BHM!

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?