Song of the Andoumboulou: 260

Eleanoir and Huff served as a marker, their con-

juncture an imaginal sound no sound could

equal. It was an unkept, unkeepable promise, an

un-

keepable secret as well, the sound of words

on a page. We had gone wordless at the appren-

tice prez’s antics, albeit much deeper was

what

was hitting the fan. The top was only the

tip, no matter how wide it spread. We worked

hard remembering that, Nub gone into Nur

wide-

eyed where it was going, Nub’s collapse into

Nur the one-third wanted, a line crossed, cross-

es burned again ... Words had held forth in the

nerve

church and they held forth now, held forth a-

gain, words on the tips of our tongues and on

the tips of other tongues, other tongues on the

tips

of our tongues. The imaginal sound no sound

could match kept at us, Nur the noise despite

which we took our stab at living, hate afoot noth-

ing new. Nub stubs its toe from time to time we

knew,

maybe all the time. “Let’s call it Stub,” Itamar

let out, wording up. We put some music from Zan-

zibar on the box but took it off, not enough oud.

were the school of oud, school of Udhra, the

fools it took to learn, anything but the monied

ones. “Con amor todo se puede,” we said, semi-

said, semisang ... We each felt an oud’s back or

belly

against our abdomen, could each feel it verg-

ing on ribcage theater. Our vehicular ambigu-

ity bothered us not at all. The dead rode with

us,

never not there, just as we, when dead, would

never not be there. The dead’s legendary thirst

was the imaginal sound no sound could match,

syn-

aesthetic the best we could do trying to speak

of it, the sound we were driven by. The dead’s

legendary thirst made us bedouins, lips chapped

no matter the green of Low Forest, the beloved’s

lips

likewise dry ... Otherwise we were silent, true

Pythagoreans, as if we’d been asked about the

square root of two, sixty-five times two to the

sec-

ond all we’d say about number, be under or

inside more what it was than say. It was song six-

ty-five times four we were in or were under,

bent

tautological figure, self-reflex, number the

letter it was. So it was we kissed like we were

thirsty when we did, incendiary no matter it was,

tongue a jet of flame no matter. We wanted to be

fools

in Stub, where not to be was to prey on others ...

Eleanoir and Huff had faded back into the we

we’d be, absorbed, reabsorbed, back to as they’d

been before, the literalness of number never more

irrel-

evant, a feeling for the none what obtained. They

knew a philosophical readiness riding the curve

of the belly or back the boat of soul we’d boarded

was,

a feeling for the none no one in Nub, Nur, Stub

wanted to know it was running from. We sought

what solace there was looking out at the varieties

green to be seen in Low For-

est

________________

A feeling for the none seemed to accrue as we

motored on. Mock transit it might’ve been. We

saw a deer carcass picked at by buzzards on the

side

of the road. “See them as musicians,” Ahdja

remarked, looking out her window, “see them

as playing the oud, the way their beaks pull at

the

carcass a music we can see but not hear.” We

indeed did see the none of it, buzzard beaks a

barrage of plectra, ligament and sinew the strings

plucked and picked. The buzzards were hands and

fingers

whose play grew labored, a divine or demonic

vehemence made a music we almost heard.

Hawks rendered the sky another Pred Lake, Low

For-

est a kind of heaven e-

ven so

•

All accruing to the none we knew and bore

knowing. Was polis only a part of that, we

wondered, the law of selection an election

taken

away, an outpost on Pred Lake. Elegiac

roost, elegiac witness, elegy what told us

what time it was, foothold fallen away or

taken

away if not fallen, carcass on the side of

the road ... The putrid music Ahdja made

us imagine was not the imaginal sound. A

rib-

cage harmonics attended it all, so sad we

laughed in self-defense. An allegorical cast we

thought it might get, events of which we

were

the terms, the meaning, each an attribute’s

embodiment albeit none of us could say ex-

actly which. An insensate chill came over

ev-

erything, hot, humid day though it was.

The deer’s ribcage chimed a comedic air,

divine-comedic air. Never had Low Forest

resounded so ... We bumped along, happy to

have

air to breathe, the green leaves doing their

job, lungs for a time healthy, all of us eventual-

ly none. Scraps of memory rode what breeze

there

was, chill sonority real but abstract. Scraps

of melody they might have been as well were we

to hear again, we put Live at the Village Van-

guard Again! on. Pharoah’s gruff butterfly brought

back. We were back among the big trees, we

were back on Lone Coast, we were hearing with a

hearing inside our heads and anywhere else. It

got

heavy holding the world in our heads, our bus our

boat. Our bus was a boat of longing, watery as

the

sea we were

•

The boat of longing a boat of water, we sank,

watery limbs the like of the roots undergirding

Low Forest, the all so much the none it shook

us,

watery ligament, cartilage, muscle, bone,

skin. Andreannette’s ex’s pea coat floated

above her, she led our surfacing, back, lower

back and buttocks pear-shaped, bodily allure

low-

hanging fruit. Sophia reached and the rest

of us followed suit, reached and went on reach-

ing ... Merpeople we were not but might’ve

been.

