Medicine Bag

Medicine Bag

A bag too small for summer

and not so big as a heart

but sufficient for

crucible's residue

burnt fine, 

ash and

the errata and

the mouse-bones

of dreams.

I wrapped these things

in heat and feathers, 

with the sleep

of flowers laid on them

into its soft doeskin dried in salt,

beaded with the name of dusk, that

kings' song of battleroar

lost to cricket-harps;

my talisman ticket,

my blue rose bag of wishes;

to close

or to open so

the petal that falls

is the drift of your step,

is the corn-colored wind,

the easy air 

that knew your face

by starlight, your bright cadence

your fragrance and the savor

of  meadow moon sun-broken

floating on the slope

before the raven's rattle,

before the long defeat.

~July 2017

for M.'s   summer words

Process note: The phrase 'the long defeat' is spoken by Galadriel in the seventh chapter of The Fellowship of The Ring, by J.R. Tolkien: “For the Lord of the Galadhrim is accounted the wisest of the Elves of Middle-Earth, and a giver of gifts beyond the power of kings. He has dwelt in the West since the days of dawn... I have dwelt with him years uncounted,...and together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.” It's become something of a catchphrase among Christians and/or conservatives, but we won't let that stop us from appreciating the metaphor.

 Image: Native American Medicine Bag, author unknown, via internet; fair use

Moonspit

Moonspit

I
was 

barking mad

under Mother Moon

to think there was a we 

for ye to give,

not that you want

to hear that, posed as you pull

your worms from the fire

to do the old wriggle, 

as if waved in your hand, 

they make you a man.

I
can

make more of a man

from ashes 

and spit.

~June 2015

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Words Count 

Mama Zen (Another Damn Poetry Blog) presents us with a list of words common to a slew of languages which suggest a mother tongue once widely shared, and requests a 60 words or less count.. I looked at the list and this came out without much conscious effort--a snarky tale not deep, but perhaps genetically broad as that same mother word-share.

Images: Untitled, 1978, by Zdislav Beksinski   Fair use via wikiart.org

The Cauldron of the Sorceress, 1879, by Odilon Redon   Public domain

The Summoner

 

The Summoner

She sat

where there was a cat

in the lily watching, whiskers a spoon

dripping nectar red as noon

under the shapeless moon.

She spat

a glass of black,

of the wine that always comes back,

poured it out while the lily-cat purred,

nearly slurred the calling word;

but it

 came reaper-swift,

burnishing the teeth it brings

from the place where no bell rings,

sour cloudsmoke and venom on her own stolen wings.

~August 2013

 

posted for    real toads

Challenge: Words Count with Mama Zen

The terse and talented Mama Zen asks us to tackle the subject of Voodoo, in 73 words or less. Of course, with me, there is no 'less,' only many more littering the cyber-floor, but I believe I have pared it down to the requirements.

(Apologies to Karin Gustafson, who saw the cat in the lily, which I have flagrantly appropriated.)

Image Credits: Theft of Substance, by Remedios Varo
Public domain via wikipaintings.org

Lily Cat, © joyannjones 2013

Gris-Gris, Revisited

© Margaret Bowland

Gris-gris

(Revised August 2012)

Rising with the night wind, 

Legba’s misused servant sculls her makeshift boat

across the jagged template of the swamp 

looking for a sign, a water mark of Li Grand Zombi,

His serpent Self fat with knowledge

she must borrow from black night.

The humming song on her peach lips

is deep with the umber pulse of Africa,

in a language no one knows here. It

builds magic out of bondage, grows charms

from fear and want, weapons from shed blood

that turn against the holding hand.

The gris-gris sack around her neck

ties the struggling spirit to her body

for the will to resist is strongest after all;

it chills the child away from her womb,

the child she can’t keep or bring herself 

to give her master

no matter how often he comes 

like a levee breaking in the muddy dark,

hard fingers prying her open like a mussel

sharp teeth seeking

her wide mouth thin as a knifepoint,

tongue tied tight as a noose.

In time she finds it all, here and there, from

rummy sailors off ships stinking death,

from altar boys bribed with her breasts.

She mashes the small bones of a lizard

caught by a seventh son in a graveyard 

under a full moon

and all the other secret things, 

each one just so

stirs them together 

with a broken crucifix

to the singsong mantra of

the Lord’s prayer

and older prayers in her honey voice, calling

the spirits of air, crooning to the Snake of

heaven and earth, arched as a lover.

