Song of the Andoumboulou: 85

Came now to another crossroads. Stick people stood awaiting us, to the left, straight ahead, to the right. What was that song you sang, they asked, spoke without sound sound’s immanence, not without song but only one song, the one song summon- ing song’s eclipse... The one song sang song’s inconsequence, crooned it could not’ve been otherwise, song song’s own lament... The one song sang song’s irrelevance, we were exhausted, we looked straight ahead, left, right. The stick people’s question fa- tigued us, glyphed riddle whose decipherment they said we’d someday be, exegetes against our will... Lack, reluctance, pallor, eidolon. Crossroads cryptogram, they themselves were sing- ing, nothing not what could be seen they said, soul not sign if not eyelight, song more what could be seen than they could say, wan unwillingness they said... Slick stick people, tricky, soul a sick thing they said... Signs all said Stick City. Stick City straight ahead, to the left, to the right, signs pointed every which way... Stick sublimity sent us reeling, a we that wasn’t we against one that was. Mass, intangible we it was we were, beads thrown off in a row... We’d have given anything to get to Stick City and there we were. Whatever way we took would take us there. Stick City loomed ahead and to the left and to the right, any which way but in back of us, Stick City meant no turning back... Signs all said Stick City. We read them all out loud, “Stick City.” “Styxicity,” Itamar quipped... It wasn’t water we crossed, it wasn’t hell we were in. Stick City housed our hearts’ desires we were told, Stick City stood without end or assistance, line long since what stuck... Line was all point, point all extensity, stick’s own deictic drop... No longer point less point than point’s target, Stick City made them one and the same... So it was on to where the signs said next, Stick the one place we were yet to arrive at, Diddie Wa Diddie’s twin. A winding road it now was we were on, so curved we could see our backs. No work, no worry up ahead we heard, music’s utopic stir... Hogs lay stuck with knives and forks, chickens likewise we heard. A wall of beats for backup, Stick City way off somewhere... As quick as that we were there, Stick City. It wasn’t the way we heard it was. Everyone limped, walked with a cane, no way how we heard it was... As quick as that there we were. Stick City lay before us, lied about. Legbaland it might’ve been... Diddie Wa Diddie’s non-identical twin if twin it was, no way the way we heard it was • Stick-figure escorts ushered us in, pointed out what was what. Stick people's gait was flawless, they said, unstick people limped on sticks... A strand of horsehair lay in the road, hair from a horse's tail. Come rain it became a snake, would-be stick though Stick City said no... It was getting to be late again, the arcade's light less intense... Come night we lay under a horse, shouted voiceless trying to wake each other up and woke up, coiled hair stiffened with earwax, as if at last we were Stick City's own... Not so we saw soon enough. No home, no haven was it, noise what of it we could keep... West L.A. it might've been, Saint-Pierre it might've been wélélé no matter where we were... Stick symphony. Ictic sashay... Head bob atop watery neck, nod homage, noise, names came loose. What of it we kept we kept in name only, “Stick City” ours to hold on to. Chance it might've meant, I Ching, no place but we were long since gone... Where sign had been sound X marked it, stick bisected stick. Signal some said, noise's alternate, half where we were nowhere near where we were, were where's discontent... It was getting to be light again, noise the new day's largesse. Sound was what sign turned out from, sound itself exed out... What the song was we sang no longer what we were asked, stick inquisitors gathered, mum to the bone. Frown, furrowed brow, grimace the glyphs met us, faces lined up in a row. Line was what pressed us, point egged us on, what the song was we sang no song we sang, what the song was we sang moot... The strand-of-horsehair-become-a-snake became a rope around our necks, rope what the song we sang was. We'd have given anything to say Stick City was where we were... Breath it was we gave, rope round our necks... We were neck- less, bobbing heads, barbershop xtet, calabashes hit with sticks. Whatever we were, whatever noise there was we made ours. “This is our dispatch,” we said... Euphemistic necktie, eu- phemistic float. Horsehair tickling the tops of our throats. Wet, euphemistic scruff... As it was getting to be noon we got our necks and bodies back. A cartoon watch dog bit us, a pinscher with painted lips. We were stick people now, initiates. Stick legs only a blur, we were running, pant legs and hem- lines ripped... Cross. Chiliasm. Crisis. Stick bisected stick. More hopeless the less we needed it, less real the more shot with stick vaccine, less real the more stick we were... Stick inquisitors fell away as we went in. Stick City disappeared as we ran deeper. Too late to turn back, we were twigs, kindling, dispatch gone up in smoke... We were jíbaros, hicks, cuatro ping in back of us, howled, “Aylelolay lolelay.” We stood absorbed in what felt like advent. We stood on a plane cut thru an adverse cone. Low, rummaging burr, the sound we sought sought us, we the make-believe dead more dead than we knew... Syllabic run was more alive than we were, bass clack bugling disaster, brute sun outside the nod house door ______________ Crossroads though it was it seemed an impasse, stick as in stuck we thought. Stick as in stone's accomplice, Quag's bone- yard remit... Insofar as there was an I it fell in, a brass bell's everted lips now convergent, shush we were hollowed by. Insofar as there was an I it was as each of us insisted, as far as there was an I, stick beating stick, there was an X... Crux... Cross... Crutch... Legs' Osirian soulstrut lost, Legbaland it was and we limped on, limped in, Stick City's outskirts endless it seemed, no matter we leaned on sticks... Were there an I it stood like a stick, mum-stuff crossing itself. Insofar as there was an I it was an X taking shape, there but to be gone if not no sooner there than gone, glass house holding its own ______________ We knew we wore skeleton suits. We knew we walked holding placards. “Dead from Day One" they read, part requiem, part rebuke... What lay around us had the sound of steam. Low-motion lurk. Time-lapse cascade. Stick City city limits notwithstanding, glass intangibles allowed what was lost otherwise, gripless in the house outside the house... It slipped away and we slipped away and it slipped away, Stick City a mirage nod concocted, not to be be- lieved but we did though it receded, nod Nub's emic retreat