Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth

by Yusef Komunyakaa

  a testament to how men dreamt land

  out of water, where bedrock

  was only the heart’s bump

  & grind, its deep, dark churn

  & acceleration, blowsy down

  to those unmoored timbers,

  already nothing but water

  mumbling as the great turbulent eye

  lingered on a primordial question,

  then turned, the gauzy genitalia of Bacchus

  & Zulu dangling in magnolias & rain trees,

  & already The Book of the Dead

  unfolded pages, & water rose

  to leaf through the before

  & after, the benedictions

  & prayers spoken in tongues

  rising in the tide of flotsam

  & debris of fallen churches

  across the Lower Ninth, slush

  working its way up clapboard

  & slave-brick walls of houses

  tilted in a dirge, up the last rung

  of the ladder, up to the voices

  caught in an attic, & then stopped

  in midair like a hundred washing

  machines churning, & already

  cries from a domed purgatory

  broke from the storm within

  where proxy armies clashed

  on weekends, & for a moment,

  as if we aren’t here, demons ride

  the shoulders of outlaw angels

  through streets of an antiworld

  where thieves of bread & milk

  are clubbed to brick sidewalks

  by keepers of the law as the levee’s

  uncorked boom drowns the solo

  of Bolden’s cornet driving a note

  up the long river of rivers, saying,

  I’m the mama & papa of ragtime,

  & already a hush came to those

  trapped behind barred windows

  & waterlines measuring the sag

  in the dragline as bottom fish

  floated up, lost in the Big Muddy

  unburying the wormy compost

  of days rotting in the darkness,

  & a windup toy inching along

  crawfish mud & bloody slag,

  & already they’re turning pages

  of the uncharted old lost seasons

  footnoted in the abridged maps

  warning of man-eating savages,

  to Jean-Baptiste’s flotilla of 6 ships

  carrying 6 carpenters & 30 convicts

  to rip out miles & miles of saw vines

  & dig trenches, born to erect makeshift

  shelters of raw sappy wood & speculate

  on their stolen dreams, the engineer

  Pierre Le Blond de la Tour saying, No,

  not here, the river will never stop trying

  to reclaim what’s taken from her, even if

  we build earthen walls to block her reach

  because she will go around, under, or over,

  & already the spine of their logbook

  of calculations was broken & splayed

  as newcomers hailed from far reaches

  as pirates, woodsmen, & money changers

  (all hard men), ready to claim coffin-girls

  ferried in by high churches of France,

  & already a thick wavy vein of ink

  widens into midnight, into daybreak,

  the wind drawing Audubon’s ghost

  through the almost gone, straggly

  grass, out into the oily marsh bog

  where disappearing land begs no footprint,

  out to where hard evidence rainbows

  up, leaving thousands hurting to be

  counted as no more than sea turtle,

  eel, brown pelican, egret, mud puppy, crab,

  & already water wounds everything

  into uncountable small deaths moored

  in cypress, stinking up our springtime

  with a pestilence going to the dark ages

  on harbors where boats sway shifting light,

  the dead talking to us from a masterpiece,

  saying, We are forbidden to remember

  we were defeated by what we devoured,

  & already from a mile down plumes

  keep rising up through weeks & months,

  animal cries & the language of robots

  where BP diving machines moonwalk,

  surging as long-ago drowned shadows

  of carrier pigeons drag up hellish silence,

  & already the first “climate refugees”

  are those who first built the aqueducts

  to route fresh artesian springs from salt,

  & now watch nature take back what was

  stolen from them, treasuring know-how

  passed down, who gather Gulf grasses

  to weave baskets, whittle spirit totems

  perfectly, train bird dogs, plot new stars

  circling above mysteries of everyday lives,

  & raising their small houses eight feet

  high on pilings—as if some land bridge

  to early Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw—

  who pick berries, trap rabbit & hunt deer

  & quail, harvest crawdads, hook catfish

  & gig fat bullfrogs, still singing to heal

  wounds, still unable to leave their dead

  who never surrendered, & already—

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications, in which the new poems in this volume originally appeared: Boston Review, Callaloo, The Fight & The Fiddle, The New Yorker, Oxford American, PEN America, Poem-a-Day, Poetry, The Progressive, Smithsonian.

  Love in the Time of War was published as a fine-press edition designed and printed by Robin Price.

  “A World of Daughters” premiered with the Trondheim Voices and Munich Chamber Orchestra, 2019.

  An excerpt of “Requiem” was first published in Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, W.W. Norton, 2013.

  “The Candlelight Lounge” is for Larry Hilton.

  INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  A box of tooth wheels sits on an ebony hippopotamus

  A boy’s bicycle inner tube

  A drowned kingdom rises at daybreak

  After a nightlong white-hot hellfire

  After pissing around his gut-level

  After the Burn Pits

  After the MRI & robot

  A jeweled wasp stuns

  All the little doors unlock

  Although the sandy soil’s already red

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

  Amber

  An island is one great eye

  A poet stands on the steps of the grand cathedral

  As if he stood too long facing

  As if my mind’s double-jointed

  As if the night

  As you can see, he first mastered light

  At six, she chewed off

  At the Red Sea

  Avarice

  A war’s going on somewhere, but tonight

  Bacchanal

  Balled into a cocked fist, sure

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

  Because they tasted so damn good, I swore

  Becky grew up in the provinces of the blackest, richest delta silt this

  Bedazzled

  Before zero meridian at Greenwich

  Begotten

  Black Figs

  Bless the woman, man, & child

  Blue Dementia

  Body of a Woman (Cadavere di Donna)

  Body Remembers, The

  Brother of the blowfly

  Business of Angels, The

&nbs
p; Caffe Reggio

  Candlelight Lounge, The

  Canticle

  Can you be up to any good

  Cape Coast Castle

  Charles, I’m also a magpie collecting every scrap

  Circus, The

  C’mon, Your Majesty, her brother?

  Congo Snake, The

  Crow Lingo

  Curanderismo

  Curator of Kosinski’s Mask

  Darling, my daddy’s razor strop

  Daytime Begins with a Line by Anna Akhmatova

  Dead Reckoning

  Dead Reckoning II

  Dead Reckoning III

  Dear, I roll this duck egg

  Dear Mister Decoy

  Desecration

  Devil Comes on Horseback, The

  Devil’s Workshop, The

  Didn’t Chet Baker know

  Ecstatic

  Elizabeth, I must say

  Emperor, The

  Empyrean Isles

  English

  Envoy to Palestine

  Epithalamium

  Eros

  Et Tu, Brute?

  Euphony

  Famous Ghost, A

  Fata Morgana

  Feet of petty chances, you

  Fishermen follow a dream of the biggest

  Fool, The

  Fortress

  From “Autobiography of My Alter Ego”

  Ghazal, after Ferguson

  God of Land Mines, The

  Gold Pistol, The

  Gourd-shaped muse swollen

  Great Ooga-Booga, in your golden pavilion

  Green

  Green Horse, The

  Grenade

  Grunge

  Hands make love to thigh, breast, clavicle

  Heavy Metal Soliloquy

  He blows a ram’s horn at the first gate of the third kingdom, & one

  He circled the roundabout

  Hedonist, The

  He has bribed the thorns

  Helmet, The

  He picks till it grows

  Here you are, still

  Herodotus, woven into his story

  He sits on a royal purple cushion

  He’s on a hammock in Bangkok

  He wandered nude out of Eden

  He was in waist-high grass. An echo of a voice

  His forehead was stamped, Administrator

  Homo Erectus

  Homunculus

  How It Is

  How long have I listened

  I am a scrappy old lion

  I can’t erase her voice. If I opened the door to the cage & tossed the

  I could see thatch boats. The sea

  I don’t know, can’t say when they first

  If I am not Ulysses, I am

  If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be

  If only he could touch her

  If you’re one of seven

  Ignis Fatuus

  I made love to you, & it loomed there

  Imhotep

  I’m the son of poor Mildred & illiterate J.W.

