Hawk is last body—soul Ronnie Scott is in London 1968—counting - Poem

Literary Review, Wntr, 2003 by Kamau Brathwaite

Hawk is last body--soul Ronnie Scott
is in London 1968--counting.

   Hawk

   shrouded in mirrors. showers. haunted by twins
   marassa. voices of falling wires. crumbl
   -ing towers long before his time here flare. ing future

   Rollins Bridge is fallin down

   in london . where he arrives
   this spinn
   -ing golden mine

   early like this. this early tinder autumn season
   the fly . ing sprits white as snow
   -fall falling sorrow

   in the chill

   embracing air that cannot hold
   you up no
   warm canoe my sunugal

   that cannot hold . that cannot hold
   you o my love my fall
   -ing failing fading

   leaves o love/o you this golden time in lon
   -don early autumn of the first spill
   -ing burn
   -ing tender time. the slide
   -walks & the chestnut trees
   and turn the last crush corner into Ronnie Scott's

   the lights down low already even at the bar
   the crowded peering room w/waiters moving in a hush
   that eve

   -ning all these years . a sound I nvr see(n)
   till now . walk on the stage to tremulous applause
   of shook for all the times we lean.

   our ears upon his mellow strength & thunder
   . the lissom
   jump from C-sharp-melody Missouri stomp

   into up
   -tempo country blues . the brown
   preaching careless grace of the approaching Hawk

   who now stands slowly in this London spotlight gaunt
   & frail . whispy the lion hair & grey
   the music he begins to pendulum so im

   -perceptible it barely dream im
   lips . the first notes whisp
   -ering of something like the death

   of all the certainties we'd known . our use
   . our strength
   the wreckless way we race to wheel the tumbrils

   of our future. now tumble down now sudden in this
   intimate inaugural
   it seem he cdn't play at all god's creatures great & small

   might not possess the strength to make his breath
   swing into this curved placid plastic embouchure
   & make it breathe

   and sure. and make it shiver vivid like the towers
   of his metropole now opening our ears to close
   our eyes to smiles & bring us close together in a magic

   only he cd cure
   w/myrrh & anegeda salt & cinnamon upon our
   flesh

   And then the breath come black . slow . fall
   -tering at first
   and then it seem to calabash an unknown dangerous

   light
   far out on the horizon . fresh
   wink/ing flights. a great fleet passing thru the fluent

   night & upper air
   . a great tide rising rising rising ostinado up towards him on
   the band

   -stand . tall
   -er now. the saxophone xtending silver till it rounds
   the golden horn . and its the Hawk again

   & new
   . the soft cry rising fathers of all sound
   around him . fold

   -ing & unfolding as the chorus almost cock
   -crow reaches us in this low distant New
   York air beyond what we call age . infirmity . the loss

   of el dorado . the para. box of para-
   dice. life in this little rolling game of luck & tossing
   chance canoe

   For this is something other, some something
   else . far far beyond what we cd ever cd have known
   about . x-

   pected when we first hear the museic.
   think
   that we know the muse

   (s)' softly rage. ing snare & image & collage. think
   that we share the man who make this muse. ic music
   and that w/ the man-make madness in this swain

   & autumn season. there wd be no decline from powvrs. our
   hexpectations
   now on full alert & almost all full-

   fill(ed). not yet the un. xpecting hesitation. gilt. guilt
   the liquid eyes seduce
   by lull & glitter, the pause before the keys begin to turn

   the corner of the globe . and so despite the falling
   leaves of prayer .
   no wilt . no wilt . no wilt

   But this is something something something
   other. some some. thing else beyond the paradigm
   far far beyond the limn

   of para
   -dice. that what we make. make well. may well last
   long last long beyond the first breath fall

