Song of the Andoumboulou

Next a Brazilian cut came
on Sophia picked. Paulinho's
voice lit our way for what
seemed eternity,
minha
primeira vez the one
phrase
we caught or could understand,
no matter it ended
soon as it'd begun.
Endless
beginning. Endless goodbye.
Always there if not ever all
there, staggered collapse, an
accordion choir serenaded
us,
loquat groves hurried by
outside. . .

It was a train
in southern Spain we
were on, notwithstanding
Paulinho's "first" put one
place atop another,
brought
Brazil in, air as much of
it as earth, even more, an ear
we'd have called inner unexpectedly
out. . . Neither all in our
heads nor was the world an array
less
random than we'd have
thought. . .
It was a train outside São
Paulo on our way to Algeciras we
were on. . . Djbai came aboard.
Bittabai followed. . .
A train
less of thought than of quantum
solace, quantum locale. "Quantum
strick, bend our way,' we
begged, borne on by reflex, a
train
gotten on in Miami, long since
gone

****

Lag was our true monument.
It was an apse we strode under,
made of air. There inasmuch
as we exacted it, aliquant amble,
crowds
milling around on corners began
to move, the great arrival day
we'd heard so much about begun,
sown even if only dug up again.

Call it loco, lock-kneed samba. . .
Multi-track train. Disenchanted
feet. . .
It was the book of
it sometimes going the wrong
way we now read and wrote. . .
Split
script. Polyrhythmic
remit