Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems Book

My introduction to Yusef Komunyakaa: Neon Vernacular is a sampling of his works from several collections. Gorgeous, raw, powerful language. There were times when I couldn't process the meaning of what I was reading, I simply let the words pour over and through and around me, like an abstract painting that pounds with colors and lines and textures.

I discovered the best way to experience Komunyakaa's poetry was to read it aloud- as is the case with most poetry. But his in particular contains such resonant rhythms, unexpected riffs, jolts of symbol and song-the emotions reveal themselves when the voice lends tone to the print.
In the time
It takes to turn & watch a woman
Tiptoe & pull a sheer blouse off
The clothesline, to see her sun-lit
Dress ride up peasant legs
Like the last image of mercy, three
Are drinking from the Mason jar. '
~Moonshine

"My hands are like sparrows, stars
caught in a tangled dance of branches.
He raises my clothes.
An undertow drags me down.
His mouth on mind, kissing my mother.
-Stepfather: A Girl's Song


into our stone water jars
this song isn't red flowers
crushed under silence.

Have we earned the right to forget, forgive ropes for holding to moonstruck branches?