Quincy Troupe

POEM IN SEARCHOF A COMMON GENETIC
BORDERS: improvisations on a theme

I.
between the sweetness of beginnings-as in a rush of passion
when two lovers exchange tongues in a greeting of new language
inside the furnace of their mouths, between lips
after the heat of their desires have first touched-
& the creaking slowdown of endings-as when brakes are applied to
worn-down race cars at the end of the 50o-mile indianapolis speed chase
there are moments when time moves as an oscillator
between parameters, between fields of light & darkness
when the pendulum sometimes is a glittering sharp blade swinging
back & forth under some leering streetlight
or a huge wrecking ball smashing the chest of an old buildingon
the other hand,
it could be what ears know when they hear seconds tick tocking
that tempo is a locator of movement, as when words arc themselves across
time & space to describe curved backs of sweet women straddling the flow
of a lover's deep stroking when love comes down
in the secret soft places of an all-embracing night

where the music of the moment creates
rhythms washing wave after wave over fused flesh
wet & slippery as eels
swimming downstream in the ebb & flow of currents
like the soloing of a bright bird flying called miles dewey davis the third

expression comes together to soar inside interlocking cultures
as fusion explodes xenophobia into crossfertilizations
as when words slip slyly into composition of poetry as jazz notes
become elements of surprise here-in their dancing
as when feet tap music across dance floors in a response to syncopation

answering the call of antiphonal cadences
as in the way soukas singers slide their voices
into rapture, enter the shifting music by way of backdoor vibrations
as if inside a seancelike trance, inside a high state of improvisation
the body-voice lifting itself up to curl
into worship as heartbeat
as the song of ancestors echoing inside the drumroll of the call
voices of ancestors echoing inside drumrolls of the call
inside a hemorrhaging of 911 wails of isolation

2.
we enter the language of poetry in the same way we enter music:
through rhythms of imagination, we are pulled toward doors
to walk through in cadence, in time with something we know or hear
clearly & recognize as something familiar, or unfamiliar bur compelling
anyway, the need to go forward & give ourselves over to
the mystery of communication there, choices
sounds tumbling over each other pull our ears into the art
of listening & knowing what
we hear is meaning, anchored to some geographic or linguistic soil
we move toward sound sculpture, slide down slopes of syllables
words flying away like notes or chords in a final cadenza
dancing into rapture
& it is here that we lift up colors & objects
we shape with our tongues inside the caves of our spirits
(like the opening & closing of mouths of beached or robust fish swimming
like graceful birds through liquid flow of underwater currents
is a hint of how long the mystery of breath will last)
inside this oobop-shebop moment of wah-wah rhythm' n'
blues & jazz, syllables broken off & chewed up in accents
in a melange of jambalaya tongues circling our to hoodoo
the language, recreating itself daily as it sashays down
american highways imitating the hum of didgeridoos
the circular breathing of john coltrane
the bombing electric guitar runs of jimi hendrix

3.
the possibility of beauty as an extension of the spirit of language
the ebb & flow of music connected to antiphony as a doorway to magic
woven throughout textures of what we bring to the table of communication
as voices interlocked within cultures of syncopated hip to pelvicmovement
recognize rapture far deeper than divinity of stone feet anchored to floors
& see in the glory of a river of butterflies that can summon up mystery
a holiness more profound than the simple acquisition of money
& see an invocation of healing being conjured up there, a dusk song of spring
winds softer than the balm of a lover's sweet tongue-thick & marmaladed
it swells its deepening language of juju probing ecstasy where
we enter the rapture as magicians, ears picking up faint calls of balafons
floating mysterious as a cloud of white broken-winged feathers over
a long highway full of carwrecks that is a metaphor for history

