a testament to how men dreamt land
out of water, where bedrock
was only the heart’s bump
& grind, its deep, dark churn
& acceleration, blowsy down
to those unmoored timbers,
already nothing but water
mumbling as the great turbulent eye
lingered on a primordial question,
then turned, the gauzy genitalia of Bacchus
& Zulu dangling in magnolias & rain trees,
& already The Book of the Dead
unfolded pages, & water rose
to leaf through the before
& after, the benedictions
& prayers spoken in tongues
rising in the tide of flotsam
& debris of fallen churches
across the Lower Ninth, slush
working its way up clapboard
& slave-brick walls of houses
tilted in a dirge, up the last rung
of the ladder, up to the voices
caught in an attic, & then stopped
in midair like a hundred washing
machines churning, & already
cries from a domed purgatory
broke from the storm within
where proxy armies clashed
on weekends, & for a moment,
as if we aren’t here, demons ride
the shoulders of outlaw angels
through streets of an antiworld
where thieves of bread & milk
are clubbed to brick sidewalks
by keepers of the law as the levee’s
uncorked boom drowns the solo
of Bolden’s cornet driving a note
up the long river of rivers, saying,
I’m the mama & papa of ragtime,
& already a hush came to those
trapped behind barred windows
& waterlines measuring the sag
in the dragline as bottom fish
floated up, lost in the Big Muddy
unburying the wormy compost
of days rotting in the darkness,
& a windup toy inching along
crawfish mud & bloody slag,
& already they’re turning pages
of the uncharted old lost seasons
footnoted in the abridged maps
warning of man-eating savages,
to Jean-Baptiste’s flotilla of 6 ships
carrying 6 carpenters & 30 convicts
to rip out miles & miles of saw vines
& dig trenches, born to erect makeshift
shelters of raw sappy wood & speculate
on their stolen dreams, the engineer
Pierre Le Blond de la Tour saying, No,
not here, the river will never stop trying
to reclaim what’s taken from her, even if
we build earthen walls to block her reach
because she will go around, under, or over,
& already the spine of their logbook
of calculations was broken & splayed
as newcomers hailed from far reaches
as pirates, woodsmen, & money changers
(all hard men), ready to claim coffin-girls
ferried in by high churches of France,
& already a thick wavy vein of ink
widens into midnight, into daybreak,
the wind drawing Audubon’s ghost
through the almost gone, straggly
grass, out into the oily marsh bog
where disappearing land begs no footprint,
out to where hard evidence rainbows
up, leaving thousands hurting to be
counted as no more than sea turtle,
eel, brown pelican, egret, mud puppy, crab,
& already water wounds everything
into uncountable small deaths moored
in cypress, stinking up our springtime
with a pestilence going to the dark ages
on harbors where boats sway shifting light,
the dead talking to us from a masterpiece,
saying, We are forbidden to remember
we were defeated by what we devoured,
& already from a mile down plumes
keep rising up through weeks & months,
animal cries & the language of robots
where BP diving machines moonwalk,
surging as long-ago drowned shadows
of carrier pigeons drag up hellish silence,
& already the first “climate refugees”
are those who first built the aqueducts
to route fresh artesian springs from salt,
& now watch nature take back what was
stolen from them, treasuring know-how
passed down, who gather Gulf grasses
to weave baskets, whittle spirit totems
perfectly, train bird dogs, plot new stars
circling above mysteries of everyday lives,
& raising their small houses eight feet
high on pilings—as if some land bridge
to early Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw—
who pick berries, trap rabbit & hunt deer
& quail, harvest crawdads, hook catfish
& gig fat bullfrogs, still singing to heal
wounds, still unable to leave their dead
who never surrendered, & already—
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications, in which the new poems in this volume originally appeared: Boston Review, Callaloo, The Fight & The Fiddle, The New Yorker, Oxford American, PEN America, Poem-a-Day, Poetry, The Progressive, Smithsonian.
Love in the Time of War was published as a fine-press edition designed and printed by Robin Price.
“A World of Daughters” premiered with the Trondheim Voices and Munich Chamber Orchestra, 2019.
An excerpt of “Requiem” was first published in Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, W.W. Norton, 2013.
“The Candlelight Lounge” is for Larry Hilton.
INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
A box of tooth wheels sits on an ebony hippopotamus
A boy’s bicycle inner tube
A drowned kingdom rises at daybreak
After a nightlong white-hot hellfire
After pissing around his gut-level
After the Burn Pits
After the MRI & robot
A jeweled wasp stuns
All the little doors unlock
Although the sandy soil’s already red
Always more. No, we aren’t too ashamed to prod celestial beings
Amber
An island is one great eye
A poet stands on the steps of the grand cathedral
As if he stood too long facing
As if my mind’s double-jointed
As if the night
As you can see, he first mastered light
At six, she chewed off
At the Red Sea
Avarice
A war’s going on somewhere, but tonight
Bacchanal
Balled into a cocked fist, sure
Because I mistrust my head & hands, because I know salt
Because they tasted so damn good, I swore
Becky grew up in the provinces of the blackest, richest delta silt this
Bedazzled
Before zero meridian at Greenwich
Begotten
Black Figs
Bless the woman, man, & child
Blue Dementia
Body of a Woman (Cadavere di Donna)
Body Remembers, The
Brother of the blowfly
Business of Angels, The
&nbs
p; Caffe Reggio
Candlelight Lounge, The
Canticle
Can you be up to any good
Cape Coast Castle
Charles, I’m also a magpie collecting every scrap
Circus, The
C’mon, Your Majesty, her brother?
Congo Snake, The
Crow Lingo
Curanderismo
Curator of Kosinski’s Mask
Darling, my daddy’s razor strop
Daytime Begins with a Line by Anna Akhmatova
Dead Reckoning
Dead Reckoning II
Dead Reckoning III
Dear, I roll this duck egg
Dear Mister Decoy
Desecration
Devil Comes on Horseback, The
Devil’s Workshop, The
Didn’t Chet Baker know
Ecstatic
Elizabeth, I must say
Emperor, The
Empyrean Isles
English
Envoy to Palestine
Epithalamium
Eros
Et Tu, Brute?
Euphony
Famous Ghost, A
Fata Morgana
Feet of petty chances, you
Fishermen follow a dream of the biggest
Fool, The
Fortress
From “Autobiography of My Alter Ego”
Ghazal, after Ferguson
God of Land Mines, The
Gold Pistol, The
Gourd-shaped muse swollen
Great Ooga-Booga, in your golden pavilion
Green
Green Horse, The
Grenade
Grunge
Hands make love to thigh, breast, clavicle
Heavy Metal Soliloquy
He blows a ram’s horn at the first gate of the third kingdom, & one
He circled the roundabout
Hedonist, The
He has bribed the thorns
Helmet, The
He picks till it grows
Here you are, still
Herodotus, woven into his story
He sits on a royal purple cushion
He’s on a hammock in Bangkok
He wandered nude out of Eden
He was in waist-high grass. An echo of a voice
His forehead was stamped, Administrator
Homo Erectus
Homunculus
How It Is
How long have I listened
I am a scrappy old lion
I can’t erase her voice. If I opened the door to the cage & tossed the
I could see thatch boats. The sea
I don’t know, can’t say when they first
If I am not Ulysses, I am
If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be
If only he could touch her
If you’re one of seven
Ignis Fatuus
I made love to you, & it loomed there
Imhotep
I’m the son of poor Mildred & illiterate J.W.