   -tering. beyond the last leaves' last seeds' fall
   -ing thru this london air. the thin
   & hollow image of the Hawk

   alone inside the spot
   -light slowly filling out his shadow at the microphone
   the first limp

   step. first first-step. first
   -set legba notes of confidence. push
   -ing aside the silence for the man to walk again on cool

   laconic water. flex
   -ing his knees to greet the feel
   of his returning power

   the petals. choradings. the dark magnolian roses
   the changes. flare
   -ing riffs. so that the bassist cd now settle into his

   familiar crouch & smile
   -ing . the cymbal's chuckle radar
   catching sight of where we are

   as we move on together to the fertile Nile
   . remembering becoming whole & powerful again
   the bolgatanga baskets bountiful & fruit

   -full. full
   of oranges & rafts of sugarcane. fresh
   juices tamarinda syrup half-way down the lane

   the a[??]e/axe saxophone now showering the zoom
   of smoky dark. ness w/a glad
   -ness we now know is stolen from our eyes by so much

   inattention. drag & droop & dampness. blue craft
   -less punishing despair. the broken quaver of the water
   leaking in our one canoe
   . perhaps our less nice-time in london

   but some day certain in the future of New
   York. his magic enigmatic majesty now flowering
   the zoom. his body glow-

   ing the only word we have for what is now this glowering
   around these future towers of his solo masterpiece
   rising himself again in sound towards the silver cross

   of an approaching jet. dissecting in the blue
   the full white mosque and omen of the moon
   just afternoons ago . high aver Berkeley Square

   over Washington Square . the body body body bodies pouring
   from this dark Manhattan stromboli
   into dim catacoombs of dis. appearing love & grace

   & pain & smouldering wound . the crystal crash cenote
   the crack(ed) styrated plates split spinning down
   from the dumb fumebellin volcano. their glass

   their shattering in bleak & shackle tunes
   up on the masque & distant pelmet ground. the misty
   singing from the wells of wreckage. some some where some-

   weigh dun. geon far off parfume failure of the ibis
   this feed & promise of a miracle . but not yet not
   yet. altho we know it coming even while we count

   the deed the dead the cruel lame the gnash the cost
   the small the blind the debris falling from the air of shar
   & lashes lashes lashes. such lash. erations of the hurt

   & herd. the smell of rock
   & warp & timbrel flesh upon the manacle. flesh
   become salt. asce. salt be-

   come char & ruell achar ashes. ashes ashes flashing
   tears. the tears upon my fingertips like tar
   the sticky black the blurr the burn(ed) the bomb(ed)

   the scar(ed) the diamond . the people walk-in
   on their splashless hearts & living in the moon .
   & these here halt & scattered half-alive await

   it w/the rising burkha dust & monster all around
   us in this roar of wave & womb of rage now whispering
   all coiled alqueeda drowned before & under us

   beloveds gone down in the daemon thunder-ridges
   gone gone away down in the downward up. ward rush
   of howling graveyard lava air .

   my little daring darling daughters

   o hero scream . Hiroshima . au quelle dommage
   which Agent Orange kora

   blown w/their ribbons in. to the gutter's rush
   their sweet red oils staining the widening whitening

   side. walk(s)' slow walk. ing nuclear midnight hush
   knock. knock. ing heaven's door .
   my Filene's Bargain Basement

   uncle. nvr going shopping there or anywhere again
   his cell. ular titanium lip no more complaining
   from the 92nd Floor . we nvr find his body . we nvr find

   the phone .
   some. some. where in this wide gaping river of the city's
   wound. he sits blind bound & voiceless in his seat

   of failure . we cannot even share the wireless
   whisper of his fate. not knowing if he jump. or burn
   not knowing if he really still up there . or if he comin down