4.
the concept of narrowness can be a set-in-stone old maid, a constant
reminder-view-that the jumping-off point for an olympic platform div.,e
is a skinny little board propelling a diver up into space
before falling into a sanitized pool of water, the verdict of judges passing
or condemning the diver's effort-at best, a subjective vote, a feeling
one has for the purity & grace of line & shape plunging before themthis
or that-is based on what one remembers
being taught was beautiful, refined even, as form approaches
in some precise singular way, the act of regurgitating cloned memory
what one has become used to as defined by some culturally biased etiquette
a reminder of the old ways, perhaps, the shape & form of why
things were done in a certain way-this pile of shit versus that pile
of doodoo-a sonnet up against free verse, black as opposed to white,
europeans against all unwashed masses, otherness versus civility,
jazz up against classical music-stylized european folk music, reallyballet
or african free-form dance, blues up against country & western
bluegrass as opposed to rhythm' n' blues, white rock versus funk
& rap, postmodern against beatnik, improvisation
against notated forms, white militias against everybody else

raising the flag for patriotism, against anything & everything
located outside the hip pocket of do you read me now righteousness
the english language versus the american mongrel way
of speaking, the european brass shout against the low juju
of a didgeridoo snaking its voice along damp dirt floors

5.
& sound can be an arbitrary line drawn somewhere
as a border in the sand of a closed mind, separates
perhaps
what is human from that considered different
other, perhaps, evokes a razor slash that rips across the map of a throat
indicates a border dividing life from death in sarajevo
rwanda, is a moment, perhaps, when the heart becomes a torture chamber
of fear, a cave full of dark memories echoing the sight of severed ears
& the legislation of the imagination there complete
in the name of progress,
where croaking fat toads seated in governments gather
in their reeking latrines called parliamentary chambers
pontificate the waythe world is
greasy as oil slicks
their words spinning around lubricated blades of hovering helicopters
like clouds of feathers of seagulls or crows, their benefactors
strutting below like so many blustering buzzards

rinsed in white-beneath a full moon surrounding a cross burning
at midnight-all dressed & wobbling to a fools' ball
like wet drunken penguins tracking webprints across sands
of the world that are washed away by incoming tides like their words
swallowed up in the howling wind-blown throat of an avenging god
who never took their deceitful squawking seriously anyway
nor their two-timing priests, all dressed in robes of gold & white
jeweled amulets hanging from their fat wrinkled necks, glitter
like malice, bright edges in the night, after light glances off them
ignites a spark that blazes like cold intent

flashing like a razor in the eyes of some jack the ripper
lurking in the dark gloom of premeditation

so where is the distilled history of memory in all of this, where
the wisdom learned from the reasons that took our children away
left them still as stones in faraway places, inside themselves
dazed looks of surprise & incomprehension
masking their once soft faces, hard now as rigor mortis-like our dreams
for them & for ourselves-their mouths sculpted into shapes of a's we see
spread out in a plague of corpses in some isolated or familiar places
womed into dinner hours through constantly blinking idiot tubes complete
with cliche-ridden scripted voice-overs read by plastic grinning puppets
made millionaires & media darlings by puppeteers pulling strings
behind the scenes: are we all lost in some nightmarish
dream, is this the future all our greed bargained for?

skinheads & gin heads rich in hatred for anything that moves
timothy mcveigh in oklahoma city, susan smith in south carolina
jeffrey dahmer in wisconsin & lyle menendez reloading his shotgun
in the city of light & angels & blowing his mother's face completely off
as she lay twitching on the floor from his first shell
& what about the near transection of nicole's long, beautiful neck
her head left dangling like a full-bloomed rose
from a just-cut stem

all them senseless drive-by slaughters in anywhere america everyday
inner city blues, black & brown & yellow red baby blues rapping
saturday night specials spitting venom poisonous as any mamba snake
"natural born killers" on telly tubes for all the little kiddies to see, rock stars
biting off heads of bats, blood drooling down their lips-serum albuminlike
some modern-day for-real bela lugosighoul decked out in some screaming,
graffitied T-shirt, trying to run the death metal down
& the DNA markings of language up in all of this
are words rooted in some particular space of blood utterance
a sound as cultural as washboard scrapings of blues phrased guttural

