Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth

by Yusef Komunyakaa

  & kelp, filled with forbearance

  & a silent singing bitten in half,

  In a holy world of mouths

  Speaking watery reprieves

  In needful hush, down where

  His first breath was an open wound.

  INFIDELITY

  Zeus always introduces himself

  As one who needs stitching

  Back together with kisses.

  Like a rock star in leather

  & sapphires—conflagration

  & a trick of silk falling

  Between lost chances & never

  Again. His disguises are almost

  Mathematical, as Io & Europa

  Pass from their dreams into his.

  This lord of storm clouds

  Is also a sun god crooning desire

  & dalliance in a garden of nymphs.

  Some days, he loves gloxinia,

  & others, craves garlic blooms—

  Hera, Aegina, & Callisto in the same song.

  UKIYO-E

  We turn away from the flesh

  On paper, but find ourselves

  Praising the flow of feudal silk

  & rice powder, as a samurai’s gaze

  Unfastens a windfall of blossoms

  In some house of assignation

  The other side of Hiroshige’s forecast

  Of slanted black rain. Somehow,

  We face Utamaro’s hairy ape

  Who brandishes his penis

  Like an untutored sword

  At a pale maiden against indigo.

  The two are brushed into a tussle

  Of fire with water, a fury of silk

  In a floating world, a season

  Of flowered branches breaking.

  AMBER

  The eyedropper of holy water

  Didn’t do the job. Night & day

  He’s been hunched over his microscope

  After tweezering the extinct beetle

  From resin. Holding up the tube

  To glassy light that weighs less

  Than fear, he knows a sneeze could destroy

  His work. He’s sure the millennial wings

  Would blink open & stir

  If he could find a half teaspoon

  Of birth water. He can almost see

  The hand that wore the Etruscan

  Ring. Beneath the magnified glow

  A touch of anger illuminates

  A shadow. He tilts it right

  & left, & the beetle swells.

  ODE TO DUST

  It speaks when the anonymous

  Tongue of each feather & leaf

  Quivers, swearing that nothing’s changed

  As we touch tables & lampshades.

  We breathe it in as if something

  Is always beginning beneath the ruins

  & perennials, mending skin under

  The surface. Even the slow patina

  Of the quietest lesson takes hold

  Of Gudea’s Architectural Plans,

  Working while we sleep.

  As if conjured by regret,

  It lives on the imagination

  Of all-night ghosts, like the worm

  Brought forth from the feminine

  Temples of wood & apple.

  BODY OF A WOMAN (CADAVERE DI DONNA)

  Here you are, still

  Reposed behind glass

  Like a work of art. Yes,

  Body of precious aloneness,

  There are times I desire you

  In a lover’s arms. Sometimes

  I want you making fierce love,

  With moans like thought bubbles

  Of pleasure forever in Pompeii’s

  Lava & ash. Yet, other nights,

  As Miles Davis plays ballads

  In the background, like tonight,

  There’s only irony: I see

  You’re gazing out toward

  The House of the Faun,

  Waiting for someone.

  REMUS & ROMULUS

  They’re at the eight teats

  Of the Capitoline she-wolf,

  Their naked adoration

  Suspended in a leap

  Of faith. Is she stone

  Or bronze? If we lie

  To ourselves long enough,

  Practice works underneath

  The pattern of this heft

  Till flesh finds a way to rise

  To a level of blame. The boys

  Face each other, & we can see

  Brutus’s plot in the wolf’s

  Vulnerability, in her tarnished

  Stare. Now she’s only primal food

  & sex, their first coup d’état.

  PAN

  Elizabeth, I must say,

  Pan wasn’t raising Cain among the reeds.

  He had taken off his mask,

  & was lying there, puffing ganja,

  Blowing Rasta smoke rings

  & nibbling on a golden mango,

  When he glimpsed three naiads

  Prancing beside the lily pond.

  He rolled over & watched two ants

  Struggle up a Sisyphean incline

  With a moth. Silenus’s brother

  & father, scapegoat & earthly god,

  He felt divided. The nymphs frolicked

  As he played love & panic on his flute

  Till Arcady drifted out of his head,

  & then a whisper opened all the buds.

  EPITHALAMIUM

  We washed away the live perfume

  Of others, removed lush memories

  Of their hands, trying to ignore kisses

  Burning in our mouths, songs

  Left in the inner ear, next

  To a flowering bone. The hills

  Climbed in the midnight blue distance

  Were each other. Paths, detours,

  & inclines dazzled us with mirages,

  Chanced escapes. The city’s roughhousing

  Light-years away; no amount of blood red

  Sirens could tear us apart,

  Not till the blissful damage

  Began to heal. Our beasts, a lion

  & bull, slept side by side, as if born

  To remove the other’s curse.

