Music Is Made out of Smoke

(for Lee "Scratch" Perry)

In this cold countrythoughts float freely back

to backs bent under the sun.The work is never good enough

for a master who seeks blood:it is said to sweeten the soil.

Am I the slaughtered lamb who pouredkerosene over her body and lit the match

or the burning spearthat began a mystic revolution?

You stand there between my fingers,sweet reminder of mortality

and in the slanted light between blindsyou diminish into smooth lines

that float like shadowsup to the sky god who reads smoke as sacrifice.

Someone must have had a cigarette in hand,pulled in

the breath that went searching down corridors of memorytill the whole body

started to heave and convulse.Blew out

the wail of the ranting reggae man,suffocating Babylon

on a night like thiswhen the moon is a black arc too blackfor the scattered syncopationsof a back room melody.

This blue smoke rising in rhythmic curlscrisp and corrugated,

carrying the sound of prophets calling,the smell of canefields burning,

is the revolt of memory.