as a catholic priest delivering the monotone drone of a liturgical mass
sermon in boston, a silky strand of long straight hair as opposed to tight
nappy wrap of lamb's wool curlicues, a gesture, pigmentation of eyes, skin
tones, what composers hear when they dream music under the umbrella
of night, campfires dotting mountains like stars, what they hear
watching sizzling streetlights blinking through the jungle of urban buildings
like a plague, fireflies
swarming around a volcanic summer's night
is where borders arise from, stretch themselves across
landscapes, like invisible walls enclosing somewhere deep
inside an imagination held tight in a locked-up prison cellthis
& that as opposed to this or that-sometimes blocks off
the possibility of renewal from a moment of revelation
as when time switches up & music hears bebop scatting in after swingas
when rap rhythms informed attitudes of modern yin & yang samplings
of everywhim that waltzedin beforeits heat melted the tip of the ice- J
berg of rhetoric, its cadences informing everything, like a runaway
rhyme scheme surfing down information highways with hiphop
inner-city beats, the meaning of words inverted in attitudes
like caps on bobbing heads turned backward
the different ways that words & rhythms flow now
through intersections, crossfertilizing old forms
the way old structures are torn down & new ones rise up
in their places quick as instant movie stars vanish after one big flop
the way visual artists see shape unfolding before windows of blinking
television sets kicked in by some rampaging mules loose
in small rooms filled with priceless china
is where we are now, everything turned around, these days
backward as the caps on heads of pissed-off hiphoppers

6.
& what of crossfertilization of the blood, of gene pools
crosshatching inside wombs of culture, we are what
we are, connected to the veining circuitry carrying through
fire fusing whatever is contemporary with whatever is ancestral

as the merged imagination reconsiders
the beginnings of idolatry shared by global transmissions
short-circuited grieflooping back to feed on runaway egos blown
dead in their tracks by reversed goosesteps of revenge
(it's a game of controlling systems we're always inthough
pooling blood genes frequently wins out over creative intelligencehaikus
against sonnets, sestinas up against rondeaus
villanelles against the blues) though in the end
great poetry wins out every time, everywhere it is
the true song living in the bird's commanding flight brings us back
to wonder, exultation, to miles's sweet secrets brought to life here
through ears when a trumpeting wind moves leaves & flowers to dance
& sing on branches, not like some wired robot purring electric
but blood of crossfertilized music at the root is what will carry
the day, a common language full of words flying like birds
to some secret place we know is there, deep inside, meaning
bonded within the shared recognition of a simple gesture

7.
the funkiness of halitosis & gooey toe jam
after days spent sweating up a storm in old reeboks
is something to consider here when we speak
about what the mind imagines when it considers the sense
of smell, what the eyes see & imprint upon the imagination when
the camera of the retina develops the line & shape of surfers
shooting their bodies through curling waves of the banzai pipeline

in hawaii, where sculptured boards carry surfers skiing over fierce
foaming water-that reminds one of a rabid dog's tongueto
catch a giant wave rather than being white-knuckled down
to some 9-to-5 slave, with some bully boss, with both a bad case
of DT'S & words that are constantly slitting throats

so bright young california boys take to the waves in droves
glide & ride & strut their stuff across the pacific's liquid stage
standing tall or crouching low, they feel the water through feet

riding balsa wood & polyurethane boards to the rhythm of rock' n' roll
guitar licks splashing sounds of dick dale, ride those waves all the way
into glory, stacking up green paper as they rock' n' roll all the way in
to where some crash the wet black rocks of windandsea, la jolla
& die with the last thought of catching another big ride in their minds
& it is a way of seeing themselves as one riding the spirit of the wave
bringing them here with a beer in hand, a lifestyle full of sun & sand
a kind of language in & of itself, like them, a ritualized metaphor
the tribe understands across borders, waves & sand, the sun as one
music driving the board, the body guiding the way through towering
water, moving low through row after row of miniature tidal waves
crashing & foaming toward shore, always in a state of becoming
constantly becoming, always changing shape & always

becoming, becoming, be coming. . .

the language of poetry in a jet screaming sonic boom overhead
announces that we are always prepared for war & plunder here
complete with professional spin doctors
who stay ahead of the game by telling us all the things we want to hear
no matter the bright light & waves being ridden in by suntanned poets
flashing their lines across liquid stages here
as if they were some strange breed of wingless bird taxiing down
a runway, shooting down the middle of a wave, coiling their bodies up
tight, preparing their spirits to be catapulted into flight

