From Double Trio
By Nathaniel Mackey
“Out of Body” (2015), by Tschabalala Self. Oil and fabric on canvas, 72 x 60 inches. Courtesy of Thierry Goldberg Gallery New York
Song of the Andoumboulou: 214
It was after the rain with no rainbow. The
rainbow dried up, wept before it went,
white grievance had hold of it we heard.
We
weren’t traveling, we were being chased
it turned out, the bullet holes in Amadou’s
body come back to instruct us, Andrean-
nette’s inconsolate kiss. We ran amending
our
slave state sutra, endlessly extended it
seemed… The little books we had were all
we had, little books we made pressing
our tongues to the backs of our teeth. What
was
timbre, we wanted to know, was it grain
or the grate burning wood fell thru, the catas-
trophe we knew could come at last come.
We
winged it as we could, watched our votes
float away, paper hats blown off to sea…
Nub whose we would not be ours arrayed it-
self, say what we would against it no matter,
say
what we did, it adored itself. Mr. Hot Pot’s
heavenly glance atop his body had gotten
out of hand, Andreannette’s body its antidote
we thought but Andreannette’s gloom lay like
lead.
We knew no alchemy we knew, the way it lay,
stood a chance, all the weight put on us pathe-
tic, the band we’d be, everyone’s wanting the
want-
ing we’d pipe, some sub-equatorial squall’s
humid poultice, exuviae caught in the wood we
blew… “Sonance, be our boon,” we piped.
We
were Papuan Udhrite birds, whence we took
the names of our belovéds. We were lovers
taking ourselves as precedent, hostages to
qual-
ification though we were, sex-polis, apostol-
ic redoubt. Remembering the night I fell in love
with Imas Permas, I piped loudly announcing
my
name was hers. Our weeping surroundings
were the polis we brooded on, red-eyed sojour-
ners that we were, secret cargo, immune to
the
enveloping
lash
•
The scent of the beloved said to encumber
the tongue, the tongue’s blue bewilderment
song we’d been taught, the school of who
when
loving die. Love but only begun, we’d
been taught, barely begun, the book of its
bare beginning our book were there a book,
the book of the would-be our book… Book
meant
more than calculable, the lovers’ bare recum-
bence naked beyond quantity, ordinance’s fig-
ures’ forfeiture, ordinance’s numbers’ retreat.
The
beloved’s bodily waft what respite impelled
us, we the band we were, we the band we’d be,
everyone’s wanting our wanting. Naked recum-
bence all we knew, naked recumbence all side
and
sly pondering, the slide of what would but be…
The scent of the beloved said to waylay the
tongue, talk though we would in some erstwhile
man-
ner, the reed’s lament never not audible, listen
to the reed as we would. The reed wrote a letter
we heard. What we’d hear was the letter the reed
wrote, the scent of the reed’s opening the scent of
the
beloved, burnt opening intimate with lip, spit, eye
tooth, burnt, odorous opening blown across. The
reed’s burnt opening smelled of breath we heard
or
would hear, spit soaked into it we’d smell we heard
or would hear, reed of the beloved’s departure,
reed
of the beloved’s
kiss
•
We stood wondering what explained the comb-
over. What was love, what was meaning, what
was breath, we were asking, now that Nub had
made
up its mind. We were the lovers we not yet were,
the lovers we serenaded. We would not soon be
done with them we knew nor would their like
soon
come again… “We the pipers rub Nub the wrong
way,” we announced, “we who went to school
at Djamil’s knee. Love’s low eminences, we among
the
rushes, recumbence all we know, we of the Udh-
rite school.” Letter less than edict, so read our reeds’
decree. We drank beer brewed with polar ice melt,
we
the dead who died of love’s inconsequence. Wave
were it particular, water had it been thirst, Nub whose
bread would be the bread of sorrow someday, Nub
so without soul we staggered back. A prepared place it
was
loomed on high, an Osirian recumbence we were in…
Angered by the comb-over’s rise, we stood wonder-
ing, recumbence not as yet sex-polis, sex-polis not as yet
hope’s
remand. All it was was a flap of hair hiding something,
all it was was tit for tat. We played on as we always
had. My new name Imas burred my intonation, a don’t-let-
me-break-down sound I took toward bliss, the reed a bit
whose
horse I was. The reed’s letter was its parlay-cheval-ou, the
reed’s complaint its tell-my-horse, the reed I bit down
on and blew, the reed we all bit on and blew, overghost as
we
always had… I remembered the night I fell in love with
Imas again, a reed among the rushes, one among many,
the band in which each was all as well as one, each with
our
sweetest remembrance gone bittersweet, an anxious taste
on our tongues. We were marching now. I lugged my
bad leg, its hitch gave us ythm, deep ourkestral heave and
misgiving. Legba strode with us we knew. Imas’s voice
flut-
tered like a candle flame caught in a draft, what world
was left a ball of dirt we strode across… As Majnoun
had lain eyes on Leila, my ears heard Imas’s voice, a
hoo-
poe with clipped wings it seemed. The night I fell she
took me to Java, another Java music made of the one
where she lived. The way she sang had a straining way to
it.
