Liberties

Air an instrument of the tongue / The tongue an instrument / Of the body … — Robert Pinsky “Burro Banton a di only veteran artist that go Europe and open the festival and close the festival. Him get two pay.” — Peter Metro, dancehall reggae legend Hearing Burro trace the sky in couplet, the mic from Nicodemus arming boom re-arming hand to hand, I began to ribbi-bang, bong-widdly, find giddy in the sounds of dead books— so eftest and cock-a-hoop amused me, good nonsense like slang-dang; and every Dolby-short cassette respooled by pencil foxship made school-ordered scansion drum. That Elizabethans rode riddim, bedazzled, and the work turned pay itself, at night, parts assigned soft-said downstage uproof my warm flat white scheme-house, the almond tree backdropping, a streetlight key,     slang-dang and foin pop out of me.