Song of the Andoumboulou: 138

Anuncio drifted in a well of sound, unlay’s

ward, late orphan, a wry erotics had its

way. He called himself Antonio now, Ahdja

having

joined our group... Dunelike hip and thigh

he stipulated, the desert he insisted we see. We

understood there was occult stuff going on

un-

derneath, telling ourselves get used to it,

close to the bone so close it lay inside, the

closer walk we all went on about... We

were in Port of Spain thinking about India,

bored

outside the Red House, shimmering side

street, pan exactitude bruited elsewhere, pan’s

light water, floating light. The light hung as

though

it were buffed, embroidered, sound’s amanuensis,

griff... There they were at the well again, the

we he’d been told would be there, whatsaid

en-

semble the air disinterred, hit by affliction

in each their own way, beset by some other

where there might’ve been, beset by some other

when there might’ve been, beset by some nether

light...

If not bodily light’s late day there was nothing,

the not-all-there there’d always been come into

its own. Wind affliction was all, all there was,

rent,

a mere liplike wrinkle at least. “Back when we

were alive,” it said... Literal sigil. Sage regret.

A way of looking. Something we saw. “Sealed

lips

wheeled in the air,” we translated it. The point

was

to look past it we

saw

•

He wanted Ahdja’s poise, Antonio’s aplomb,

namesake demur, name notwithstanding. So it

was he blinked and his eyes bled, wry erotics’

haunched interstice bloodstruck, never again

be-

fit, Mr. In-Between... A kaiso chorale, we sang

“Namaste,” a voice inside the voice inside the

box, tongue in cheek, box buried somewhere

east...

It wasn’t singing we were there for, chant

though we did sotto voce, an agonized aplomb of

some sort... An Ibibio go-head we each turned

into, not meaning to... Go-heads one and all we

were,

snide choir... To sing wasn’t why we were there...

What it was was names tore loose, took wing, what

world had been ours theirs now, sound itself,

A-

nuncio’s well’s regress... So that what we sought

was more tone, mock sonance, science an a-

malgam of huh, wuh, huh, knowing’s new toll,

wuh

huh... We were where the songs had been beckon-

ing from. This was as it always was. This was

always it no matter what it was. All the things it

was

lay nameless. Roots drew loose with no tonic,

it whether or not it was... An aroused incumbency

surrounded us, unlay’s fallaway terrain’s intan-

gibility, Antonio’s adjunct address. We were down

the it of it it seemed... Was it the shimmer of last

things we wondered, queasiness come and gone

come again. There the very it so what it was our knees

gave,

so close we could taste it, nonce elixir, lapse, ellipse...

All of which Ahdja made light of, unsure what of it

fit or if any of it fit. “You can’t come on with all

that

new-name talk, that no-name stuff. All that evac-

uation stuff,” she said, “gets old, got old,” as Antonio

carried on, kept on, Anuncio to some of us, even

so...

All as if the quality of standing there shifted, a new

cast

of soul come

down

•

Some common body to adduce it would some-

day come to. We stood on the dock, white

clouds, blue sky all around, spiked Antillean

salt

in the air. Big ships loomed as we talked...

Each of us with our well of sound, a sense of

quest and of brute inconsequence, Anuncio’s

mys-

tic pretense. “Promises, promises,” we said suck-

ing our teeth, said sucking wind thru the gaps

between our teeth, a taunt song serenading Mr.

In-

Between... We stood looking out, disconsolate,

nothing if not words for recompense, what if not

words none of us knew. Words more whistle

than words we admonished, Anuncio going on

bout Antonio and Ahdja, the he and she of

lore they’d have been had they been able, each

the other’s butterfly twin... Each the other’s

but-

terfly friend if not all that, paperweight, open,

flown. Second-, third-, nth-hand innuendo all

there was, word more whistle, mere whistle we

let

loose, echo degree zero, choric sough... Black

wheeze, occult burr, we susurrated. “Este mundo

tan extraño,” she intoned, we as well. Ahdja

was

meat and bones on the spirit of place he con-

vinced us existed, an impromptu polity exhumed...

The feeling we were futureless went away. Wuh

huh

went as

well

•

An inwardly repeated tableau. We sat on the

dock, reluctant witnesses it seemed, more

story to the story than we could see. What

thought real got a gossamer look, soon to

tear thru it seemed. Lytic remit what we’d

been told was real, brute reconnoiter, non-

sonant lament it seemed... There we stood,

toll-

ing bone in the air, no tone. Huff called it

skeletone. There we sat though we stood,

stood though we sat, stark Trinidadian light

new life, shoal of an earlier life... I wanted

Anuncio’s ythmic pivot, Ahdja’s mystic sa-

shay, Antonio’s pirate swag rolled into one

but

no one was asking me. No one was noticing

anything, I thought, the difference Ahdja made

no matter, an order of self-containment ob-

tained. So I thought or would’ve said I thought

had

anyone asked. No one did, said or saw... An

illusion of place or an allusion to it, Mu was

all there was, unmoored abstract integument,

im-

manent commemorative lament. Something

known as la-la crowded my throat, clung to

the roof of my mouth. La-la meant I loved it,

torn

but tucked away, the versionary company of

love I’d fallen in with, first unfallen fallen, unre-

formed... No time soon will I be done with it

I thought. La-la mentored my disarray. No way

can

I be done with it I thought, Ahdja and Antonio

Anuncio’s boon constituency, each the other’s

go-head eminence, each the other’s glancing

re-

lay... Late that day we sat in a small boat on the

other side of the island. Scarlet ibises got their

color eating shrimp Ahdja pointed out. Anuncio,

not

knowing what to say, said, “So my heart...” Mu

was not knowing. Mu meant shutting up. Mu was

me and Ahdja, Mr. and Ms. In-Between. Mu

meant no filler. “Promises, promises” resounded

all

day... Something we saw in Ahdja’s face wanted

out it seemed. She was the one we had by not

having lore had it, love’s adamant outskirts, love’s

dog-

matic heart. I made untimeliness a foregone future,

something-seen-in-a-face a new order to restore. I

saw gold where there maybe wasn’t, beer cans lined

the rail we leaned against, aught if not imagined im-

pact, we the presumption of one... A long sus-

tention of hum it came down to, Om the Vedic nu

reminisced, Om the seed-syllabic gist and embel-

lishment, Om the intuitist Mu. “Greek to me,”

each of us admitted, thrum we were ambushed by,

glum subterranean drone strung under it, mosquito

buzz

athwart it

all

________________

I dreamt I died and I went into an isolation

booth, a quiz box I dug my breath up in. “Please

call me Antonio,” I whispered, head against

the

hardness of the bone beneath her breast, an

anacrustic psalm, a new “Dearly Beloved.”

What to say but there was nothing to, wag as

much

we might... Something of which we had a name

if nothing else. Something for which we had

the name if nothing else. Something for which

had a name if nothing else. Something of which

had the name if nothing

else

________________

Accompaniment called out to me in dreams

I woke wincing from. In its grip, in the

giving of it something new came out, a new

and

old something the thought of which made

me weep, the very thought of it I thought I

knew... But who really knew I wondered,

wind-

ing back down, again feeling futureless, further-

on’s would-be walk no new accompaniment,

argu-

ment’s rhyme and

regret

Source: Poetry (June 2014)