A Nathaniel Mackey Poem

Song of the Andoumboulou: 166 ½

Decapitism stuck to the end of my
   tongue. What to do but call it names
I thought. It wasn’t thought I was  
                                                        think-
   ing I’d have answered had I been
asked, not even thinking I thought…
  I sat brooding, tracking a feather’s
                                                              drop,
    plummet my lush regard. I sat
brooding, hen’s heat yogic so bent
   my hickory legs were, hickory
                                                         stiff
  transcendent so flexed it was. So it
    will have been said absentmindedly
rolled off my tongue. Least thought,
                                                               last
       thought I mock made-believe I
  believed, prophet shod in castoff
   tread… Profitry rolled off as well,
jelly-coated pill I bit. Bitness rolled
                                                              with
   it or might as well have, qu’ahttet’s
broken jaw. Change was the law I
  sat reflecting, right foot nested on
                                                               my
     left inner thigh, left leg pointed
  straight ahead. I sat, Buddhistic
   hurdler, musing, mouth open, ip-
seities arrayed in a row… I sat, I
                                                           was
    thinking thought’s province re-
 ceded, beauty’s provocation revoked
  as our loins contracted, Itamar,
                                                          Anun-
 cio, all us men. Tantric hoist I was
  thinking, thought’s adumbration,
what ached and what resigned itself,
                                                                    dis-
    placed… We sat checking out the
 yogis in leotards, Ahdja, Eleanoir,
   Anuncia, Sophia, every womanly
wisp under the sun. I dreamt again we
                                                                       were
   away with no way home, this or that
     plane waiting, this or that takeoff
 missed, sweet crease loaded with ore
                                                                    but
   to be absconded with, gold we’d’ve
     otherwise been. Bent intonation inter-
vened, a reed off away in the distance,
                                                                      Net-
    sanet’s name I no sooner gave than
was given back, Brother B’s wild ox
  moan… I sat dejected, thought’s
                                                           ap-
    pointment missed, disappointed,
 abscondity’s eviscerate redoubt. I
  was thinking thought had yet to be-
gin, thought’s far emblem a star too
                                                                   frail
  for sight, leotarded crux and cur-
    vature’s ignition, thought’s due ad-
vent I thought no such arrival, what come-
 liness it wore wore thin. No ideas but
                                                                     in
    them I thought, cloak and conni-
 vance the lords of that house, abode
                                                                    we
   abided
 by


(2015)