Song of the Andoumboulou

The sky was a cloth whose colors ran, we
moved on, bone-deep abidance come
with us, at the crux what could not but be
re-
peated we found out. A kind of high scat
kept at us, a not-to-be-said something said
or insisted again and again, moved with or
with-
out, moving or not… Clumps of rope in
our gullets were hard to digest but we digest-
ed them, no not knowing what history was.
It
was all so abstract and at the same time right
in our faces, all of it going on leaving more to
go on. Abstract finding concrete was no joke. I sat
at the back of the bus, body language say-
ing exactly that, the way I slumped… The qui-
eter it got the more mixed our feelings were,
the
more mixed our feelings the quieter it got. The
day lay like a slab inside us. What to do and
what to say had at us, high scat a kind of question we
were put upon by, what no more the crux of
them than how, how portended, crux brought
to bear on us repeatedly, at us as the is or the it
of it, was’s day redone… We were in the hands
of
the Nublicans, no such thing as enough. We
kept the news on, ready for the next outrage. The
sky whose colors ran was an allegorized polis
whose colors were us, remain where we were and
as
we were though we tried to no matter. We kept
returning to the news, asking, “Are we dead yet?”
We all but were, not knowing what, not knowing
how,
high scat’s entou-
rage

• •

Insofar-I’s homeopathic hum stayed with us,
a slap to the head ever the tonic. We each were
Dr. D with exactly the answer, Patient P as well,
hedg-
ing our bets. We wore gowns open as books but
open in back, recondite address in reserve they
seemed to say. Ever the back and forth, ever the
dia-
lectic we could wish. We set out reminiscing
Nub’s facelift, we who long knew it had claws…
Otherwise we were helpless, me the most I
thought. Each of us maybe thought that way, he
or
she the most. We all, no matter where we sat,
sat in back. We wanted to be lost in the stars, astral
black. It wasn’t just the creaking of the word we
heard
or it was but the word included more than we
knew. We wanted to be lost and found and brought
back big-eyed, see our way thru, rhyme a kind
of
creaking in The Book of So . . . It might have been
Neptune the bus was crossing for all I knew. I
gazed inward, not out, slouched on the backseat so
low
I couldn’t see. “At the crux what’s crucial,” I was
repeating, a low oath or a kind of adage I steadied
myself with. It might have been the Bay Bridge the
bus
was crossing for all I knew, the dunes of the Go-
bi Desert for all I knew. All I knew was we flew
thru the dark behind my eyelids, late of the ump-
teenth clinic or clime, an ambulance we might as well
have
been in. Ahdja picked up “At the crux what’s crucial”
and intoned it with me, wrack mantra more and
more the longer it went on, mystic beast about on pad
and
claw, thick Vedic
moan

• •

“At the crux what’s crucial” was an all but ade-
noidal burr, high scat’s midmost reach. High scat
itself said otherwise, the backs of our clothing
torn.
Said what it said and said otherwise, word
from all sides at once. The inner me threw my
hands up. On a CT screen I’d seen a white dot
that
kills, on a TV screen the baby prez’s war rattle.
As without, so within, I lay low thinking… I lay
dreaming I lay nuzzling Ahdja’s back and buttocks, Ah-
dja my mantric accomplice, her heavenly back-
sides what respite there was. I sat slouched at the
back of the bus, ever the hound, nuzzling the musks
of
heaven. Another clime, another clinic. Another
lurch, another going forth… How it got to be about
me made me wonder, it-being-about the targeted
sense
each of us dreaded, better to look on from outside.
It-being-about made one the it of it removed,
the hollowness it ultimately was one’s own, enacted
execution style. This was my meditation on death,
Hol-
low House, death’s edifice the back of the bus I
sat slouched in, ever there to be picked off I thought.
Some said social, some somatic, I said both. All it was
was a holding tank I thought, the it of all its, doled-out
ex-
cursion even so, death’s ration… We bumped along,
moving on, Hollow House Excursus the book we
thumbed and were in, volume number none of us knew
of
The Book of So, inside and outside both. As without, so
within, I reminded myself, wanting to bury my head
away from it all but unable to, Ahdja’s “At the crux what’s
cru-
cial” intertwined with
mine

