Brujería
I think of you, Tomás
with your witchhazel tongue,
your feet like lost white sheep,
your flyaway mane long and
straight as the fault line
between sense and sensuality--it trips me
like that first stone free kiss
to know you must be--if you still be
at all--old now, reshaped and redefined
as a bare bristlecone pine;
a white-haired brujo with dark
natron eyes, a weather-wrecked scarecrow
whose snake-veined hands still
curl their long musician's fingers
in supple knuckled knots;
in supple knuckled knots;
you should be a sight to frighten
the plump señoritas your
wicked smile has fetched
but instead I hear them
laughing like pigeons in your bed.
Our glances cross
in the night world--Ay si, mi amor,
it's good to be
a witch.
~November 2013
posted for real toads
Open Link Monday
Process Notes: "Brujería is the Spanish word for witchcraft....Both men and women can be witches, brujos and brujas respectively."~wikipedia
Top image: La mirada del "tío Brujo" by Mila-san, shared under a Creative Commons license
via wikimedia.com
Bottom image: Tracht des Zauberers, des "brujos", beim bolivianischen Tanz Tobas by Awayumania
Public Domain via wikimedia.com I have manipulated this image. You can view the original here.
The mystery unfolded in the end!!
ReplyDeleteoh, sensual, intimate, yearning, and yet also sweetly humorous. ~
ReplyDeleteThanks, M. You hit my mood on its bootblack nose.
DeleteA little creepy balanced with that tinge of humor is ideal fare! Nicely Joy!
ReplyDeleteHank
Agree with Grapeling's comment completely (and others too.) I especially like the stanza where you describe the faultline of the hair between sense and sensuality--young people are suckers for that kind of hair--and the tripping up which seems to describe more than one kind of tripping.
ReplyDeletefirst stone free kiss is a wonderful description. All clever, vivid,sensual, and in its weird way, it has a universality too--at least I can conjure up the idea of such experiences and think many can. And I think you are right re pigeons. K.
Thanks, k. Stone free is an old hippie saying, if you weren't around for that one--'stone' was just a superlative, like cool or whatever. I was playing in the mine fields of the past with this one--not as seriously as you, however. That was just an excellent piece on the Day After.
DeleteThanks -- I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your tags--but still, and hippie backsliding especially. Thanks. k.
Deleteps - I am wondering whether stone free (aside from certain other associations) isn't like seedless--the peach without the pit--which makes sense when you think of "the pits." Ha. k.
DeleteTags are great fun. I have thousands of them, and I try really hard not to make new ones, but sometimes the temptation is too strong. ;_) And yes, that's the reason I left the line alone, even though I realized maybe twenty people living would remember the slang--it has a good secondary meaning. Hope you get some restful time off for the upcoming holiday. I'm currently reading a book about an IP lawyer who's involved in a lost Shakespeare document search, along with some Russian mafia and assorted other bad guys--he talks about litigators as a separate breed--it's a fun read, and I've thought of you several times.
Delete¡sí, sí, señora!
ReplyDelete¡amo las manos veteados de serpientes y nudos nudillos!
:)
Deletey mi más sincero agradecimiento a usted, TUG
Your poem reminds me of the narratives of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the finest writers of magical realism. The transition in your description of youth to old age is so well done. I came away with the sense that some powers do not fade with old age.
ReplyDeleteFrom the second and third lines, which are rich with inspired writing, I knew this was going to be one of those poems where you just do me in with what you can do. I was right; when I finished reading the entire poem, I leaned back and just went "oh wowwwwww!" (erudite to the end, that's me!)
ReplyDeleteAs a reader and fan of your poetry, I'm glad for the Jazzman having come along. Certain people in our lives move us more deeply than anyone else, and the "stone" they leave behind will drive us insane with its chafing and rattling if we don't write it out forevermore, bit by bit. Even so, there it stays, having become as much a part of ourselves as it is a part of someone else.
People stay frozen in our minds, I think, the way they were when we knew/loved them, but of course they don't really stay the same at all. Or do they? In this poem, the appearance changes, but the magic and the charisma have stayed. I adore the ending; it's fine fine writing, but I just like the way it made me feel, as well. It's good to be a witch, and it's our--your readers--good fortune to be able to read one, too. Stellar stuff.