It was the wateriness of a kiss and much

more, a kind of drowning, the what-if and the

as-if again, ongoing, words on the tips of

our

tongues and the tips of other tongues, other

tongues on the tips of our tongues, the tip of

the beloved’s tongue all there was, all there

ever

was, any-

way

•

We lay absorbed in our moment, absorbed in

our time, what but moment’s gnosis none of us

could say. We lay in a ditch after the bus rolled

over

it seemed. Not all was well in the world of

tone but the imaginal sound surfeit got us thru.

The underwater sense persisted, floating gar-

ments a kind of canopy blocking the sun ... The

boun-

ty of limbs and torsos all incumbency, our hea-

ven had been on earth, as had our hell. The sunken

boat our bus had become was my body I felt,

ra-

diated muscle gone fibrotic in my hip and thigh.

The boon bodies were remained evident no mat-

ter, a kind of self-evident, such the matter only

with

mine ... What light came thru showed backs,

lower backs and buttocks I was made helpless by,

an otherwise invisible order I heard or I’d heard

word

of. What one saw one saw refracted, light bent at

an angle a kind of lever, leverage what one needed

getting by. We were back in the school of oud was

all

it was, the oud’s back the hull of a ship. Thus

the beloved’s lips’ tutorial, all only so much accru-

ing to the none, a nonce or an anodyne deliver-

ance, rescue what proffer again ... A proxy God we

gave

the name Go Head had our backs, wayfare for-

ever though we might or most likely would, it was

all one to us whether one or the other, womanly

manly allure throughout the premises, water’s re-

turn to itself. We had gone back to primary form,

form assuming the shape of its retention, when and

were

there such, each, every and all. That or it was all

in my mind or mostly, Brown vs. Bardo again,

a dream such as the frog dream, a dream or a drifting

off, all the green gone blue before I knew it ... The

truth

was our bus remained upright and we whizzed along,

15-501 and 101, Lone Coast and Low Forest, the

ride, I wanted to say, of my life. All was accruing to

the

none as we rode, the school of the oud’s back our

school of the wrought belly, Eleanoir and Huff a grade

or degree thereof, never not without a sexual aspect,

wet-

ness and waft where their legs met, we the would-

be fools it took to learn. A school of the duck’s back it

also was, love’s or the beloved’s tutelage not to be

lost, water’s first rolling away a dare to behold, all only

much bluff. We were of the order of the dry feather,

don’t-care acolytes. “Tear it up,” we were time and

again heard to say ... “Not since,” I wanted to say but

not

since what wasn’t evident yet. Tree after tree went

by outside my window, green back to green again.

“Not since Andreannette’s maidenly look wearing a

pea

coat” came out at last, muse or madonna come into

counterpoint with the carcass on the side of the road,

the muse or madonna thumbing a ride. There was

some-

thing it wanted to say about ride or to say using ride,

something like we’d ride out the wretchedness of Nur,

something like we’d survive, that Go Head don’t like

ugly

for long ... It had to do with a call or a calm come

from beyond or behind visible extent. It wanted to say

keep speaking thru love’s irrelevant lips, to and with the

beloved’s irrelevant tongue, to and upon the tip of the

be-

loved’s tongue. It was saying late love saw one thru,

would see us thru. It spoke of repossession by spirals, a late

word for spirit, it said, having-to-do-with a late word too.

rode along, riding along. We gazed out our windows,

we looked out at Low Forest, so much of which we could

not

see

________________

A lever let it be or let us call it, we resolved,

the eventual pneumatic exit a kind of incline.

The boat of longing lifted our hands up over

our

heads, the clothes we wore stripped away,

floating above us. “Naked as jaybirds,” the

voiceover said. It felt good to be birds again ...

Our

dream was to be longer with our strained ekphras-

tic state, the seen so digested imaginal sound

upended heaven, carcass reverb audited for days ...

was extolling the muse memory could be, the bits

of it riding the breeze a distended epic, dislocated

this, dislocated that ramified forever, no such it as

only

once or

one

Source: Poetry (November 2019)