   And so this foreday morning w/out light or choice
   i cannot swim
   the stone. i can't hold on to water. so i drown

   i swallow left. i turn & fallow
   into fear & blight. a night so deep it make you turn
   & weep the line of spiders of yr future you see spinn-

   ing here. their silver
   voice of tears. their lid. less jewel eyes .
   all thru this buffeting eternity i toss i burn

   again & when i rise leviathan from the deep . black shining
   from my skin of seals. blask toothless pebbles mine the shore
   haunted by dust & bromes . wrist. watches w/out tone or

   tides, communion w/out broken hands, x-
   plosions
   of frustration. the sufferation of the sweat
   of hate. the absent ruby lips upon the wrinkle rim

   of wine . i wake to tick to tell you that
   in these loud waters of my land. there is no root no hope
   no cloud no dream no sail canoe or miracle .

   good day cannot repay bad night. our teeth snarl snapping
   even at halp. less angels' evenings' melting steel
   in this new farmer garden of the earths' delights .

   this staggering stranger of injustices come rumbelling down
   the wheel & graveyard
   of the wind. down the scythe narrow streets

   clear air for a moment . clear
   innocence whe we are running. so so so so so many. the crowd
   flow over Brooklyn Bridge

   so so so many . i had not thought death had undone so many
   melting away into what is now sighing . lights gone from the
   clear avenue forever . our souls sometimes far out ahead

   already of our white rat. tle surfaces.
   and not looking back. looking back. looking back
   as it is in Bhuj. in Grenada. Guernica. Amritsar

   Tajitzkhan. the sulphur-stricken cities of the plains
   of Aetna. Pelee. ab Napolis. the widow baby-mothers
   of the slaves not looking back in Bosnia. the Sudan

   Chernobyl. Oaxaca terremoto. al'fata el Jenin. the Bhopal
   babies sucking toxic milk. our growing tongues
   accustom to the what-is-the-word-that-is-not-here-in-English

   beyond shadenfreude . not at all like duende
   pleasure domes of a massacre. acres & acres of its aching
   x-crement.
   meaning the rusty-tasting-smell of dead

   blood. skull. the loneliness of broken hull. cracks. blue
   wind through its stark white terror, simple doom
   in the most secret houses in the brain . in the loud

   thunder of the lung's now quasimodo faces of the moon
   shape of the mosque, its pain. shape
   of my mother's womb. strange

   lingering words mean. ing havoc hymen hyenas & howling .
   altar
   of human scream & scar-
   ifice .

   2000 fahrenheit of sheening fuel sunlight
   cenote . abattoir . golgotha
   yr wife crying out in vein from the hammock of her home

   out of her own vain loneliness of dream
   that you have gone some whe far away
   still writhing the screens of her chilldren

   still listening for threads
   in the language of displacement & fissures
   yr face crack & squeeze like the dry mud

   of abossom. the dread sodden puddles of camels
   even tho the barnacle elephants still walk glistening glistening
   out of the water. yr vice throttle to its very thorax

   in this pillage. all this fine falling steel
   the paper offices still soffly listening for midnight
   still falling falling falling

   O Leopold Sedar Senghor Garcia Lorca O Oleander Bernstein
   the fall. ing fall. ing fall. ing. still soffly viequez
   like Kuzts in his climat of pain at the horror

   but what is the word
   theft you will nvr retrieve here ground zero. shatila .
   more meaning of massacre auschwits. shallow mass

   graves. babanghita. the way you make me swallow
   the tail of my tongue in the villages. following the footsteps
   of my own self of my own river of flesh
   my own ash my own alph my own poem

   and what is the word
   for this high rafter of suicide. the rope
   choking the throat of success. the shook

   of yr death in the fission of indebtedness. quagmire .
   waste. quicksand.
   My Brother's soft bowels of aids. the taste

   of the death of uncouth in the copper of water
   what prophet my tongue w/the tsunami loss
   of my Mother the Noun. the fail-

   ure of falling angelicas' hope. alphabets stuff upside-down
   in my mouth, the babel of balasier & the downfall
   of plaster upon all these voices & scores, dub hip-

   hop scouse. the markets of marrakesh settling old sores
   of no longer verbs that can heal. of no longer baptisms
   that will bawd out yr name from the cup of disaster. adjectives

