1984 - Yusef Komunyakaa

1984 - Yusef Komunyakaa

The year burns an icon
into the blood. Birdlime
discolors the glass domes
& roof beams grow shaky as old men
in the lobby of Heartbreak Hotel.
Purple oxide gas lamps light
the way out of this paradise.
We laugh behind masks & lip-sync Cobol.
We're transmitters for pigeons
with microphones in their heads.
Yellow sky over stockyards,
& by the grace of God
rockets hum in white silos
buried in Kansas wheat fields
or nailed to some ragged hill
zoned as a perfect fearscape.

We say, "I've seen it all."
Bombardment & psychic flux,
not just art nouveau tabula rasa
or double helix. We're ancient mariners
counting whisbones, in supersonic hulls
humming the falconer's ditty
over a banged-up job.
Three Mile Island blooms
her dreamworld as we wait
on the edge of our chairs
for the drunk radiologist.
Such a lovely view -
Big Brother to shadows
slipping under the door
where the millstones are stored.

We sing the ghost-catcher's madrigal.
The end of what? To count dismembered years
we say Ghandi, JFK, King,
leafing through names & faces. Waves
of locusts fall like black snow
in our sleep. Grackles
foresee ruins & battlements
where the Bone Breakers & God Squad
have had a good old time -
destined to sleep under
swaying trestles, as yes-men
crowded into a bad season,
listening all night to a calliope
hoot the equinox.

Since our hair's standing up
on the backs of our necks,
we must be on to something good,
Oppenheimer, right? Killjoy's
perched like the Khan of the Golden Horde
on the back of a prisoner,
& we sit eating crow,
picking our teeth with gold toothpicks.
Angles playing with trick mirrors,
sweet on a Minotaur in the dark
muscular air of a penny arcade.
We can transplant broken hearts
but can we put goodness back into them?

Brass knuckles flash
& this year is like flesh
torn under a lover's eye.
The end of what?
Going after posthumous love letters
dumped in black holes
light-years away, we line up
for practice runs with portable
neutron bombs strapped
to our backs - lopsided fun houses
where everyone wants to be
king of the stacked deck.

Streamlined androids construct
replicas three thousand miles away.
We guardians of uglier things to come
with our camera obscuras,
light vigil candles
& work the White Angel
bread line. Following the lunar crab
& loving the skyline, we discover
there's nothing to hold down tombstones,
lovers wishing upon astronauts
flashier than rock stars.

Alloyed against common sense,
somehow we're all King Lears
calling forth kingdom come -
scherzo for brimstone.
Fireworks bring in the New Year
& Zeus the confused robot
punches a fist through a skylight
as he dances across the floor
with his mechanical bride
doing a bionic two-step.

Hammered silver,
those badges we wear;
U-235 UTOPIA.
Made in America.
"Give us enough time,
we'll make the damn thing.
Let's look at the manual.
OK, here's human breath
on page 319."

Weather wars hang in skies
over the Third World. The dead
keep walking toward the sea
with everything they own
on their backs. Caught off guard
our falsehoods break into parts
of speech, like mayflies
on windshields of white Corvettes.

We're stargazers, weirdos,
prestidigitators in bluesy
bedrooms, on private trips
to the moon. The end of what?
We lock our hearts
into idle, not sure
of this world or the next.

Let's come down to earth.
let's forget those video wrist watches
& "E.T." dolls triggered
by interstellar sundials
where electric eyes
hum on 18-carat key chains

& Dr. Strangelove tracks
the titanium gods. Let's go
beyond Devil's Triangle,
back to where the heart knows.
All the machines are on.
We sleepwalk among black roses
like characters in a dime novel,
& psychotherapy
can't erase the sign of the beast.