We buttered our bread with suspect butter, ate raw meat
we were told had been cooked, lied to about the simplest
things. There was a gunmetal taste on our tongues, a feeling
for
bullets and what was to come… Oyo Suwardi’s reed
worried mine, the suling’s lament unignorable, the suling’s
weeping-daughter complaint. We were in the Moving
Star Hall, unbeknownst. We were in the Moving Star Hall,
dis-
posable earth at our feet. We were in the Moving Star Hall,
overghost… Even so, I fell. Even so, fell hard. It was
the night I fell all over again. Even so, I was alright with it,
al-
right with not being alright, beginning to leave myself, as
we all were, apart from ourselves, overghost. What would
Nub’s next move be we wondered, caroling light, light not
oth-
erwise to be had… Light not otherwise to be heard, we
piped on, live in the Field of Reeds, live on the Plain of
Quill, a feathered sprawl’s excursion, gravelly word coax-
ing gravelly word. A lipless face suddenly loomed, moonlike,
sang
with its eyes it seemed. We buttered our bread with suspect
butter again, laughed at the infernal comedy it was, we
let the reeds have their say. They wanted to say the world was
wrong, the world we built the world built on our backs, and
they
said it, wanted to say it might be made right… It was that part
caught them up, caught them out, hope with its hand out
again. Overghost all of us, more than we could say, side-eye
and
shade’s do-
main
____________________
The scent of the beloved said to encumber
the tongue, the tongue’s blue bewilderment
song we’d been taught, the school of who
when
loving die. Love but only begun, we’d
been taught, barely begun, the book of its
bare beginning our book were there a book,
the book of the would-be our book… Book
meant
more than calculable, the lovers’ bare recum-
bence naked beyond quantity, ordinance’s fig-
ures’ forfeiture, ordinance’s numbers’ retreat.
The
beloved’s bodily waft what respite impelled
us, we the band we were, we the band we’d be,
every-
one’s wanting our want-
ing
____________________
Nostrils wide with the scent of the beloved,
Mr. Hot Pot beheld Andreannette’s approach. His
eyes lit on the ground in front of her, her
feet,
her ankletted ankles, her calves. All-out
wonder between her knees and waist as his
eyes moved upward, love’s own suzerainty it
seemed… Bodies were parts of bodies, parts
of
bodies the realm again. He remembered the
feel of her sphincter tensing around his finger,
she the same, his tightening around hers, love’s
empy-
rean body’s bodily
fate
____________________
Still, they fed us fish with hard potatoes,
shrimp so tiny they were brown we were
told. We scattered, crawling out and away.
