UPDATE: Comments open guys. It's funny I was reading this this morning wondering if it was too sentimental. Then I hit this lovely stanza:
In the next roomTheir mother throws her dress away to chance.It drops to the floorLike a brush sighs across a drum head,And when she takes her lover,What are they thinking ofIf not a ballroom filled with mirrors,A world where no one has the rightTo stumble?
Truly gorgeous. Though I still don't know what this piece is about. Maybe it's just a version of Ice Cube's "It Was A Good Day," put on paper...
The streamers choking the main arteries
Of downtown.
The brass band led by a child
From the home for the handicapped.
The old men
Showing their hair (what's left of it),
The buttons of their shirts Popping in time
To the salsa flooding out
Of their portable headphones,
And mothers letting their babies
Be held by strangers.
And the bus drivers
Taping over their fare boxes
And willing to give directions.
Is there any reason to mention
All the drinks are on the house?
Thick, adolescent boys
Dismantle their BB guns.
Here is the world (what's left of it),
In brilliant motion,
The oil slick at the curb
Danced into a thousand
Splintered steps.
The bag ladies toss off their
Garments
To reveal wings.
"This dance you do," drawls the cop,
"What do you call it?"
We call it scalding the air.
We call it dying with your
Shoes on.
And across the street
The bodies of tramps
Stumble
In a sober language.
And across the street
Shy young girls step behind
Their nameless boyfriends,
Twirling their skirts.
And under an archway
A delivery boy discovers
His body has learned to speak,
And what does this street look like
If not a runway,
A polished wood floor?
From the air,
Insects drawn by the sweat
Alight, when possible,
On the blur
Of torsos.
It is the ride
Of their tiny lives.
The wind that burns their wings,
The heaving, oblivious flesh,
Mountains stuffed with panic,
An ocean
That can't make up its mind.
They drop away
With the scorched taste
Of vertigo.
And under a swinging light bulb
Some children
Invent a game
With the shadow the bulb makes,
And the beat of their hearts.
They call it dust in the mouth.
They call it horse with no rider.
They call it school with empty books.
In the next room
Their mother throws her dress away to chance.
It drops to the floor
Like a brush sighs across a drum head,
And when she takes her lover,
What are they thinking of
If not a ballroom filled with mirrors,
A world where no one has the right
To stumble?
In a parking lot
An old man says this:
"I am a ghost dance.
I remember the way my hair felt,
Damp with sweat and wind.
When the wind kisses the leaves, I am dancing.
When the subway hits the third rail, I am dancing.
When the barrel goes over Niagara Falls, I am dancing.
Music rings my bones like metal.
O, Jazz has come from heaven," he says,
And at the z he jumps, arcing his back like a heron's neck,
And stands suddenly revealed
As a balance demon,
A home for
Stetson hats.
We have all caught the itch:
The neon artist
Wiring up his legs,
The tourist couple
Recording the twist on their
Instamatic camera,
And in a factory,
A janitor asks his broom
For a waltz,
And he grasps it like a woman
He'd have to live another
Life to meet,
And he spins around the dust bin
And machines and thinks:
Is everybody happy?
And he spins out the side door,
Avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk,
Grinning as if he'd just received
The deepest kiss in the world.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Thanks for that one. Really, really, fine.
I'm not sure what this poem is about either, and to calm my frustration I decided that the "what" doesn't matter.
It's the scenes, which can stand alone, which infact do, that make this poem sentimental, stark, angry, ironic and funny. It's the moments that matter.
Like the stanza about the flies that end up "With the scorched taste/Of vertigo." Or the
janitor dancing with his broom "...like a woman/ He'd have to live another/ Life to meet." I also liked the cop as the outsider.
I can't figure out how the title connects to the text--not that it has to. I'd just like to be able to make the connection.
Same sentiments as BelleIsa. I've never been much of a poetry buff (aside from Edgar Allen Poe, and the real notables), so I'm no expert when it comes to overall meaning. But I always enjoy the singular images and scenes that the words bring to mind, and this poem has many good ones.
Or the
janitor dancing with his broom "...like a woman/ He'd have to live another/ Life to meet."
I too was struck by these lines. It evokes a large amount of sadness to read that because he will be forever lonely, but he seems to be getting such joy from the act.
