And this last poem is a poem called "Avalanche."
I grew up in the church.
And I always wanted to write a poem about the church.
And its a title poem for my--
this book Avalanche.
And I just showed it to you.
Don't ask me why I had showed it [INAUDIABLE]..
Maybe I wanted you to see José Bedia's painting on the cover.
That would be crazy anyway [INAUDIBLE] Anyway,
I grew up in the Baptist church.
And one day, I went home and my mother said, why don't you ever
write about the Baptist church?
I said, because I don't think about it.
[LAUGHTER]
You don't think about it.
My brother's a minister.
I don't think about it.
I mean, it's cool.
But I thought about that when I went home.
And I wrote this poem.
It's not about the church.
It's about the feeling that you get in the Black Baptist
church, those rhythms that you get when the minister's up
in the pulpit.
And those choirs are singing.
And that antiphon stuff is flowing back and forth
between the minister and the choir
and the congregation, which also comes also
in jazz and the blues, that whole thing of antiphony, call
and response, call and response.
So that's what this poem's about.
"Avalanche For K. Curtis Lyle and the memory of Richard Wright."
"Within an avalanche of glory hallelujah skybreaks,
spraying syllables on the run, spreading sheets,
waving holy sounds, solos sluicing African bound.
Transformed in America from voodoo
into hoodoo, inside tonguing blues, snaking horns, where
juju grounds down sacred up in chords.
Up in the gritty foofoo, magical,
where fleet rounds of cadences whirlpool
as in rivers, where memory spins down foaming into dances
like storms swallowed here in a burst of suns,
up in the yeasting blue voodoo, holding the secret clues
mum inside the mystery, unfolding up
in the caking dishrag of daybreak,
miracles shaking out earthquakes of lights like mojo hands
luminous with spangling, and are the vamping blood songs
of call response, the vamping blood
songs of call and response.
As in the pulpit, when a preacher becomes his words,
his rhythms those of a sacred bluesman dead outside his door.
His gospel intersecting with antiphonal guitars,
a congregation of amens as in the slurred riffs
the blues strings run back echoing themselves,
answering the call, the voice cracked open like an egg.
The yolk running out.
The lungs imitating collapsed drums.
And he is the rainbowing confluence of sacred tongues,
the griot, the devotion of rivers all up in his hands,
all up in his fingers.
His call both invocation and quaking sermon,
running true and holy as drumming cadences brewed
in Black church choirs, glory hallelujah vowels
spreading from their mouths like wolfman's mojo
all up in Mahalia Jackson's lungs.
Howling vowels rolled off hoodoo consonants, brewing magic
all up in the preacher's run, of muddy water
strung all up in the form drenched with coltrane,
riffing all up in miles of Lightnin' Hopkins' mojo song,
blues yeasting lungs of bird when music is raised up
as prayer and lives, healing as June's sun quilted
into black babies' tongues sewn deep in their lungs as power
and blueprinted here in breath of rappers.
And this is a poem in praise of continuity.
Is a poem about blood coursing through tongues.
Is a praise song for drowned voices lost in Middle Passage.
Is a praise song for the slashed drums of Obatala.
Is a construct of orikis linking antiphonal bridges.
Is a praise song tonguing deep mojo secrets, Damballa,
in praise of the great God's blessings,
Oshun, in praise of healing songs sewn into tongues,
inflating sweet lungs into a cacophony of singing,
praise songs tonguing deep mojo secrets.
And this poem is about music, when
music is what it believes it is, holy,
when voices harmonize, somersaulting colors in flight.
And glory is the miracle poetry sings
to in that great getting-up morning,
within the vortex of wonder, confluencing rivers,
light glory in the rainbows arching like eyebrows
across suns, glory in the moonlight
staring from a one-eyed cat's head and eye
want to be glory and flow in that light.
Want to be coltrane's solos living in me.
Want to become wonder of birds in flight of my lines.
Want the glory of song healing in me as sunlight.
Want it tongued through leaves, metaphoring trees
transformed where they seed and stand up here as people
in this soil, everything rooted here
in blood of mother's flesh.
And is the poetry of God in deep forest
time singing and listening.
And the music there is green as it also is purple,
as it also is orange brown and mind-blowing electric banana,
as it is red cinnamon, and also again, green sound
ground up against lavender.
And each sunsets fusing crisp blue light.
And night here stitched with fireflies, flicking gold up
against bold midnight.
And once again, yes, green as shimmering Caribbean palm
fronds are green in the center of apocalyptic chaos.
And my poem here is reaching for that greenness,
is reaching for holy luminosity, shimmering
in gold flecked light, where the mojo hand is seaming
through high blue mornings, waving like a sequined glove
up in the glory of hallelujahs, calling through the inner tube
lips of the great God singing, up in the blues-root-doctors
jacklegging sermon up in the condolences,
mourning death up in the sunburst of God's glory.
I want this poem to kneel down itself before healing.
Want it to be magic there beneath the crucifixion
of light.
Want it to be praise song, juju rooted.
Want it to be mojo hand raised up to powers of flight.
Want it to be tongue of gritty foofoo, feeding.
Want it to be a congregation slurring amen riffs,
running back through me to you, the voice raised up here,
guitar blues licks, holy.
Want it to be glory hallelujah call and response, glory.
Want it to be yam song rooted in the bloody river, holy.
Want it to be ground earth of resurrections in you, in me.
The bridge tongue of healing is the drum of this song.
And it is reaching out to you to cross over to the sun,
is reaching out to touch your heartbeat there
to become one in the glory, to feel the healing touch,
to become one with the glory.
This poem waits for you to cross over,
to cross over the heartbeat touch of your healing hands,
touching hands, touching hearts.
This poem waits for you to cross over, to cross over.
This poem waits for you to cross over, to cross over love.
This poem waits for you to cross over, to cross over to love,
to love, to love."
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.