It
was Nub wanting its face back, no other
way could we read it, up to any torment,
fit sonance permitting… Some same story
was
on again, played out again and again…
Tell-my-voice took issue with tell-my-horse…
“Look at what time does,” we were saying,
sad,
looking down at our-
selves
Brother B’s Rumpstruck Recital
—“mu” one hundred ninety-fifth part—
Barred at the gate where the music went,
no time soon would he be done with it he
knew but went on pretending, what would
nev-
er, he was loath to admit, be made right,
marred copy of what was true. We scratched
our heads looking at him scratching his,
sat making what of it we could. Was it over
now,
we asked him, could he let go, let it go, be
done with it, move on. He said he’d long since
cut it loose but no way, we knew, could that
be
so… The tumbling out of it the it of it, the it
of it going on. Was it love or the love song he
cut loose but couldn’t cut loose we wondered,
an-
other Anuncio in love with the sound or the
song of it, barred entry but entranced. We wanted
to know was it a state he would give it up for, some
just and adjoined array of others wanting voice, the
we
our cresting récit mused and made mention of,
the we he’d make real we hoped… Crepuscule
and candomblé wrought the we we sorted, what
would not, least of all, turn out to’ve been govern-
able, his to have exacted, his to have inspired, all
our
bumped imbroglio made worthwhile. Brother B
had been speaking to that effect. Telephone poles
whizzed by the dining car window as he let out a
cry,
convinced it would all be ours now, caught up in
the cry and the calculi behind it, the new next aim
our train sped toward. It was now, we knew, a train
we
were on… This was in the distant past and only a mi-
nute ago. He sat holding forth in the dining car as
we sat holding forth, the car a car the train long since
no
longer had. So what were we we wanted to know
and where and how so, the he we projected having
something of an answer, his the we we badly wanted
back. We were nothing if not of the moment, alive to
it
declaring itself. Brother B was Mr. Hot Pot now. He
wrote as though he wrote the reed’s letter. No mention
made of his own low member, no mentioning the stiff
bou-
quet emanating from it, he wrote in praise of Andrean
nette’s nether lips. He wrote extolling her low beard’s
accelerant musk, all of it a dream of some kind he awoke
from
sweating, nakedness newly doomed he thought… He
was truly Mr. Hot Pot now. He wrote as though he wrote
the reed’s letter, his dream a dream of Andreannette’s
jel-
ly. It was, he wrote, the world’s one respite, the world
old and mean, set in its ways. All this on a train that
had been a bus that had been a car that had been a house,
a
rant and a holding forth it was all we could do not to
rat-
ify
____________________
“I said some things it felt like life had wrung out
of me,” Brother B announced, back to himself,
back to being someone we knew or we thought
we
knew, at home with him and him at home with
us. Founding a new religion wasn’t what he in-
tended, sound as though it was though he did. A
First
Church of Jelly it might’ve been had he been
intending it, a new and old gospel of Andrean-
nette’s perfume, waft he’d lain waylaid by… It
was
all an immaculate odor, no scent but the sound
of it, a run he went off on, what always and anon
would lie underneath. “Up from under,” he whis-
pered, “I need bottom,” something else life wrung
out
of him we took it, the train approaching a tunnel,
the train going into the tunnel, the train coming out of
the
other
side
____________________
Something seen in a face we’d long been
chorusing. Something seen in Andreannette’s
behind he now held forth about, of late come
to
ask was that all it was… “Tail,” he not so
much announced as expelled, spat as he ex-
tolled it, Udhrite mince and remit. It was on-
ly a word, a word he threw down, only as if to
say,
“Deal with it”… A rumpstruck recital was
what it was, all it was. At odds with himself
we’d have said of him, himself caught in his
wan-
dering eye, caught looking, wondering where
else
it might
rest
Song of the Andoumboulou: 216
We sought refuge, decapitism at us wher-
ever we looked. They were starting the next
war, they were stealing the sky’s ozone, it
must-
’ve been we were in Rum. It must’ve been
we were in Mur, more and more talk of a
wall going up, more and more moving back-
wards, Crater more and more dug in… Sister
C
looked in of a sudden. She wanted to know
what was on the box. We lived on a bub-
ble of sound, not to be messed with. The box,
we
said, had gone out to sea. The box had been
ours we thought but wasn’t, this or that intuitive
book our box we thought, sweet reason itself
we
thought… Crater was calling itself Cradle,
words now words’ collapse. We were all the
