Blues Chant Hoodoo Revival

written by


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my story is
how deep the heart runs
to hide & laugh 
with your hands
over your blank mouth
face behind the mask 
talking in tongues 
something tearing 
feathers from a crow 
that screams
from the furnace 
the black candle 
in a skull
sweet pain of meat

  let’s pour the river’s rainbow 
  into our stone water jars 
  bad luck isn’t red flowers 
  crushed under jackboots

your story is
a crippled animal
dragging a steel trap
across desert sand
a bee’s sting inside your heart 
& its song of honey
in my groin
a factory of blue jays
in honey locust leaves
wet pages of smoke
like a man
deserting his shadow
in dark woods
the dog that limps away
& rotten fruit on the trees

this story is
the speaking skull
on the mantelpiece
the wingspan of a hawk
at the edge of a coyote’s cry
the seventh son’s mojo hand 
holding his life together 
with a black cat bone 
the six grandfathers 
& spider woman
the dust wings
of ghost dance vision 
deer that can’t
stand for falling
wunmonije witch doctor 
backwater blues
juju man
a silk gown on the floor 
a black bowl
on a red lacquered table 
x-rated
because it’s true

  let’s pour starlight
  from our stone water jars 
  pain isn’t just red flowers 
  crushed under jackboots

my story is
inside a wino’s bottle 
the cup blood leaps into 
eight-to-the-bar
a man on his knees 
facing the golden calf 
the silverfish of old lust 
mama hoodoo
a gullah basket
woven from your hair
love note from the madhouse 
thornbushes
naming the shape 
of things to come
old murder weapons 
strings of piano wire

  let’s pour the night
  into our stone water jars 
  this song isn’t red flowers 
  crushed under silence

our story is
a rifle butt
across our heads
arpeggio of bowed grass 
among glass trees
where they kick down doors 
& we swan-dive from 
the brooklyn bridge 
a post-hypnotic suggestion 
a mosaic membrane 
skin of words
mirrors shattered
in roadhouses
in the gun-barrel night 
how a machine moves 
deeper into piles
of bones
the way we
crowd at the foot
of the gallows

© Yusef Komunyakaa