In a half-broken room of the hospice
Infidelity
In Saint Helena darkness falls into a window
Interrogation
In the days when a man
In the hard, unwavering mountain
I pull on my crow mask
I sing an elegy for the city of 333 saints
Islands
I stood on one foot for three minutes & didn’t tilt
I thought happiness my birthright
Ito ran to a window. He danced
It speaks when the anonymous
I’ve come to this one grassy hill
I’ve known billy club, tear gas, & cattle prod
I want Catullus
I weigh you, a minute in each hand
Janus Preface, The
Joy, use me like a whore
King’s Salt, The
Knucklehead spins on a wish & lucky
Krar
Land of Cockaigne, The
Latitudes
Lime
Lined up like toy soldiers
Lingo
Lingua Franca
Longitudes
Look how each pound of meat
Love in the Time of War
Lure, The
Lust
May
Maybe he thought gods
Meditations on a File
Meditations on a Thumbscrew
Michio Ito’s Fox & Hawk
Minotaur
Monkey Wrench
Mottled with eyes, she’s a snag
Mountain, The
Mud
Mushroom Gatherers, The
My lyre has fallen & broken
My muse is holding me prisoner
Night in Tunisia, A
Night Ritual
Nipples
No, sweetheart, I said courtly love
Now I begin with these two hands
Nude Study
Ode to Dust
Ode to the Maggot
Ode to the Oud
One can shove his face against silk
Ontology & Guinness
Orpheus at the Second Gate of Hades
Our Side of the Creek
Pan
Perhaps someone was watching
Polecat, The
Poppies
Portrait of (Self) Deception, A
Postscript to a Summer Night
Prayer, A
Prayer for Workers, A
Precious Metals
Relic, The
Remus & Romulus
Rock Me, Mercy
Rollerblades
Rubens paints desire
Say licked clean at birth. Say
Scapegoat
September
Sex Toys
Shelter
She’s big as a man’s fist
She works in the corner of the porch
Shiva
Skulking Across Snow
Slaves Among Blades of Grass
Slingshot
Sloth
Small System, A
So
So, this is where
Somebody go & ask Biggie to orate
Someone lightly brushed the penis
Someone says Tristan
Something or someone. A feeling
Soul’s Soundtrack, The
Speed Ball
Sprung Rhythm of a Landscape
Surge
Thanks for your warning
The alpha wolf chooses his mate
The Amazon ants dispatch
The batfish hides there
The battle begins here as I slap my chest
The day breaks in half as the sun rolls over hanging ice
The eyedropper of holy water
The Galápagos finch
The hard work of love sealed
The jawbone of an ass. A shank
The kneeling figure is from Yama or Carthage
The master craftsman sits like Rodin’s
The maypole glistens with pig fat
The miners dressed in monkish garb
There’s always someone who loves gold
There’s no rehearsal to turn flesh into dust so quickly. A hair trigger, a
The river stones are listening
The round, hanging lanterns
These frantic blooms can hold their own
The shadow knows. Okay. But what is this, the traveler’s tail curled
The spotted hyena
The swastika tattooed
The tablet he inherited was encased
The victorious army marches into the city
They clink glasses of Merlot & joke
They left the Second City
They’re at the eight teats
They’re here. Among blades
They work fingers to bone, & borrow
This can make hard men
This is my house. My sweat is in the mortar
Those double shotgun
Three Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
Timbuktu
Today, somewhere, a man
Togetherness
Torsion
Towers, The
Translation of Silk, A
Troubling the Water
Turner’s Great Tussle with Water
Ukiyo-e
Unlikely Claims
Utetheisa Ornatrix, the First Goddess
Van Gogh’s sunflowers blot out
Venus of Willendorf
Visit to Inner Sanctum, A
Voice on an Answering Machine A
Warlord’s Garden, The
Water Clock, The
We have gone there, sitting here
We have this to call to the dead
We piled planks, sheets of tin
We turn away from the flesh
We washed away the live perfume
When Dusk Weighs Daybreak
When Eyes Are on Me
When I was a boy, he says, the sky began burning
When the grand master of folly
When they call him Old School
Work of Orpheus, The
World of Daughters, A
Yes, dear son
You see these eyes?
Zeus always introduces himself
ALSO BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
Dedications & Other Darkhorses
Lost in the Bonewheel Factory
Copacetic
I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head
Toys in a Field
Dien Cai Dau
February in Sydney
Magic City
Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems
Thieves of Paradise
Blue Notes: Essays, Interviews, and Commentaries
Talking Dirty to the Gods
Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems
Taboo: The Wishbone Trilogy, Part One
Gilgamesh: A Verse Play
Warhorses
The Chameleon Couch
The Emperor of Water Clocks
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yusef Komunyakaa is the author of many books of poetry, including The Emperor of Water Clocks, The Chameleon Couch, Warhorses, Taboo, Talking Dirty to the Gods, and Neon Vernacular, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. His plays, performance art, and librettos have been performed internationall and include Wakonda’s Dream; Saturnalia; Testimony, A Tribute to Charlie Parker; and Gilgamesh: A Verse Play. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
Farrar, Straus and Giroux ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.