Mostly Hamburg: '72

Mostly Hamburg: '72

for and after Kwame Dawes

Confusion is the foreigner's advantage. Nativestamp the nuance in their sounds. Strangerseeking refuge pockets vowels, picks gesture,learns body, gets caught up on the cobbleslang of shoes. The polite in this tram-knitcity far from English smile quickbut their toes? Uneasy. Hump leather. Squeak.A Channel boat and hyphenated rolling stockfrom London, and London from his ackee treesan iron bird away, he practices in silence as he walksthe bird-flecked squares, tweed hat on his half-dread'fro at bias, murmurs new songs, scatters wildconsonants that roost now in his mouth.In empty churches that stood firm while getting dustedby bomb-plumes one turns easy to infinity and origin,to how some children if god-blest just haveit natural: organ pipes. Halfway to Rastabut so way-far-way from home, prayer becomesa little easy, comes to him organic-likewhere beer has names like Weizen,starts to anchor in this place whereno one (yet) says nigger, but the breadwill chop your mouth; and there's been months of this,two seasons, time the sweaters swagged insticky Kingston serve. Reggae masters dressup cold to say they travel, but what circumnavigatesis just their songs, lyrics that betray, go abroadwith promise as to Panama, but only drabs return.Muddle is the foreigner's advantage.With slow talk and hand signals, pictures poked atwhile spotting needle in the groove,I play LPs from my satchel for the curious,drink what they bring deeply, watchthem smiling, feeling jokified by howthey clap their brows, not to what is sungexactly, just the loosey-tighty sound:Wilson Pickett, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke,and me in and with the whole of them just riddim different swung. Once, in my bedsitI watched eyes die and nose-holes enliven,twitch as mysteries in the soulcase were wooedand I was wheeled back to my grandfather'scement church near Dungle,eight and speechless from mama water brokeand two doves clawed my epaulets; I waslifted as I sung in what said some was Latin,others said was normal clap-hand tongues;but what it was it was, and what it was came rapid,flocks of fire black and silver lifting from my throatand I could see their sound make patterns—yes,a vision shook me. To see sounds above a praisingcongregation shape one way quite certain then quick-shiftlike soldiers on a dress-up march or shine starlings—(Know those small, black birds?)—that's a mystic,and so, all the way from mento, ska, doo-wop, and rocksteadyinto this here catapultic time I sing from mystic,even my love songs—them is mystic, mystic mix with soul,so no producer can predict me, no chord can bind mefor I can quick-change where my music goes.Dear Lord, what wrong have I done thee, why didyou change your heart? Why did you blightthine own promise? How many songs must your servantsow before he reaps? I hold steadfast whileothers sing less tuneful, demand sparse brasses,bleat righteous, eat calabashes full of Ital thenrehearse the hunger-sound. As these stained saintsgaze down on me I am bilious, broken, broke.Even minor reggae masters know the ginnal roots of myth,know to make it seem natural, ever-there—adventitious—that rehearsed amalgam: prince royal, prophet, pimp;and so he goes about his days singing softly as if untohimself, marking the squares, consoling lindenson the tram-keloided streets, trailing that silk smellof soul music like the fighter-pilot scarf he likes to wear,the throat language coming slow-no-itchingas he gives his neighbors greetings, but he still scoutsout their feet; friendly, but in character standoffish,screw-face, naw-beg-nutten-from-nobaddy.How we say aloof.