• •

(chant)

There was a box in the bus, Billy Harper was on
the box. His hard squall cut my head off, the bur-
ial I’d been hoping for. The picture of a journey
lin-
gered on in my severed head. We had come to
a hill I felt, another clime, another climb. We were
climbing when something gave out, bordered on
sub-
limity but quit… It was beginning to say good-
bye, saying let it be a long goodbye, greasing the
wheels of quantity I felt or I thought, could my bur-
ied head be said to’ve thought. None of it related but
by
recoil to Nub’s rolled head, a stream of Tiki torch-
es’ would-be turning back of time. I was climbing
stairs in the lingering picture my head was when my
foot went out from under me, slipped on a step rain
had
fallen on, entropy and accident’s tryst. I lay scratch-
ing my head, slouched in the backseat scratching my
head, the back of the bus the chalkboard my head had
be-
come, vèvès told me tell my horse… The back of
the bus was all chalk inscription, a thin wall between
in and outside, a kind of sheetrock. The way the two
par-
took of each other was on the one side Hollow House
Local, the other Hollow House Express. I sat slouched,
breathing in and out, each breath a bead I thumbed, there
was
a rash all over my chest. As within, so without, I la-
mented, Charlottesville, Barcelona, gnostic body one was
born into unawares, not knowing, known as it broke it-
self down… Body politic. Body impolite. Talk of cells
no
matter which. Cells’ apparent containment only ap-
parent. Gnostic membrane. Would-be husk. These as
well were beads I thumbed. Outline. Inside. Concept.
Con-
sonant. Boll. Burble. Bust. Insofar-I’s hum was back had
it ever left, “Are we dead yet?” a kind of collateral, the
sky’s run of color’s low lingering cloth… The sky’s run of
col-
or come nigh, the bus rolled on. The remote place my
head lay buried in propelled it, an advancing notion of
love despite it all. The rash gets redder and won’t go away,
I wrote in my notebook, not meaning to be symbolic but
no-
ticing maybe it was. At Nub’s helm the open sore that
had taken soul’s place no matter, the bus rolled on, we
were climbing the stars. I was climbing the stairs when a
bone broke, I wrote. Burial grounds underlay my house in
hea-
ven. Written, I wrote, ridden. It was something I wrote,
something I rode, love social and semantic were what it was
love, love and hate, a hard line between . . . The bus rolled
on.
Billy kept at it on the box, an astrolabe it might have
been. Like unto like, time abreast itself, the hole my head
was tossed into, the hole otherwise in my head. A two-
headed Dr. D I might’ve been, a two-headed Patient P. Love
so-
cial and somatic, I wrote, crossed out what I wrote before.
Crossed out somatic, rewrote semantic, Mr. Back-and-
Forth, crossed out semantic, rewrote somatic, crossed out so-
matic, rewrote semantic, ever the dialectic I wrote wishing,
ever
the back and forth… Ahdja thought of it as crux and cruciality.
She looked over my shoulder as I wrote, we went on roll-
ing, we were climbing the sky. The back of the bus became a
kind
of notebook, the chalkboard gave way to ballpoint and pen-
cil, ink vévé, lead vévé. We were climbing the stars when our
clutch broke, climbing the stars when my foot slipped and my
hip
gave out, climbing the stars when the pen went dry, climb-
ing the stars when the pencil broke, Billy Harper on the box
all the while. It was a box inside a box given what the bus had
be-
come, a remote pit my head lay buried in what my head had be-
come… Crux and cruciality a box inside a box. Entropy and ac-
cident, crux and what counted, song, like any other, every other,
long
since, song forty-seven times
five