  THE BUSINESS OF ANGELS

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

  Shook hips like rock stars

  & uprooted. Maybe they stole

  Flight from Nike of Samothrace

  & the altar of Zeus at Pergamum,

  Or modeled after the winged god

  On a silver coin from Peparethus.

  Do you think an angel is nothing

  But an idea grafted to a shadow

  As monsters sprout from foreheads,

  Feathered to muffle sacred blows?

  I don’t remember weighing a stone

  With a blackbird’s broken wing,

  But I know when the question flew

  Into my head I was standing here

  At the kitchen window drying dishes.

  EROS

  He’s on a hammock in Bangkok,

  Eating succulent prawns & squid

  Spiced with red pepper & lemongrass.

  Hesiod’s “Fairest of the deathless

  Gods” can feel the fatigue syndrome

  Loosen its grip in this archipelago

  Of pleasures. He reads a pirated

  Edition of The Plague. At twilight,

  He’ll go to the corner shop

  & buy a jade brooch for Muriel

  Back in Boise. He’ll return

  To Club Limbo. A new counterfeit

  Gift dipped in fire. Eros throws

  A kiss to the teenage prostitute,

  & touches the wad of greenbacks

  Nestled against his groin.

  MAY

  The maypole glistens with pig fat.

  Thousands of mayflies (I call them

  Lovebugs) died the first hours

  Against windshields, headlights,

  Hoods, or su
cked into the grillwork’s

  Wide grin. In humid dusk,

  A sheet of sex hangs & bulbous bees

  Nudge mayflowers till pain runs

  Into pleasure. A bounty of failures

  Swells with timorous maydew & mayblob,

  As if something is loved beyond mercy.

  Maybirds frolic in shambles of dawn

  & ignite mayweed. Sweetheart,

  Can I, may I? Should I stop

  Undoing these seven bone-colored

  Buttons too pretty to look at?

  LUST

  If only he could touch her,

  Her name like an old wish

  In the stopped weather of salt

  On a snail. He longs to be

  Words, juicy as passion fruit

  On her tongue. He’d do anything,

  Dance three days & nights

  To make the most terrible gods

  Rise out of ashes of the yew,

  To step from the naked

  Fray, to be as tender

  As meat imagined off

  The bluegill’s pearlish

  Bones. He longs to be

  An orange, to feel fingernails

  Run a seam through him.

  WHEN DUSK WEIGHS DAYBREAK

  I want Catullus

  In every line, a barb

  The sun plays for good

  Luck. I need to know if iron

  Tastes like laudanum

  Or a woman. I already sense

  What sleeps in the same flesh,

  Ariadne & her half brother

  Caught in the other’s dream.

  I want each question to fit me

  Like a shiny hook, a lure

  In the gullet. What it is

  To look & know how much muscle

  It takes to lift a green slab.

  I need a Son House blues

  To wear out my tongue.

  SHIVA

  He wandered nude out of Eden

  Smiling at spellbound women in trees

  & doorways. A breeze shook

  Incense from leaves. They tore off

  Their clothes, blocked his path,

  & fell in the writhing dust.

  They never knew so many kisses

  Were stored inside their bodies.

  His thick hair smelled of cedar.

  He’d once worn a garland of skulls,

  Dusted himself with funeral ashes,

  & stood beside a river. A sacred tree,

  Dark-skinned, almost African, Supreme

  Lord in person. The wives followed

  This beggar with the erect penis,

  A trembling left in the lilies.

  A SMALL SYSTEM

  The Galápagos finch

  Clutches a cactus thorn

  In her beak. She works

  Fast as a fencing master,

  & we can almost see the brain

  Grow. In a sky of orchids

  Below, she spots a viper

  Tonguing petals—the first

  Desire. Once, what the worm

  Taught us was sacred,

  Serene as the beetle

  Grub the bird now jabs

  With her spear. Finely tuned

  As a red-capped woodpecker,

  She prances like God’s little

  Torquemada on the highest rotten branch.

  HOMUNCULUS

  Van Gogh’s sunflowers blot out

  My sky, while each cat’s-eye burns

  A vigil. The chief alchemist

  Squeezes a dropper of love

  To jump-start my heart. A voice so small

  Only the watchdog hears my magnanimous

  Prayer to carved intaglios. Outside

  This chemical window, salamanders

  & geckos are monsters. A mosquito hawk

  Magnifies into a hang glider.

  A honey-locust thorn

  Sir Lancelot’s javelin.

  My ego, if crystallized, would fit

  Into the eye socket of a hummingbird.

  I may be less than your last thought, but,

  Look, here’s my thimble of gin.

  ECSTATIC

  Joy, use me like a whore.

  Turn me inside out like Donne

  Desired God to do with him.

  Show me some muscle,

  Sunlight on black stone.

  Coldcock me about the head

  Till I moan like a bell, low

  As the one Goya could hear

  Through the walls of

  Quinta del Sordo.