   already gone away
   clattering. lounging in shame. the silence of rot
   of the hot of unheavens. the dread kapot ovens

   of the beast upon the thrashing floor of syphilis. thin
   fur of fear upon the unknown animal that is now yr very sister
   at the door

   four

   little bombard girls of Birmingham that ku
   klux christian tabernacle night in Sodom & Herero
   the corn

   husk terror of Rwanda. the poor who live w/in
   the stony guts & gashes of our ornate
   palaces. the widow now forever reach-

   ing in frus. tration to her open-window backseat
   for her hero husband's blown-out brains in Dallas
   the curling Black Death mushroom gloom of God

   in Nagasaki . what Pol Pot did . King Leopold's
   Great Pyramid of Skulls inside the Belgian Congo
   like judas come to chrismass. like leopard come to lamb

   even upon this dark
   un. even catastrophic ground
   where soon the devastation saurus faces of the dead

   will haunt us frontom
   from their rat. tle sockets. the gentle liquid iris language
   of their prayers . soft

   blades of cyandle eyes in psalms & pain & irie innocence
   of ruin photographs & childhood teddy bears' young lighted
   flickering hearts against the black & shining

   iron railings' incense of the parks. all their birds gone
   leaves' spirits of green vegetation's ceremonies . gone
   it look like nearly evva one who went to work that day up they is
   gone

   Rita Lasar Joseph O'Reilly Masuda wa Sultan
   her 19 children gone
   the Ladder 16 crew. so many thousands gone .
   and nothing nothing new . Manhattan & Afghanistan

   body

   body & soul

   I was standing on the steps of City Hall ... in all that dust

   and I knew that Terry [her husband The Captain of Rescue 1] wd have

   been on one of the highest floor(s) that he cd get to ... in that
   building

   for that's what his Company does ... and when I saw the
   building come down ... I knew that he had no chance

   Sometimes I start to worry that he was afraid ... but ... knowing
   him I think he was completely focussed on the job at hand ...
   sometimes it makes me angry [she gives here a little laugh of pain]
   but I don't think that he

   I think in the back of his mind ... he was more concerned about where
   I was? and the fact that I was far-enough-away ... from the trouble?

   But I don't think that he considered ... his not-coming-home
   and sometimes that makes me angry ... S'almost as if he didn't
   choose me.

   But I can't
   fault him for that he was doin his job ... That's who he was and
   why I loved him so much

   So I can't blame him for that

   His friend Tim told me that he saw Terry going in and Terry said
   to him we may not be seeing each other again ... and kissed him
   on the cheek ... and ran ... upstairs [into the North Tower]

   When the building came down ... I just felt a complete disconnection
   in my heart ... It was just like everything was just
   ripped-out-of-my-chest.

   I thought that Terry ... just incinerated

   I was grabbing the dust ... from the ground ... thinking that he was
   in the dust

   I lost my husband ... but I think that he did ... the bet that he cd
   because I truly believe that when Terry got to Heaven ... he had so
   many

   chips in his favor

   that he bargained for this child because he
   knew that that wd be the one thing that wd save me

   And ... so I think in that respect(s)

   I got ... I ... I ... I'm go(ing) to live ... I still have a part
   of Terry

   that I'm going to see in May. And a lot of people didn't
   get that

   So I think that in certain ways ... I was lucky. But in other ways
   [here she tries to smile from her wine dark shining eyes]
   ... obviously ... I was not ...

