. What a beautiful golden sunset. (A pause) There’s always that one naked soul

  who’ll stand up, shuffle his feet a little, & then look the auspicious, would-be gods

  in the eyes & say, Enough! I won’t give another good guess or black thumbnail

  to this mad dream of yours! An ordinary man or woman. Alone. A mechanic

  or cowboy. A baker. A farmer. A hard hat. A tool-&-die man. Almost a smile

  at the corners of a mouth. A fisherman. A tree surgeon. A seamstress. Someone.

  THE DEVIL COMES ON HORSEBACK

  Although the sandy soil’s already red,

  the devil still comes on horseback

  at midnight, with old obscenities

  in his head, galloping along a pipeline

  that ferries oil to the black tankers

  headed for Shanghai. Traveling

  through folklore & songs, prayers

  & curses, he’s a windmill of torches

  & hot lead, rage & plunder, bloodlust

  & self-hatred, rising out of the Seven Odes,

  a Crow of the Arabs. Let them wing

  & soar, let them stumble away on broken feet,

  let them beg with words of the unborn,

  let them strum a dusty oud of gut & gourd,

  still the devil rides a shadow at daybreak.

  Pity one who doesn’t know his bloodline

  is rape. He rides with a child’s heart

  in his hands, a head on a crooked staff,

  & he can’t stop charging the night sky

  till his own dark face turns into ashes

  riding a desert wind’s mirage.

  FROM “AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY ALTER EGO”

  You see these eyes?

  You see this tongue?

  You see these ears?

  They may detect a quiver

  in the grass, an octave

  higher or lower—

  a little different, an iota,

  but they’re no different

  than your eyes & ears.

  I can’t say I don’t know

  how Lady Liberty’s

  tilted in my favor or yours,

  that I don’t hear what I hear

  & don’t see what I see

  in the cocksure night

  from Jefferson & Washington

  to terrorists in hoods & sheets

  in a black man’s head.

  As he feels what’s happening

  you can also see & hear

  what’s happening to him.

  You see these hands?

  They know enough to save us.

  I’m trying to say this: True,

  I’m a cover artist’s son,

  born to read between lines,

  but I also know that you know

  a whispered shadow in the trees

  is the collective mind

  of insects, birds, & animals

  witnessing what we do to each other.

  *

  Forgive the brightly colored

  viper on the footpath,

  guarding a forgotten shrine.

  Forgive the tiger

  dumbstruck beneath its own rainbow.

  Forgive the spotted bitch

  eating her litter underneath the house.

  Forgive the boar

  hiding in October’s red leaves.

  Forgive the stormy century

  of crows calling to death. Forgive

  the one who conjures a god

  out of spit & clay

  so she may seek redemption.

  Forgive the elephant’s memory.

  Forgive the saw vine

  & the thorn bird’s litany.

  Forgive the schizoid

  gatekeeper, his logbook’s

  perfect excuse. Forgive

  the crocodile’s swiftness.

  Forgive the pheromones

  & the idea of life on Mars.

  Forgive the heat lightning

  & the powder keg. Forgive the raccoon’s

  sleight of hand beside

  the river. Forgive the mooncalf

  & doubt’s caul-baby. Forgive

  my father’s larcenous tongue.

  Forgive my mother’s intoxicated

  lullaby. Forgive my sixth sense.

  Forgive my heart & penis,

  but don’t forgive my hands.

  FROM

  THE CHAMELEON COUCH

  CANTICLE

  Because I mistrust my head & hands, because I know salt

  tinctures my songs, I tried hard not to touch you

  even as I pulled you into my arms. Seasons sprouted

  & went to seed as we circled the dance with silver cat bells

  tied to our feet. Now, kissing you, I am the arch-heir of second chances.

  Because I know twelve ways to be wrong

  & two to be good, I was wounded by the final question in the cave,

  left side of the spirit level’s quiver. I didn’t want to hug you

  into a cross, but I’m here to be measured down to each numbered bone.

  A trembling runs through what pulls us to the blood knot.

  We hold hands & laugh in the East Village as midnight autumn

  shakes the smoke of the Chicago B.L.U.E.S. club from our clothes,

  & you say I make you happy & sad. For years I stopped my hands

  in midair, knowing fire at the root stem of yes.

  I say your name, & another dies in my mouth because I know how to plead

  till a breeze erases the devil’s footprints,

  because I crave something to sing the blues about. Look,

  I only want to hold you this way: a bundle of wild orchids

  broken at the wet seam of memory & manna.

  THE JANUS PREFACE<
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  The day breaks in half as the sun rolls over hanging ice,

  & a dogwood leans into a country between seasons.

  A yellow cat looms with feet in the squishy snow,

  arching her back, eyeing a redbird, a star still blinking

  in her nighttime brain. Schoolgirls sport light dresses

  beneath heavy coats, & the boys stand goose-pimpled

  in football jerseys. Anything for a hug or kiss,

  anything to be healed. A new-green leaf swells sap.

  Each bud is a nose pressed against a windowpane,

  a breast gazing through thin cotton. The cold stings,

  & a shiver goes from crown to feet, leaf tip down to taproot.

  The next-door boy’s snowman bows to Monday’s rush hour.

  Heavy metal leaps from a car & ignites the spluttering air.

  Each little tight fist of clutched brightness begins to open,

  distant & close as ghost laughter in the afternoon.

  A crow sits on the fence, telling me how many ways

  to answer its brutal questions about tomorrow.

  The season is a white buffalo birthing in the front yard:

  big-eyed with beauty, half out & half in.

  Branches cluster with mouths ready to speak

  a second coming, & a wind off the Delaware

  springs forth, rattling the window sashes.

  An all-night howl slips beneath the eaves,

  & next day, frozen buds are death’s-heads

  fallen into footprints coming & gone.

  IGNIS FATUUS

  Something or someone. A feeling

  among a swish of reeds. A swampy

  glow haloes the Spanish moss,

  & there’s a swaying at the edge

  like a child’s memory of abuse

  growing flesh, living on what

  a screech owl recalls. Nothing

  but a presence that fills up

  the mind, a replenished body

  singing its way into double-talk.

  In the city, “Will o’ the Wisp”

  floats out of Miles’s trumpet,

  leaning ghosts against nighttime’s

  backdrop of neon. A foolish fire

  can also start this way: before

  you slide the key into the lock

  & half turn the knob, you know

  someone has snuck into your life.

  A high window, a corner of sky

  spies on upturned drawers of underwear

  & unanswered letters, on a tin box

  of luminous buttons & subway tokens,