Trickster III
This bassline is sticky like asphalt
and wet like molasses heated nice and hot,
and the bass drum booms my heart,
jumping me, jump-starting me
to find the path of this sluggish sound;
I follow the tap like a fly catching light
in its rainbow gossamer wings
on top of a big-ear elephant;
I follow the pluck of a mute lead-guitar string,
tacking, tacking out a tattoo to the bassline;
I let the syrup surround my legs
and my waist is moving without a cue,
without a clue of where we are going,
walking on the spot like this.
Coolly, deadly, roots sound on my back,
and I can conjure hope in anything;
dreams in my cubbyhole of a room where
the roaches scuttle from the tonguing gecko.
This music finds me giddy and centered, but when
morning comes, I am lost again, no love, just lost again.
From Jacko Jacobus. Copyright © 1996 by Kwame Dawes. Used with the permission of Peepal Tree Press.