   [and makes a wordless sorry]

      so let us even at this time

   remember the poor & the helpless the cold the hungry
   les damnes de la terre

   the sick in mind & body . them that will wear
   the broken fence of mourning on their faces
   the lame the lonely the unnamed ... unloving ... the unloved

   the jaded aged in the name of God . the little trace. less
   concertina children
   grainering the fear- less streets of Rio Mysore Sebrenitza
   none who now nvr know the loving loving-kindness of the Lord
   upon another shore

   And the tune almost gone from the solo
   just its soft shimmering skein of archipelagoes
   just walter johnson & the boys holding you up in this

   pool & spot. light's shapely union
   of yr pyramid . the fallow folded metal leaves un
   -folding to the slow. down-spiralling bell & tenor

   of yr song

   & fallin here like sparrowes fathers sorrowes
   o my love
   but tall still tall from where you have been cast. cast

   down the walls of pomp & pride & vivid firnament
   the wealthy many-eyed & prison homes come rolling
   down the rumble

   of the tide of thorn & rock. et refuse. babylonium thrones
   thrown down. where you abide.
   de. file. so many lynching afternoons ago

   strange etching fruit of lonely crucifixions' systematically
   broken hands & broken catatonic bones. so
   many broken guitar strings, such kernel damage

   in the white-tile bathroom precincts, the mush
   gomorrah broomstick
   up yr haitian anguish

   w/yr frail fierce solo
   burning in the changing light w/in this zoom so blue so
   indigo

   the feathers fall. ing fly. ing fall. ing fail. ing fall
   ing in this new
   york monument of dying cold & aberfan

   where so much glory has been pitch
   & toss . green
   sun so bright the shadows when you walk in them

   are red & burn. ing brown & muharram
   . so many many children abiku & born
   w/death. and their torn stories lost and nvr told

   these children mek
   dis pack wit you
   & yet thy shoes lie
   gape & laughin . empty
   blood(y)
   in the burn. in
   grounn ...

   o come back Black Hawk
   come back come back

   turn
   yr dark volume higher
   up. let it plough
   fields of patient terraces
   again. long lonely roars
   of corn for Ginsberg Whitman
   for Hart
   Crane for Louis Ornette always
   for Rollins & for

   Trane. for wind for
   snares for turrest tunnels
   uder-wound
   & underground
   & underriver. staircases
   pouring
   never-ending
   down their space
   w/no xit w/no amazing
   escape face no
   saveing
   grace for all the
   suns & mothers
   of the murthered world
   the headless heedless
   streetlessIIIWorld womans'
   infants abandon
   on hospital steps
   in pothole sidewalks
   full of spite. full law
   on lightless
   deconstruction sites
   in gashes
   at the sides of palaces
   in signalling banana
   leaves. the rollingstock
   compartments
   of our railway carrages.
   in joyless
   bull-rush
   rushes. in carefull
   folded straw
   the metal hearse
   inside the mental horse
   of Troy. three
   hundred fifty firemen
   themselves
   becoming
   fire. the glowing
   sharcoal
   engines of their
   eyes still howling
   ishak meshak
   & abednegro

   so now we live inside
   this dusk
   (y) afternoon . good

   day i say again
   cannot repay bad
   night. our teeth snarl

   snapping
   even at halpless
   angels in this

   new dust
   (y) garden of the
   earths delights

   the sundered papers
   from the world's
   trades' tallest mon-

   ument. these sunlit
   letters
   of the spirits

   white litters
   from the dead
   of towers

   bird stone flesh passera sera pajarita

   & from the to be yet
   undone.
   undone

   now sadly
   flying sometimes
   soft-

   ly sometimes
   something
   dizzy An the sudden knife

   of sky
   like scalp
   -less doves

   lake winkling stars'
   disasters
   in the life

   of blue

   even as you
   comin . comin . warm konnu
   like to the end of this long pull & palim
   of yr song

   Hawk

   shrouded w/mirrors
   haunted by showers
   falling flowers

   long before his time here flaring
   future
   where he arrives

   this golden time
   early like this
   this early new york autumn season

   the cool ocol the clear the towers falling
   down . o let me
   my beloved

   aXe

   aXe

   before these claws
   of falling worlds
   i lose

   you. o these slacken broken doors
   these laws
   i lose

   you all these words
   these wars
   i lose

   you. o let me my beloved
   love you love you love you
   vivid + green + golden