theblackbottom

Eargasms

For Rondee

Your voice is mojo song.
A vibraphonic vamp, an eargasm
of paralinguistic sound. Sankofa
solo like polyrhythmic e-pomes
of call and response. Bent notes
crammed into amen corners
and fried chicken shacks. Cross
rhythms spiced with double dutch
chocolate and cinnamon skinned
black girls dancing on the funk. Mix
tapes with ladies first. Independent
expression and revolutionary ride
or die. Push it, baby. Your smile
is an African violet and you
are a melody maker with true
devotion. You sing Afro Gospel
Blues for Mama. Perform magic
like Nzinga, who transformed valleys
of bronze black vertebrae
into softness like a red silk sofa.
If Billie’s voice was a horn
yours is an alto. I hear the pitch
and timbre of jazz delight. Blue
spirit reflections of unwed mothers
and grandmothers with narratives
of mules and men. Sunbaked memories
of Mississippi goddam. The moon
walk migration to Flint. B-boys
and fly girls banging the boogie
and doing it good. Krunk beats
simmered in bottle trees and rail
road tenements. Fresh rhymes
cut with drum syllables. Or mean
Makaveli hooks. Sonic graffiti
flashlights of hipnotic street
life. The screech and scratch
of 9 millimeter gats. Prosodies
of muffled ghosts and doorstep
babies. Your emotions pouring
into song and you testify
like a righteous saint
in lyrical flow, pulsating
and reverberating in guttural octaves
like a stone soul singer
of the changing same.

Copyright Anthony Bolden 2007

Tony Bolden, is a poet and an associate professor of African and African-American studies at the University of Kansas. He is the author of Afro-Blue: Improvisations in African American Poetry and Culture. He received his doctorate from Louisiana State University and his master’s at the University of Iowa. His teaching and research interests include African-American music, literature, cultural studies and intellectual history and African literature.