Seems to me that this is all about transcending the everyday world. That said, I was really struck by the stanza about the children and their game, especially
They call it dust in the mouth.
They call it horse with no rider.
They call it school with empty books.
Funny how all the grownups dream about something beautiful and better than what's around them, while the children have imagined something dark (and, to me, heartbreaking).
I'm so glad you're doing this, TNC. Friday poetry day kicks your blog from the interesting and compelling into the sublime.
I liked this part:
Here is the world (what's left of it),
In brilliant motion,
The oil slick at the curb
Danced into a thousand
Splintered steps.
I can't tell if it's mournful or hopeful. But that's what I love about poetry. Thanks for this one.
If anything dates 1992 Ice Cube, it's how this win was never even dreamed of by him in the song. I guess Pharcyde came the closest, promising to change the "flucture of the money."
And, in case my first post didn't go through, David Stern is responsible for anachronizing one of the best metered phrases in early 90's hip-hop: "The Lakers beat the SuperSonics."
I love love love the repetition of the parenthetical "what's left of it." Wry and sad and deceptively offhand.
I think this line is telling:
Is there any reason to mention
All the drinks are on the house?
I think BelleIsa is right - the what doesn't matter.
But here are two thoughts:
1. Everyone rejoicing an apocalypse? There seemed to be many images of death in there. This in particular made me think of an apocalypse:
The wind that burns their wings,
The heaving, oblivious flesh,
Mountains stuffed with panic,
An ocean
That can’t make up its mind.
This too:
O, Jazz has come from heaven,” he says,
And at the z he jumps, arcing his back like a heron’s neck
If the world is broken, perhaps an approaching end would bring everyone together and cause us to dance to the music of our own demise.
2. I know it's impossible, but the widespread joy when Obama was announced the winner? A broken country, still hurting, but celebrating? That's definitely an interpretation that jumped out at me, but then again, I'm going to have Obama on the brain for weeks to come.
I am going to agree on the end of the world theory. Perhaps there's a reason the children's imagery is so dark. Hmmm maybe not the best day for this poem...
Like all the best poems, this one's meaning just crawls around the back of your head, resisting translation (otherwise, why tell it slant?)
This one makes me think a little about NYC on 9/11, when rage, dance and tears kind of blended into each other. Eady was teaching at City College that year, and deep in work on his Brutal Imagination cycle; the piece feels looser, and more rigorous at the same time.
Thanks for the Friday gift. I haven't turned to Eady in way too long.
This has been the worst day ever until I read that. For some reason it just put me in a better place than where I was.
Thank you so much.
Personal story, I had the honor to meet Cornelius about ten years ago. He signed my copy of "You Don't Miss Your Water" with "Those who buy poetry are the true heroes of the world. Thanks."
Anyway, "Dance Craze" is one of my favorite poems too, and I think it's rather appropriate at this moment. Don't get down on the "end of the world" stuff. This poem is about joy in the face of doom. And if that doesn't explain the weather of the country right now after eight, long, dark years, I don't know what does. The symmetry with the pictures from Tuesday night exemplify the true power of leaping imagery to makes sense of the world.
Thanks, Ta-Nehisi.
Some reviewer once asked what Dylan Thomas's poem "Altarwise by Owl-Light" meant, and Thomas responded by remarking that no one ever asks what Bach's fugues mean. Which is something to think about.
Very interesing pick. But I was also looking forward to the hiphop entry today, no more 2fers?
Nah, I think its darkness is what makes all the dancing so gorgeous to behold. And hey, every end is a beginning, blah blah blah cliche blah.
This poem rocks. Thank you so much for posting it.
It's about joyful dance during the end of the world - but not any end in particular; the world is always ending (considering that every second is new and brings us closer to death.)
Wow, I am going to be rereading this for a while. Thank you.
Shani,
We'll do some hip-hop on Monday or Tuesday.
It reminds me of Abbie Hoffman's "we'd have one hell of a revolution that's what" speech. But in a minor key.
I have loved Cornelius Eady's poems because he understands a process that I think is essential for our souls to learn right now --- how to reconcile paradoxes, how to have two opposite feelings, beliefs or ideas inside you and not choose between the two, but know that both are true and neither can be true without the other.
