Duende for Garcia Lorca and Miles Davis

Duende

for Garcia Lorca and Miles Davis

it’s in the bottomless power, magic of duende climbing stealthily from earth, wrapped inside secrets, mystery infused in black magic that enters bodies in the form of music, art, poetry imbuing language with sovereignty, in blood spooling back through violent centuries, voices echoing ancient Africa, rise, thread

from skins of blessed, sacred rituals, people emerge from drums as heartbeats in time when memory is revived here now through metaphor when olden voices find their way vibrating into song, rhythms stitch forgotten sounds into language beat out of them by whips on slave ships, bring back wonder of feet pounding, dance,

the holy ghost lost in bloody homelands, now souls underneath rise up through bodies, spool back with talismans, hypnotic, pull ancient voodoo up in buckets filled with holy water, evoke memories drinking from whodunit secrets awakened in poetry of Garcia Lorca, Andalusian dues heard in Miles Davis’ clues

vibrating anew in Sketches of Spain, andante blues

© 2021 Seven Stories Press by Quincy Troupe. Excerpt from Duende: Poems, 1966-Now.