Common Tongue
BY BRIAN GYAMFI
In the pool, Frank knows himself to be on fire.
To become rational, a boy must eat another man.
Frank, for a moment, sings “Steal Away to Jesus,”
His tone; wet like dew
on a cockroach. God,
I want to receive anointment and joy
Despite the movement of a father’s cane
As if to divide a sea from its spine;
I have become a division of body parts.
Frank sings He calls me by the thunder,
his tongue wrestling the texture
Of his throat like he might swallow or
Has swallowed.
I am speaking to that texture
Of thunder, to that chip on his bottom tooth.
Bach Concerto for Two Violins
BY BRIAN GYAMFI
In the kingdom, you watch a princess with a beauty mark carry a boy to the bathroom.
It’s a death-defying moment. The woman who climbs into the mines or the black sun
that keeps roosters in utter confusion. Snow settles on the soberness of a boy who dreams
feverishly, of tickets to the Barbican Centre. A sobriety old and lost in a city
where a harpist plays the wrong tune for the princess and a boy learns to dance.
Do you remember the violinist who came back from prison and became a deer?
As he manifested into his new life, a sudden metamorphosis, he crawled on his hands and knees.
We know Bach’s concerto for two violins sounds wrong on one, but the baritone’s ballad
is within rhythm. In another life the baritone is a harpist, and the ballad is sung twice
by the princess with a beauty mark. The same song is played with the eclipse.
This time the boy will stand and protest the miniscule sounds. The princess will be
an upturned mountain of misfortune, of fire, of music. The disgrace of a first sighting.
God praise the disgraced princess. What you need is a pianist to play along with your voice,
the right candlestick, and an omen to shatter countless pains—from the blue catalogue freezer
inside the Centre to the prophetic banana leaves that are stepped on. For now, the music
will be played all over London. At first quiet and toneless. Then assertive, beautiful.