more the Udhrite phalanx we’d be. To speak
as
with a new tongue we were seeking, tongue tip
to tongue tip, tongues up on each other, the
new tongue a double tongue it seemed. That the
word
be on itself and be one with itself, tongue met
demanding tongue. A slow, lingering kiss was all
we had could we have been said to have that,
spoken for already, inimical words put on our lips,
all
with, at the end, “what I’m talking about”… A
fickle sonance announced as much could we
have heard it, a leak or a trickle of sound from
far away, Neptune some would say, some would
say
Jupiter… Space was our claim to kinship… Static
mussed our radio… Compensative light lit our
way
that was no
way
•
(trill)
I dreamed we lay savoring the small mercy love
was, Andreannette and I down to it at last. It
was a dream we all had, Sister C and the women
in-
cluded, a dream not having to do with whose
body had or didn’t have what. Andreannette might
have been André, Andreannette might’ve been
An-
nette. Andreannette might’ve been Ornette,
Andreannette might have been Andrea… We lay
in flight from whose body had what, sex-polis
ta-
ken over by haystack and wind, straw in every-
one’s hair, straw on everyone’s clothes. We
were on this or that electrical contrivance. They
were
saying something about an erectile college. Slav-
ery lived on some said… A closer look took us deep
into Nur, backwardswalking Nub’s new low, new
limbo, our reaction to which again was to run. We lay
run-
ning, rabbits come after with shotguns and boots. We
lay regaled, sprawl’s rendezvous with sprint our
restitution, she of the rumpled pea coat, me of the let-
terman’s jacket, dream silliness, ruse, regret… All
bets,
it wanted to say, were off, armor the way of the
world we were in, the two of us in bed fully dressed.
We lay still, moving thru the world at our leisure,
run’s
quintessence abstract it seemed. A music made
of squiggles massaged us, the-box-not-having-left
was back. We lay in our clothes knowing what lay
un-
derneath, who had what no concern. Grab was now the
name we knew Nur by, not no matter we lay with-
out hands having none of it but its foil, hands dipped
in
freezing water, ritual ablution we abjured it with…
We lay unhanded, we lay in flight from Grab and
Grope, Nur’s twin principalities. “We lie choked in
our
tuxedoes,” I blurted out, unclear why, unclear what
it meant. “We lie choked in our tuxedoes,” Andrean-
nette blurted out in turn. Why were we in this place,
we
wondered, prone to say who knew what, tongues’ au-
tonomy law. “We lie choked in our tuxedoes,” we
repeated again and again… We were in the palace of
the
pea coat, housed under Andreannette’s ex’s drab
cover. Their two cats were in the sun room basking, a
domestic scene long since exploded she clung to,
all of it come to nothing, all as if it never happened, all
of
it wracked and repeating nothing ever was. “Leave it
all to them, this ball of dirt,” we were now saying,
“the Nurians, give them their fill”… We imagined a we
be-
yond all calculation, the billowing pea coat a tent we
congregated under, reckoning love’s more-than-one.
We opted out, no matter in’s illusory offer, the it of it
ex-
punged, an it outside its proffer possible we thought, an
it whose it we lay in whose umbra. “Give it a don’t-care
damn,” we were saying now, “kiss it away,” knowing
why,
knowing what we meant… We opted out, no get, no
grapple. We were knowing it would be alright, not being
al-
right would be
alright
____________________
Camarón sat us down as we wondered what
next. That the box floated away told our des-
pair, hearts broken by politics again. Nub’s
face-
lift had fallen, Nub’s facelift had never
been. We heard a hammering in our heads
and we wanted to hear more. We were post-
post-something it said, it wasn’t clear what the
some-
thing was… Comb-over was all scrape, scratch,
claw, post-face itself, pure post-. Bits of straw stuck
to our hair were bits of sound. We leaned on this
or
that eked-out sonance, the surge of one or an-
other more than we could hope for, mercy’s wards
again, mendicants again. Camarón’s voice was
all strafe, a stray corona, sunspots pocking the air it
car-
ried, came
thru
____________________
How could it have happened we milled around
gasping. How could hair look so much like hay
we were asking, how could white be such a bright
or-
ange… We trudged up a foothill, workers leav-
ing work, voices caught in the ground audible
again, attenuated wide-mouth sound roofed in
stat-
ic, sonority domed in static, hollow inside. How
could the options they were calling history be so
dread we were asking, the it of it against its ythm
no
contest, the myth of it the real of choice… We
trudged up a field of dry brush, our stomachs taken
out
it felt .
like