I love this memory/portrait, conjured and not dreamed, with every sensual image it carries, especially the laughing pigeons. I love the ambiguity of who brings the images, the man or the narrator. Wonderful.
ReplyDeleteThis is just great poetry. I had to read it a few times to let it sink in. Perfect start to my week
ReplyDeleteAh, what would we do without the night world? This is beautiful and playful. You don't waste a word, lady.
ReplyDeletewitch-hazel tongue! whoosh, excellent.
ReplyDeleteIf one reads your musings long enough...
ReplyDeleteOne doesn't have to Google every odd word that you use.
I'm so proud of myself....Thank You Miss Joy!
See, I've expanded--or maybe warped--your mind. ;_)
DeleteHai. *smirk*
ReplyDeleteooooo, pretty!
DeleteYou have to be a witch...cuz your magic is strong!!! This was not only good but let me throw back a few years and tell you it is cooooolll. It reminded me of Bless me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. You are a Curandera of the soul.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to be a witch and good to have one share her memory poems with us. Grazie.
ReplyDeleteOh, I love the mystery and magic in this one. You do have a talent for finding the perfect phrasing.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes try to picture old acquaintances...old lovers...and what they "be" like now, or as you alluded to, how many up and said to be or not to be and decided not to be. But it's better this way, to remember them as they were--frozen in time--else the ravages of time might taint my reverie.
ReplyDeleteAgree--actually finding them again would be the real taint, I think--the memory does a much better job than life. Thanks, Timo.
DeleteHow beautiful...I am caught in its magic. You definitely can weave spells with your art.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I thought this was the Jazzman, though he's hardly recognizable as dragon, rather the shaman who initiated the witch -- the two can look at each other from across the great divide of history and mystery and almost be friends. Or at least respected enemies. Time does alchemize memory, and the figures accrete an imagined history and resume that is surely better than the original. The Spanish is an intermediary here, allowing a middle ground that otherwise might not be possible. Great stuff, bruja -- Brendan
ReplyDeleteOnce the real person enters the mist of fantasy, things are bound to improve, I find. ;_) Spanish is a beautiful language--I wish I could speak it. Thanks for reading, B.
DeleteYou sure work some powerful magic with your words!
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for fancying my blog! :o)
DeleteMy pleasure, Mary. Thanks.
Deleteha. wonderful descriptions of him...that whole opening gambit brings him alive...and even as he has aged he seems to have retained a bit of that magic as well...long day, been offline most of it...sorry i am late...smiles.
ReplyDeleteOoh, to have memories like that, one would have to be a witch such as you, my friend. Wickedly well done.
ReplyDeleteK
I always prefer reading poems early early morning, when my mind is much more watery -- I think I've mentioned it before, but I think it was Anne Carson who said that Eros longs to see his reflection in his lover's eye -- to see desire reflected back -- and so the Other in his/her various angelic/demonic selves is a mirror of who we are, once were, are becoming. Is your fondness for Spanish a later addition? Jimenez and Lorca and Machado are wonderful for marrying us to the land in the old school way; the Jazzman allowed to age with the land (and poeta) from Mountain to Segovia, Steppenwolf to a cracked-voice shaman who still knows all of the birthday songs. Anyhoo ... what's great about a fine poem is that it keeps pouring out stuff with successive readings; is a well. Enjoyed it again. - b
ReplyDeleteThanks, B. I agree, the Other often becomes the glassy pond into which Narcissus gazes so lovingly. Nostalgia has its moments, though of course it is a (purposefully) clouded lens. In his later years, the Jazzman spoke fluent Spanish, spent a lot of time in Mexico, living in remote villages; he had an adopted sister from Columbia as well, and of course, we spent two weeks penniless and dazed at Teotihuacan, and cruising the amazing Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City--so that's why the Spanish is tied in my mind to the experience--the experience already frayed,flawed and parting, thusly all the more potent--then of course, I've worked with Latinos in landscape for years and years, and picked up a smattering. But Lorca, Paz, Neruda, all open the poetic doors of the language. (There are some wonderful spoken word versions on you-tube.) My latest Lorca is a bilingual edition--very satisfying reading. Thanks for the return trip, and the morning reflections--late late night/early morning is my best time also, for that wine-tasting of words with a clean palate. Glad you found something worth sampling here.
Delete