8.
somewhere outside prisons of all this commercialized media hype
ears pick up antelope rhythms of language sweetly seducing
as a breeze strummed from strings of a kora
clocks movements of voices through dreams that straddle land & water
reminds us that music is cadenced by spirits grooving hypnotic heartbeats
vibrating through talking drums

but we also hear the far-flung dismemberment of bodies & cultures

inside music, where some hearts cannot recognize love
cannot recognize the beauty of lalabella in his dream of eleven
stone churches carved out of one rock in ethiopia, thousands gathered there
at sunrise, dressed in white, their voices climbing up rungs of air & light
in exaltation, while out in the desert where sandstorms pick up speed
we can see ten-mile-wide swirling dervishes, screaming, lethal as any terror
gathered up in tornadoes, howling through the fear anywhere thunder
bolts unzip black hoods of skies, somewhere out over middle america
at the intersection of sound-mystery & magicmemory
reconnects with itself, at the crossroads of divination
wher~ blues understand their roots inside the healing sounds of balafons
three-quarters of the way up the artery of america's holy river
the muddy mississippi colored by blood & bones & where eye enter
hear the coded secrets of call & response woven inside this poem

9.
o say can you see the future living in computer screens
we've had more elections to make things better for the greedy
politicians who always need new jump-starts in thievery these days
"o sweet banner headlines, please carry my name
into fleeting moments of deep fame & real money" is what everyone seems
to be praying for these days, forget about the pain
screaming like old maids at night in antiseptic bedrooms needing
good old fuck attacks from anyone willing

just keep the corruption moving for just us, the good-old-boy
generals like the nuke of gin rich, drinking up salacious
applause & stuff, waddling through a field of white lilies, willy-nilly
& bursting out of his rumpled two-piece suit, seem to be saying
while gruff snorting fat pigs burrowing their long snouts into wet ground
surround him in washington
where the close air is alwayshumid with promises nobody intends to keep
because they were made in smoke-

filled backrooms

anyway, where the mouths of greedy piglike men hold
fat cigars protruding from their mouths like big black dicksbrown
saliva drooling down their chins-hinged in their pursed lips
like the one that dangled from the mouth of mafia boss
two-ton tony galento shot dead in a hail of lead
in that backyard cafe in brooklyn
o say can you see the blood flowing bright as red stoplights
people speed through every day
as the world gives birth tt baby farts who grow up to become replicas
of elvis presley & madonna, who are always being crowned
king or queen of something, just rewards-for just them?-
for stealing everything in the world's house that isn't tied downit
all belongs to them anyway for just being born
is what their spin doctors tell us in so many words wearing earnest
straight faces, masking buttoned-down attitudes everyone takes
for pure naivete & innocence, until their guns begin barking sudden death
tracks stitching rat-a-tat-tat into the rest of us otherized nightmares around
the whirl & throughout the west, skinheads
& bible-waving good-old-boys & girls in homegrown militias
spout their anger, their fire & brimstone words-a pint of jack riding
in their back pockets for courage, some demerols secreted in purses
for bouts of whatever-& dementia spreading like out-of-control
wildfires through brains of just about everyone

& it's late & getting later in the game of what we're all gathered here for
so many immigrants from so many song & dance routines it's hard to believe
so many rhythms & wordplays you can hardly shake a stick at
just one, inside the crucible of culture, a common language is forming
that will shape & define us all as one in the hearing of rhythms moving out
like those spreading out from the center of the river in circles like mantras
we see when a rock has been dropped through flesh
of the water, there, soft ripples moving in waves across our faces
gentle as love songs, beautiful as birds banking down in steep flight
to land in the middle of the light surrounding our profiles

gathered here, where we stand looking into the river singinga
collage of different skin tones mixing in the waterour
voices climbing in a harmonized confluence of utterance
arching like a rainbow across storm clouds of western skies