  Tie me up to the stocks those Puritans

  Handled so well in Boston streets.

  Don’t let me down. I beg

  You to use all your know-how

  In one throttle. Please, good God,

  Put everything into your swing.

  SPEED BALL

  Didn’t Chet Baker know

  They’d make a great white hope

  Jump hoops of fire on the edge

  Of midnight gigs that never happened?

  Miles hipped him at the Lighthouse

  About horse, said not to feel guilty

  About DownBeat in ’53. Chet stole

  Gasoline to sniff, doctored with Beiderbecke’s

  Chicago style. But it wasn’t long

  Before he was a toothless lion

  Gazing up at his face like a stranger’s

  Caught by tinted lens & brass. Steel

  Blue stare from Oklahoma whispering for

  “A kind of high that scares everyone

  To death.” Maybe a bop angel, Slim

  Greer, pulled him from that hotel window.

  A FAMOUS GHOST

  I thought happiness my birthright

  & married the bone structure

  In Mother’s dreams, his English

  Impeccable. Though they sift

  My ashes & swear I fought

  The shadows of his lovers,

  I am not Propertius’s Cynthia.

  Where I stand, it is still ’63

  & the flags are at half-mast.

  I never wanted to be famous,

  But couldn’t lift my head off

  The oven door. My last breath

  Stole from his. Fumes slipped

  Down like a prayer to the Cubist

  In the basement. No, I’m not Hostia,

  Though I unlaced a corset of stardust.

  AVARICE

  At six, she chewed off

  The seven porcelain buttons

  From her sister’s christening gown

  & hid them in a Prince Albert can

  On a sill crisscrossing the house

  In the spidery crawl space.

  She’d weigh a peach in her hands

  Till it rotted. At sixteen,

  She gazed at her little brother’s

  June bugs pinned to a sheet of cork.

  Assaying their glimmer, till she

  Buried them beneath a fig tree’s wide,

  Green skirt. Now, twenty-six,

  Locked in the beauty of her bones,

  She counts eight engagement rings

  At least twelve times each day.

  ROLLERBLADES

  Knucklehead spins on a wish & lucky

  Star, dividing the city into hellbent

  Circles, one improvisation to the next

  Double-or-nothing dare. He grabs the bumper

  Of a yellow cab & traverses Central Park,

  Skirring & looping through rings, plugged

  Into the Delfonics & Beastie Boys.

  Zip, skid, & bone spindle …

  Knucklehead hangs inside the bottom half

  Of Odysseus’s dreamt map to a country

  Of lotus-eaters, e-mail, & goof-off.

  Hugging curves beside the thieves of his image,

  He ducks into a labyrinth of close

  Calls. Their eyes collide. Knucklehead

  Pivots, as if the four wheels of each blade

  Could guillotine an appariti
on’s last effigy.

  MONKEY WRENCH

  Balled into a cocked fist, sure

  As a hammerlock, the pipe’s cracked sleeve

  Is sealed in corrosion. Elbow

  Grease, leverage, anger, & oil,

  Nothing works. The vise grip

  Opens an icy mouth, dribbling

  Rusty sighs. I almost give up, before

  I see the wrench propped near a blowtorch

  Beside the washing machine, inside my head

  Like an abused blessing, awaiting the promise

  & caress of an oily rag. I lie on my back

  Beneath the house, among broken Nehi bottles,

  Dog hair, & insect wings, as if the forces

  Have been hard at work on a piecemeal angel.

  Full of Christmas cake & eggnog, I squint up

  At clandestine eyes in a loom of spiderwebs.

  MEDITATIONS ON A FILE

  I weigh you, a minute in each hand,

  With the sun & a woman’s perfume

  In my senses, a need to smooth

  Everything down. You belong

  To a dead man, made to fit

  A keyhole of metal to search

  For light, to rasp burrs off

  In slivers thin as hair, true

  Only to slanted grooves cut

  Across your tempered spine.

  I’d laugh when my father said

  Rat-tail. Now, slim as hope

  & solid as remorse

  In your red mausoleum,

  Whenever I touch you

  I crave something hard.

  THE GOD OF LAND MINES

  He sits on a royal purple cushion

  Like a titanic egg. Dogs whimper

  & drag themselves on all fours through dirt

  When a breeze stirs his sweet perfume.

  He looks like a legless, armless

  Humpty-Dumpty, & if someone waves

  A photo of an amputee outside the Imperial

  Palace in Hue, he’d never blink.

  When he thinks doors, they swing open.

  When dust gushes on the horizon

  His face is a mouthless smile.

  He can’t stop loving steel.

  He’s oblong & smooth as a watermelon.

  The contracts arrive already signed.

  Lately, he feels like seeds in a jar,

  Swollen with something missing.