Song of the Andoumboulou: 166½ Poem by Nathaniel Mackey

Decapitism stuck to the end of my
tongue. What to do but call it names
I thought. It wasn't thought I was
think-
ing I'd have answered had I been
asked, not even thinking I thought…
I sat brooding, tracking a feather's
drop,
plummet my lush regard. I sat
brooding, hen's heat yogic so bent
my hickory legs were, hickory
stiff
transcendent so flexed it was. So it
will have been said absentmindedly
rolled off my tongue. Least thought,
last
thought I mock made-believe I
believed, prophet shod in castoff
tread… Profitry rolled off as well,
jelly-coated pill I bit. Bitness rolled
with
it or might as well have, qu'ahttet's
broken jaw. Change was the law I
sat reflecting, right foot nested on
my
left inner thigh, left leg pointed
straight ahead. I sat, Buddhistic
hurdler, musing, mouth open, ip-
seities arrayed in a row… I sat, I
was
thinking thought's province re-
ceded, beauty's provocation revoked
as our loins contracted, Itamar,
Anun-
cio, all us men. Tantric hoist I was
thinking, thought's adumbration,
what ached and what resigned itself,
dis-
placed… We sat checking out the
yogis in leotards, Ahdja, Eleanoir,
Anuncia, Sophia, every womanly
wisp under the sun. I dreamt again we
were
away with no way home, this or that
plane waiting, this or that takeoff
missed, sweet crease loaded with ore
but
to be absconded with, gold we'd've
otherwise been. Bent intonation inter-
vened, a reed off away in the distance,
Net-
sanet's name I no sooner gave than
was given back, Brother B's wild ox
moan… I sat dejected, thought's
ap-
pointment missed, disappointed,
abscondity's eviscerate redoubt. I
was thinking thought had yet to be-
gin, thought's far emblem a star too
frail
for sight, leotarded crux and cur-
vature's ignition, thought's due ad-
vent I thought no such arrival, what come-
liness it wore wore thin. No ideas but
in
them I thought, cloak and conni-
vance the lords of that house, abode
we
abided
by