Pleasure Dome. Yusef Komunyakaa

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       Pleasure Dome

       Also by Yusef Komunyakaa

      Dedications & Other Darkhorses (1977)

      Lost in the Bonewheel Factory (1979)

      Copacetic (1984)

      I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (1986)

      Toys in a Field (1986)

      Dien Cai Dau (1988)

      February in Sydney (1989)

      Magic City (1992)

      Neon Vernacular (1993)

      Thieves of Paradise (1998)

      Blue Notes (2000)

      Talking Dirty to the Gods (2000)

      Taboo (2004)

       YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA

       Pleasure Dome

       NEW AND COLLECTED POEMS

       Wesleyan University Press

      Middletown, Connecticut

      Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459

       www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

      ©2001 by Yusef Komunyakaa

      All rights reserved

      First Wesleyan paperback 2004

      Printed in the United States of America 5 4

      CIP data appear at the end of the book.

      ISBNs for the paperback edition:

      ISBN–13: 978–0–8195–6739–0

      ISBN–10: 0–8195–6739–6

      Cover illustration: Wifredo Lam, 1902–1982. Study for The Jungle, tempera, with touches of pastel, on tan wove paper laid down on canvas, 1942, 177.4 × 121.9 cm. The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection, 138.1991. Photograph © 2000, The Art Institute of Chicago, All Rights Reserved.

       Acknowledgments

      Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications, in which the “New Poems” originally appeared: Amazon.com, The American Poetry Review, The Chicago Review, Crab Orchard Review, Faultline, The Harvard Advocate, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Irish Review, National Public Radio—“All Things Considered,” Ploughshares, Seneca Review, Shenandoah, 64, Slate.

      Poems in “Early Uncollected” appeared in Writer’s Forum and Intro 7/8.

      I am grateful also to the publishers of my previous books: Dedications & Other Darkhorses, Rocky Mountain Creative Arts Journal, 1977; Lost in the Bonewheel Factory, Lynx House Press, 1979; Copacetic, Wesleyan University Press, 1984; Toys in a Field, Black River Press, 1986; I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head, Wesleyan University Press, 1986; Dien Cai Dau, Wesleyan University Press, 1988; February in Sydney, Matchbooks, 1989; Magic City, Wesleyan University Press, 1992; Neon Vernacular, Wesleyan University Press, 1993; Thieves of Paradise, Wesleyan University Press, 1998.

       To the memory of Reetika & Jehan

       Contents

       New Poems

       Providence 3

       Water 5

       Jasmine 5

       The Whispering Gallery 6

       Tuesday Night at the Savoy Ballroom 7

       Doppelgängers 8

       Somewhere 9

       Never Land 11

       Pepper 12

       South Carolina Morning 13

       Rendezvous 14

       Once the Dream Begins 17

       Ogoni 18

       Keeper of the Vigil 21

       Nightbird 22

       Tenebrae 23

       Double Limbo 25

       NJ Transit 26

       Early Uncollected

       Mississippi John Hurt 31

       Langston Hughes 31

       Blue Tonality 32

       De Síntoma Profundo 32

       Lover 33

       Reminiscence 33

       Waiting for a Tree Through a Window 34

       The Lamp Carrier 34

       The Life & Times of Billy Boy 35

       A House of Snow 36

       Recital of Water Over Stones 36

       The Dog’s Theology 37