Song of the Andoumboulou: 85 Poem by Nathaniel Mackey

Came now to another crossroads.
Stick people stood awaiting us, to
the left, straight ahead, to the right.
What was that song you sang,
they
asked, spoke without sound sound's
immanence, not without song but
only one song, the one song summon­-
ing song's eclipse... The one song
sang
song's inconsequence, crooned it
could not've been otherwise, song
song's own lament... The one
song sang song's irrelevance, we
were
exhausted, we looked straight ahead,
left,
right. The stick people's question fa­-
tigued us, glyphed riddle whose
decipherment they said we'd someday
be,
exegetes against our will... Lack,
reluctance, pallor, eidolon. Crossroads
cryptogram, they themselves were sing-
­ing, nothing not what could be seen they
said,
soul not sign if not eyelight, song more
what could be seen than they could
say, wan unwillingness they said... Slick
stick
people, tricky, soul a sick thing they said...
Signs all said Stick City. Stick City straight
ahead, to the left, to the right, signs pointed
every
which way... Stick sublimity sent us reeling,
a we that wasn't we against one that was. Mass,
intangible we it was we were, beads thrown off
in a row... We'd have given anything to get to
Stick
City and there we were. Whatever way we
took would take us there. Stick City loomed
ahead and to the left and to the right, any which
way but in back of us, Stick City meant no
turning back... Signs all said Stick City. We
read
them all out loud, "Stick City." "Styxicity,"
Itamar
quipped... It wasn't water we crossed, it wasn't
hell we were in. Stick City housed our hearts'
desires we were told, Stick City stood without
end or assistance, line long since what stuck...
Line
was all point, point all extensity, stick's own
deictic drop... No longer point less point than
point's target, Stick City made them one and the
same... So it was on to where the signs said next,
Stick
the one place we were yet to arrive at, Diddie Wa
Diddie's twin. A winding road it now was we were
on, so curved we could see our backs. No work,
no worry up ahead we heard, music's utopic
stir...
Hogs lay stuck with knives and forks, chickens
likewise we heard. A wall of beats for backup, Stick
City
way off somewhere... As quick as that we were there,
Stick City. It wasn't the way we heard it was. Everyone
limped, walked with a cane, no way how we heard it
was...
As quick as that there we were. Stick City lay before
us, lied about. Legbaland it might've been... Diddie Wa
Diddie's non-identical twin if twin it was, no way the
way
we heard it
was

•

Stick-figure escorts ushered us in,
pointed out what was what. Stick
people's gait was flawless, they
said, unstick people limped on
sticks...
A strand of horsehair lay in the
road, hair from a horse's tail. Come
rain it became a snake, would-be stick
though
Stick City said no... It was getting
to
be late again, the arcade's light less
intense... Come night we lay under
a horse, shouted voiceless trying
to wake each other up and woke up,
coiled
hair stiffened with earwax, as if at last
we were Stick City's own... Not
so we saw soon enough. No home, no
haven was it, noise what of it we could
keep...
West L.A. it might've been, Saint-Pierre
it might've been wélélé no matter where
we were... Stick symphony. Ictic sashay...
Head bob atop watery neck, nod homage,
noise,
names came loose. What of it we kept we
kept in name only, "Stick City" ours
to hold on to. Chance it might've meant,
I Ching, no place but we were long since
gone...
Where sign had been sound X marked it,
stick bisected stick. Signal some said, noise's
alternate, half where we were nowhere near
where
we were, were where's discontent... It was getting
to be light again, noise the new day's largesse.
Sound was what sign turned out from, sound
itself exed out... What the song was we sang
no
longer what we were asked, stick inquisitors
gathered, mum to the bone. Frown, furrowed
brow, grimace the glyphs met us, faces
lined up in a row. Line was what pressed us,
point egged us on, what the song was we
sang
no song we sang, what the song was we sang
moot... The strand-of-horsehair-become-a-snake
became a rope around our necks, rope what the
song we sang was. We'd have given anything
to
say Stick City was where we were... Breath it
was
we gave, rope round our necks... We were neck-
less, bobbing heads, barbershop xtet, calabashes
hit with sticks. Whatever we were, whatever
noise there was we made ours. "This is our
dispatch," we said... Euphemistic necktie,
eu-
phemistic float. Horsehair tickling the tops
of our throats. Wet, euphemistic scruff... As it was
getting to be noon we got our necks and bodies
back. A cartoon watch dog bit us, a pinscher
with
painted lips. We were stick people now, initiates.
Stick
legs only a blur, we were running, pant legs and hem-
lines ripped... Cross. Chiliasm. Crisis. Stick bisected
stick. More hopeless the less we needed it, less
real the more shot with stick vaccine, less real the
more
stick we were... Stick inquisitors fell away as we went
in. Stick City disappeared as we ran deeper. Too
late to turn back, we were twigs, kindling, dispatch
gone
up in smoke... We were jíbaros, hicks, cuatro ping
in
back of us, howled, "Aylelolay lolelay." We stood
absorbed in what felt like advent. We stood on a plane
cut thru an adverse cone. Low, rummaging burr, the
sound we sought sought us, we the make-believe dead
more
dead than we knew... Syllabic run was more alive than we
were, bass clack bugling disaster, brute sun outside the
nod
house door

Crossroads though it was it seemed an
impasse, stick as in stuck we thought. Stick
as in stone's accomplice, Quag's bone-
yard remit... Insofar as there was an
I it fell in, a brass bell's everted lips
now
convergent, shush we were hollowed by.
Insofar as there was an I it was as each of us
insisted, as far as there was an I, stick
beating stick, there was an X... Crux...
Cross...
Crutch... Legs' Osirian soulstrut lost,
Legbaland it was and we limped on, limped
in, Stick City's outskirts endless it
seemed, no matter we leaned on sticks...
Were
there an I it stood like a stick, mum-stuff
crossing itself. Insofar as there was
an I it was an X taking shape, there but
to be gone if not no sooner there than gone,
glass
house holding
its own

We knew we wore skeleton suits. We knew
we walked holding placards. "Dead from
Day One" they read, part requiem, part
rebuke... What lay around us had the
sound
of steam. Low-motion lurk. Time-lapse cascade.
Stick City city limits notwithstanding, glass
intangibles allowed what was lost otherwise,
gripless
in the house outside the house... It slipped
away and we slipped away and it slipped away,
Stick
City a mirage nod concocted, not to be be-
lieved but we did though it receded, nod Nub's
emic
retreat