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Song of the Andoumboulou: 55

By Nathaniel Mackey b. 1947 Nathaniel Mackey

—orphic fragment—

Carnival morning they

were Greeks in Brazil,

Africans in Greek

disguise. Said of herself

she

was born in a house in

heaven. He said he was

born in the house next

door... They were in hell.

In Brazil they were

lovebait.

To abide by hearing was

what love was... To

love was to hear without

looking. Sound was the

beloved’s

mummy cloth... All to say,

said the exegete, love in

hell was a voice, to be spoken

to from behind, not be able

to turn and look... It

wasn’t Greece where they

were,

nor was it Benin... Carnival

morning in made-up hell, bodies

bathed in loquat light, would-be

song’s all the more would-be

title, “Sound and Cerement,”

voice

wound in bandages

raveling

lapse

Up all night, slept well

past noon. Awoke restless

having dreamt she awoke on

Lone Coast, wondering

afterwards what it came

to,

glimpsed interstice,

crevice,

crack... Saw her

dead mother and brother

pull up in a car, her brother

at the wheel not having driven

while alive, newly taught

death it appeared. A fancy car,

bigger

than any her mother had had while

alive, she too better off it

appeared... A wishful read, “it

appeared” notwithstanding, the

exegete impossibly benign. Dreamt

a dream

of dream’s end, anxious, unannounced,

Eronel’s nevermore namesake, Monk’s

anagrammatic Lenore... That the

dead return in luxury cars made

weep, pathetic its tin elegance,

pitiable,

sweet read misread,

would-be

sweet

Source: Splay Anthem (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2006)

Biography

Born in Miami and raised in Southern California, poet, novelist, editor, and critic Nathaniel Mackey received his BA from Princeton University and his PhD from Stanford University.

Mackey cites poets William Carlos Williams and Amiri Baraka, in addition to jazz musicians John Coltrane and Don Cherry, as early influences in his exploration of how language can be infused and informed by music. In a 2006 interview with Bill . . .

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