Talking Dirty to the Gods

by Komunyakaa, Yusef

• ISBN13: 9780374272555
• ISBN10: 0374272557
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-09-01
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux

Summary

No turn in any life cycle is taboo as Yusef Komunyakaa examines the primal rituals shared by insects, animals, human beings, and deities in Talking Dirty to the Gods. From "Hearsay" to "Heresy", these 132 poems, each consisting of four quatrains, are framed by innuendo and lively satire. Komunyakaa looks to nature and configures his own paradigm, in which an event as commonplace as the jewel wasp laying an egg in a cockroach becomes every bit as grand as Zeus's infidelity. The formally rigorous collection is itself a design for a systematic cosmos, a world compressed but abundant in surprise and delight.

Author Biography

Yusef Komunyakaa is a professor in the Council of Humanities and Creative Writing program at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Hearsay	3	(1)
Homo Erectus	4	(1)
Utetheisa Ornatrix, the First Goddess	5	(1)
The Centaur	6	(1)
Night Ritual	7	(1)
Lady Xoc	8	(1)
Lime	9	(1)
Ode to the Maggot	10	(1)
Slime Molds	11	(1)
Sloth	12	(1)
Janus	13	(1)
Hermaphrodite	14	(1)
Nipples	15	(1)
Scapegoat	16	(1)
Venus of Willendorf	17	(1)
Body of a Dog (Cadavere di un Cane)	18	(1)
Aftermath: The Ruin	19	(1)
Slaves Among Blades of Grass	20	(1)
Spirit Traps	21	(1)
A Portrait of (Self) Deception	22	(1)
Stesichorus of Himera	23	(1)
Sex Toys	24	(1)
Meditations on a Thumbscrew	25	(1)
Chastity Belt	26	(1)
Phocylides of Miletus	27	(1)
Bonsai, Golden Lotus	28	(1)
Envy	29	(1)
Ides of March	30	(1)
Aliens	31	(1)
Meditations in a Swine Yard	32	(1)
The Devil's Ball	33	(1)
Bedazzled	34	(1)
The Congo Snake	35	(1)
Neither/Nor	36	(1)
The Lure	37	(1)
Infidelity	38	(1)
Ukiyo-e	39	(1)
Amber	40	(1)
Ode to Dust	41	(1)
Body of a Woman (Cadavere di Donna)	42	(1)
Battle of Ten Naked Men	43	(1)
The Other Dying the Life of the One	44	(1)
The Citadel	45	(1)
Pride	46	(1)
Remus & Romulus	47	(1)
Necropolis	48	(1)
April's Fool	49	(1)
Nightfall	50	(1)
The Four Evangelists	51	(1)
Acalophiles	52	(1)
Silkworm	53	(1)
The Seventeen-Year Locust	54	(1)
Castrato	55	(1)
Pan	56	(1)
Pyramus & Thisbe	57	(1)
Epithalamium	58	(1)
The Business of Angels	59	(1)
Eros	60	(1)
Complicity	61	(1)
May	62	(1)
Lust	63	(1)
When Dusk Weighs Daybreak	64	(1)
Dia de los Muertos	65	(1)
Hydraulics	66	(1)
King of the Hill	67	(1)
Semantics	68	(1)
Genet	69	(1)
Alter Ego	70	(1)
The God of Broken Things	71	(1)
Happenstance	72	(1)
Infanticide	73	(1)
Montage: MTV	74	(1)
Isaac	75	(1)
Or, God in Godzilla	76	(1)
Doctor Feel-Good	77	(1)
Gluttony	78	(1)
Toxic Waste	79	(1)
Shiva	80	(1)
The Dark Lady	81	(1)
Umbra	82	(1)
Vainglory	83	(1)
Succubus	84	(1)
A Small System	85	(1)
Homunculus	86	(1)
Trap	87	(1)
Ecstatic	88	(1)
Stalin	89	(1)
The White Hat	90	(1)
In the Blood	91	(1)
The Procuress (After Honthorst)	92	(1)
Etymology	93	(1)
Speed Ball	94	(1)
A Famous Ghost	95	(1)
A Kind of Xenia	96	(1)
Avarice	97	(1)
August	98	(1)
Devilment	99	(1)
Rollerblades	100	(1)
Monkey Wrench	101	(1)
Meditations on a File	102	(1)
The God of Land Mines	103	(1)
Betrayals	104	(1)
Curator of Kosinski's Mask	105	(1)
Postscript to a Summer Night	106	(1)
September	107	(1)
The God of Variables	108	(1)
Catwalk	109	(1)
Rave	110	(1)
St. Valentine's Day	111	(1)
Curanderismo	112	(1)
Necrophilia	113	(1)
Negative Capability	114	(1)
The Goddess of Quotas	115	(1)
Anger	116	(1)
October	117	(1)
Outside Gethsemane	118	(1)
Philosophers, Incorporated	119	(1)
The Polecat	120	(1)
Crow Lingo	121	(1)
Yesteryear	122	(1)
Meditations on an Olmec Head	123	(1)
The Devil's Workshop	124	(1)
Mud	125	(1)
The God of Variables Laments	126	(1)
Potions	127	(1)
Incubus	128	(1)
Vatsyayana	129	(1)
Euphony	130	(1)
The Goddess of Quotas Laments	131	(1)
November's Nocturne	132	(1)
Ode to the Raccoon	133	(1)
Heresy	134

Excerpts

Excerpt

Hearsay

Yes, they say if you shave a monkey

You'll find a pragmatist, the president

Of a munitions plant, a tobacco tycoon,

Or a manufacturer of silicone breasts

Who owns a medieval château

Decorated with Picasso's Weeping Women

& Madonna's underwear. Disguised

In silver-winged motorcycle boots,

He plucks a guitar with his teeth

& teaches the peacock songs to draw the hawk

To its nest. Injected with enough steroids

To supernova into an overnight

Star, he's the sperm bank's

Most valuable donor. But contrary

To what you may have heard, this

Bellerophon, he isn't a great lover.

Homo Erectus

After pissing around his gut-level

Kingdom, he builds a fire & hugs

A totem against his chest.

Cheetahs pace the horizon

To silence a grassy cosmos

Where carrion birds sing

Darkness back from the hills.

Something in the air, quintessence or rancor,

Makes a langur bash the skull

Of another male's progeny.

The mother tries to fight him off,

But this choreographer for Jacob

& the Angel knows defeat

Arrives in an old slam dance

& applied leverage--the Evening Star

In both eyes, something less than grace.

Utetheisa Ornatrix

the First Goddess

Mottled with eyes, she's a snag

Of silk from a blood orange

Kimono. This moth, a proto-

Goddess, flits about as if grafted

To an uneasy moment. A little machine

Inside, she coaxes every male to deposit

Sperm, & weighs each with an unholy

Exactitude. She can correct

A mistake with metabolic

Absolution. Only the biggest is

Fertilized, & all the others grow

Into nutrients for her. Food

Defines them. Otherwise,

They depend on promiscuous

Wings to beat till their world

Turns into light & sap.

The Centaur

Shape-changer caught in the middle

Of rehearsal, here between beast

& man, like a young Chiron,

You pretend birthright,

Hoping Atalanta's arrow

Finds you on a lost path

In bloom. Yes, sometimes,

You can be loony as a drunken

Stunt man in Paradise, a bit

Of Theocritus's sad metaphysics

In your bones. One half tortures

The other for the romantic songs

Crooned at sunset. Unholy

Need & desire divide the season,

As you eat sugar from a nymph's palm,

Before she mounts & rides you into a man.

Copyright © 2000 Yusef Komunyakaa. All rights reserved.