Because the future is HyperQBist, let’s talk about the hyperpoem—which is not just the colorpuntal forming the host poem and the ghost poem (sweet potatoes /the musk of a beloved / rosary or recipe) or even the “periodic” references (ice & mdnite), but what happens if we try to consider all three coming together to form a piece beyond the written text.The hyperpoem exists in an unwritten dimension, an ache beyond paraphrase. A semantic figure that’s similar to a written poem, but in higher dimensions. Perhaps because the hyperpoem is beyond words it can become a way to talk about things that are also beyond our lexicon
AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION
AS WHISPERS FOR THE ECHOLOCATION
OF A FIGURE NOIR
(after ashes buried)
Is it cool as a mythical village
echoed by talking drums from Ibadan,
or the darkness where sweet potatoes root
as some still dream of growing yams?
The musk of the hand carved mask,
or a funky beloved feeling bituminous?
Could we spot it perhaps on the spectrum?
Do y’all hum or alhamdulillah?
O Lorde—do we decide to star it or tar it
as others have sought to find asphalt
in our absence of photons or perhaps
recite [ Iodine & Cerium ]
tho not as a ploy of blaxploitation
where most of the kinks get afro-picked out
and what is left only looks like a globe.
Maybe slick as a halo if some hot Mama needs
to braid or lay her baby hair for miles ahead
with [mendelevium & nickel & tellurium].
What elemental truth isn’t melasomorphic?
And yet, don’t we still ache to cross it
as if fingers or streets or an ocean
—to seek a return to the orishas even
as we wonder if they over here?
Perhaps dry, but not as the five fingers you put
by your ears to count the pentecost.
Instead, let’s put a question to the talking drum—
what grammar has a rosary or recipe
written in cornrows on her head, beyond which
our midnight blues could maybe indigo?