To be unflinchingly honest about the fact that the opposites exist, that both are true, that you don't understand. To have the courage and patience to hold that paradox inside you until the mind in your heart lives into understanding, lives into comprehending how they are not really different. And how impossible and shattering that moment of comprehending is. To break the chains of rationalism that hold us back from becoming truly human.
I was first generation college and like many came out of a home filled with wretching and multiple forms of pain tied to what my family experienced as immigrants and their helplessness turned to rage in the face of that. I took solace in mathematics because unlike my life, in mathematics you could describe a problem and actually solve the problem and there was a right answer and a wrong answer.
That was a comfort to me until I faced a course in complex variables where you worked in a space that involved numbers that were the square root of -1 --- some people call it "imaginary numbers." In this space, there were no lines, only circles. I always experienced math on an emotional and spiritual level. So this was a crisis of the spirit for me. What happens when the poles disappear --- when there is no right and no wrong for instance? I took that class three times and got the highest grade in the class until we came to that proof and then I abruptly dropped out. It looked like I would never graduate with my engineering degree becasue of this class.
And in one of those interventions that change your life, someone explained to me about reconciling paradoxes and got me to work with that in my life. To strive to imagine how the pain of my life could be unspeakable but also be the greatest gift and source of joy in my life. I used to have a spoken word poem on my wall over my desk that had this tremendous image of a broken woman who is faced with a broken high voltage wire and she takes one end in each hand and becomes the conduit of power. That's how the work of reconciling opposites felt to me, but it also healed me enough to function in this world.
So yes, Cornelius Eady in this poem is talking about the courageous experience of joy in the face of sorrow. My favorite line is "his body has learned to speak." Sometimes our minds are so messed up that the joy just has to flow through our bodies and speak of its possibility and healing despite all that we are up against.
Here's another Cornelius Eady poem that I love. Not quite sure why. But it has stuck with me for years and years. . . and I thought of it again after reading Ta Nehisi's book reflecting on his father. . .
TOO YOUNG TO KNOW
One day, my father chopped down
The old apricot tree
Which used to live in my parents backyard.
My father deflected my anger at him
With a look I heard Muddy Waters sing:
"Y'all too young to know."
When I went to my mother
For the truth,
I only heard
What he must have told her:
A vague story about roots
and basement pipes,
A vague story about branches
and kitchen windows,
Punctuated by a shrug which meant:
"He just does what he does."
The blues don't know nothing about trees
Unless, of course,
It's enlisted the moon
To drag some shadows around,
Unless, of course,
Something jumps up
Out of a hollow log,
A worry you didn't need
To cross your path.
My father's gone,
The tree's a stump,
And I'm still too young to know
If one day, I'll glance
out my window
At the sycamore,
And cluck my teeth.
There is power in knowing that you get both strength and vulnerability from the ancestors. There is power in knowing that you do not know and that there are things you can't explain.
Wow, Zack. That's an amazing meditation on paradox and your life. Thanks for that.
Wow, TNC, this is sentimental the way Gabriel Garcia Marquez is sentimental.
Don't fall for children and dancing as being sentimental. Remember that at the end of the flamenco is always the dagger. And children are the least sentimental of beings.
"This dance you do," drawls the cop,
"What do you call it?"
We call it scalding the air.
We call it dying with your
Shoes on.
perfect
I'm late on this, I know. The use of the phrase "Ghost Dance" in the poem makes me think of the Ghost Dance that swept Native American tribes in the late 1800s, as any hope they had of maintaining something of their life in the face of genocidal westward expansion was vanishing. It was an apocalyptic ritual, invented when the ghosts far outnumbered the living, dancing in the face of death and despair. In Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," he makes the argument that the massacre of Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee in 1890 was the final symbolic defeat, a kind of spiritual murder.
All that said, I'm sure in the dancing itself, the Ghost Dance was joyful, even if the motivation was death and destruction and despair.
It seems in the poem the dance craze is similar, only we don't know "the what," i.e., the motivation for the craze. The sadness/death precipitating the dance is not identified, but is palpable in every move.
Thanks, TNC. An amazing poem and one I had never read before.