10.
in the midst of the saying, the song
in the midst of the song, beauty
climbing up from the voice to resonate
in air, wrap itself around a rhythm carrying
music, carrying cadence, carrying whatever
the magic is, mystery in the saying
inside the voice, the power of utterance
inside time seeking time
seeking the hidden fascination of an american
image of you, in me, inside the feeling of the marvelous
inside the spirit of you & me, inside the blues moment
of creation, movement inside new miracles
hoodooing new songs, we inside the clues wooing
daybreak from the slackening grip of midnight with the cock's
crow, cacadoodledooing, in the crack of first morning
light, inside the cool murmurings
of water seducing the tongue of your face
jumping up sad or bright from the river
to meet your eyes when you look down there
into ripples, moved by rain or wind
lightning & you there in the undulating waves
like those in a black man's marcel-conked hairdo
greased back in the pomaded pompadoured mad forties
you there in the we of revealing lewd secrets
of the moment seeking whatever it was that got away
from you, from me, there, come whatever, time is
what it is, whatever the cadence is, come whatever
time seeks the. pulse inside the rising voice spreading out
inside the imperfect voice seeking perfection

in the continuous uttering, inside the magic of secrets
voicing mystery through journey of the poem
that never gets written right
this & that as opposed to this or that
both sides of the river cradling longing
both sides of a question posing other questions
instead of one, the beauty of foofoo, sushi & feijoada
french cooking & chinese cuisine
this & that & music fusing sound to song with syllables
slipped from everywhere, cpme spirit
come magic, come love
slipped from everywhere, come wisdom, come blood
spilled from everywhere, come light, come darkness, come
floods washing in from everywhere, bring music played
by two hands pulling rhythms from drums
two hands gripping oars of boats moving downriver
this & that fusing two sides of an equation in a question-./'
mark, the rising of many many secrets instead of one there
many faces in the flow of the shape of rainbows
revelations everywhere saying who, saying what, saying you & me
cradling the mystery everywhere, inside the slow pull of miracles
inside the rising tide of magic is where poetry comes from
then & now & again in the future, say who say you.
say us in the mystery of the flow of syllables
inside the juggernaut of language, americannot
english & nothing personal here, just fact-in the journey
of most poems flowing out here that most times never get written right
now & forever the mystery in the flow of faces that never get toned right
now & forever inside the skin cloning sadness
rejection that is never ever done right
inside the machine gun of feeling that kills
the spirit & is never ever done right
but the rush of glowing love pulls us, the beating heart
extended in a handshake here, blessed with the kiss of eyes
tender as a newborn baby's sigh, is what the tongue is searching for

inside the sticky wet furnace of the mouth swapping tongues
spit, is where words come from, turn over the sweet
tongue inside the cave of the mouth, burning
is where language springs from like lava erupting
from a volcano, hot & luminous, powerful & new, transforming
as the crossfertilization of beliefs of priests & rabbis & shaman
holymen sitting across from preachers & medicine men
& imams & buddhists in america, the holy ghost
crisscrossing tongues, this & that in a fusion of you & me
& everyone in a flowering of we in this moment
where we live in the here & now & forever inside
the magic of singing in the flow of the mysterious cadence
inside the rowing consonance of the impudent river
clean or dirty water washing smooth ripples across our faces
as we raise ourselves up clean inside our own american voices
holy throughout the sound of its utterance
inside the midst of the saying, the song inside the song
the beauty climbing up from the tongue to the level of utterance
voice there in the shaping wrapping itself around a rhythm
voice there fused with connections, raises itself up to cadence
& light, carrying the music of geography & place
the voice moving out in ever widening circles like a mantra
creating inside its own mystery & magic a unique genetic voice
inside a celebration of opposites & contradictions
you & me in the fusion of the utterance, you & me
inside the tonguing love, you & me inside this volcanic
love transforming, inside this sweet moment of hesitation
before we go on forever in the magic of forgiveness
you & me as we inside this sweet tonguing moment
you & me as we embracing forgiveness in the here & now
inside this sweet moment of forgiveness
you & me fused, inside the here & now

© 1999-2007 by Quincy Troupe