  In a half-broken room of the hospice

  Infidelity

  In Saint Helena darkness falls into a window

  Interrogation

  In the days when a man

  In the hard, unwavering mountain

  I pull on my crow mask

  I sing an elegy for the city of 333 saints

  Islands

  I stood on one foot for three minutes & didn’t tilt

  I thought happiness my birthright

  Ito ran to a window. He danced

  It speaks when the anonymous

  I’ve come to this one grassy hill

  I’ve known billy club, tear gas, & cattle prod

  I want Catullus

  I weigh you, a minute in each hand

  Janus Preface, The

  Joy, use me like a whore

  King’s Salt, The

  Knucklehead spins on a wish & lucky

  Krar

  Land of Cockaigne, The

  Latitudes

  Lime

  Lined up like toy soldiers

  Lingo

  Lingua Franca

  Longitudes

  Look how each pound of meat

  Love in the Time of War

  Lure, The

  Lust

  May

  Maybe he thought gods

  Meditations on a File

  Meditations on a Thumbscrew

  Michio Ito’s Fox & Hawk

  Minotaur

  Monkey Wrench

  Mottled with eyes, she’s a snag

  Mountain, The

  Mud

  Mushroom Gatherers, The

  My lyre has fallen & broken

  My muse is holding me prisoner

  Night in Tunisia, A

  Night Ritual

  Nipples

  No, sweetheart, I said courtly love

  Now I begin with these two hands

  Nude Study

  Ode to Dust

  Ode to the Maggot

  Ode to the Oud

  One can shove his face against silk

  Ontology & Guinness

  Orpheus at the Second Gate of Hades

  Our Side of the Creek

  Pan

  Perhaps someone was watching

  Polecat, The

  Poppies

  Portrait of (Self) Deception, A

  Postscript to a Summer Night

  Prayer, A

  Prayer for Workers, A

  Precious Metals

  Relic, The

  Remus & Romulus

  Rock Me, Mercy

  Rollerblades

  Rubens paints desire

  Say licked clean at birth. Say

  Scapegoat

  September

  Sex Toys

  Shelter

  She’s big as a man’s fist

  She works in the corner of the porch

  Shiva

  Skulking Across Snow

  Slaves Among Blades of Grass

  Slime Molds

  Slingshot

  Sloth

  Small System, A

  So

  So, this is where

  Somebody go & ask Biggie to orate

  Someone lightly brushed the penis

  Someone says Tristan

  Something or someone. A feeling

  Soul’s Soundtrack, The

  Speed Ball

  Sprung Rhythm of a Landscape

  Surge

  Thanks for your warning

  The alpha wolf chooses his mate

  The Amazon ants dispatch

  The batfish hides there

  The battle begins here as I slap my chest

  The day breaks in half as the sun rolls over hanging ice

  The eyedropper of holy water

  The Galápagos finch

  The hard work of love sealed

  The jawbone of an ass. A shank

  The kneeling figure is from Yama or Carthage

  The master craftsman sits like Rodin’s

  The maypole glistens with pig fat

  The miners dressed in monkish garb

  There’s always someone who loves gold

  There’s no rehearsal to turn flesh into dust so quickly. A hair trigger, a

  The river stones are listening

  The round, hanging lanterns

  These frantic blooms can hold their own

  The shadow knows. Okay. But what is this, the traveler’s tail curled

  The spotted hyena

  The swastika tattooed

  The tablet he inherited was encased

  The victorious army marches into the city

  They clink glasses of Merlot & joke

  They left the Second City

  They’re at the eight teats

  They’re here. Among blades

  They work fingers to bone, & borrow

  This can make hard men

  This is my house. My sweat is in the mortar

  Those double shotgun
<
br />   Three Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

  Timbuktu

  Today, somewhere, a man

  Togetherness

  Torsion

  Towers, The

  Translation of Silk, A

  Troubling the Water

  Turner’s Great Tussle with Water

  Ukiyo-e

  Unlikely Claims

  Utetheisa Ornatrix, the First Goddess

  Van Gogh’s sunflowers blot out

  Venus of Willendorf

  Visit to Inner Sanctum, A

  Voice on an Answering Machine A

  Warlord’s Garden, The

  Water Clock, The

  We have gone there, sitting here

  We have this to call to the dead

  We piled planks, sheets of tin

  We turn away from the flesh

  We washed away the live perfume

  When Dusk Weighs Daybreak

  When Eyes Are on Me

  When I was a boy, he says, the sky began burning

  When the grand master of folly

  When they call him Old School

  Work of Orpheus, The

  World of Daughters, A

  Yes, dear son

  You see these eyes?

  Zeus always introduces himself

  ALSO BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA

  Dedications & Other Darkhorses

  Lost in the Bonewheel Factory

  Copacetic

  I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head

  Toys in a Field

  Dien Cai Dau

  February in Sydney

  Magic City

  Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems

  Thieves of Paradise

  Blue Notes: Essays, Interviews, and Commentaries

  Talking Dirty to the Gods

  Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems

  Taboo: The Wishbone Trilogy, Part One

  Gilgamesh: A Verse Play

  Warhorses

  The Chameleon Couch

  The Emperor of Water Clocks

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Yusef Komunyakaa is the author of many books of poetry, including The Emperor of Water Clocks, The Chameleon Couch, Warhorses, Taboo, Talking Dirty to the Gods, and Neon Vernacular, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. His plays, performance art, and librettos have been performed internationall and include Wakonda’s Dream; Saturnalia; Testimony, A Tribute to Charlie Parker; and Gilgamesh: A Verse Play. You can sign up for email updates here.

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