Under her bed the curse breathes, newborn in a bag

slung round the neck of the vacant doll

with the lock of yellow hair.

On that black night of endless nights,

blowing into the hut with the rush of storm,

the master is surprised and pleased

to see for the first time

she is smiling 

really smiling at him.

~February 2011

(revised August , 2012)

 

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub

Process Notes: I originally had something else in mind for tonight, but recent political events in this country brought this old poem to mind, full as it is with the issues of absolute ownership and power over women's bodies, what people will do to each other when they can, and voodoo as science.

If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, with apologies for sound quality, click below: 

gris-gris by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Image: Another Thorny Crown, painting by Margaret Bowland

All copyright remains with the artist. The picture is reproduced here for non-commercial purposes only, for sake of the art, and with all respect to the creator. If there is any objection by the copyright holder to this use of the work, please contact me via email (see profile link) and it will be withdrawn immediately with full apologies.

Amnesia Anesthesia JuJu

© Daryl Edelstein

Amnesia Anesthesia JuJu

Since you showed me
so truthfully there's no forever

in the flesh, I see, I see.
Since I cannot be real, let me be
let me be a haunt. 

Let me be the night's illusion

of everything you want

and cannot feel.

Let, let your restless bed

be troubled by the unquiet breath,

let, let your feckless life

be troubled by the lightless death
I wear, the tattered gravedust gown

that pulls me deeper down, to drown

dance unwound in a turquoise vortex;

sucked up, quick-chewed, spat out gone.

But like an invisible fool

performing

before a blind audience

softly snoring,
I expect the truth will be

ironically
not even Papa Legba 

can haunt an amnesiac’s memory.

May 2012

posted for    real toads 

Sunday Photo Challenge:Daryl Edelstein

Process notes: "In Haitian Vodou, Papa Legba is the intermediary between the loa [spirit world]and humanity. He stands at a spiritual crossroads and gives (or denies) permission to speak with the spirits..." ~wikipedia

Image: Mosaic art by Isaiah Zagar, as photographed by Daryl Edlestein

Used with permission

Spelled Out

Spelled Out

I finally noticed

when the trees fell and

the leaves were bare

when the sandstorm rained  moss

when summer rode into January

on a seahorse

that you had put

a spell on me.

I think I saw you

slip flashpowder

in my cells and light it

with a whistle you blew

from the corner of serious and Canis Major

and when that howling is on me

when the spell is wound up

I’m deaf and leafdrunk; 
I drop

like a marionette when the puppeteer

breaks for lunch, watch you

pull a string from my
soul laces and hang it 

on your ley line

to dry in the stone wind.

I never asked

to be this 
charmed

but now I find I can’t navigate without

my wheel tied down tight, so

I drive with eyes closed

drift to the side of a two lane night’s

brownout desert, and bump

myself still, afraid of the broken mirror
afraid to get out of the crazy car 
and walk

the crooked ghost town of my life.

January 2012

Image: Carhenge, by cm195902 on flick'r
Shared under Creative Commons 2.0 Non-Commercial License

Totem

Totem

Spirit eater

White waltzer

secret inside my skin

snailcurled in snowdrift

sleeping, black lips closed over

teeth big as carrots, dark poppy pod eyes

shut, REM flutter stilled

silent as the melting flake;

in dreams you

come to eat the gold yolk

from the half-egg moon called

winter’s sun.

Wake

when the hunter comes

lift up your chainsaw paws and

show your ivory yellow teeth

scrimshawed and snagged by

the obduracy of your kills;
shake 
his bones from your throat
with a growl.

Ice orphan, 
White diver

            my only protection now.           

All arctic summer you sidled closer

in your need, your frost breath

following me across another country.

All summer you harvested

the sleek black bodies

of grief, turning the ice

salty red with your patience;

only the fleetest fled unfurrowed, 

melting a path to

 that stonecold 
immeasurable abyss.

When the dark time came 

and there was 
nowhere else, you wooed me

 with garnets and alabaster freshcut from all 
the sorrows' spawn you'd slain

 for me. 
So I gave you

sleep in the black heartcave

content to barter away all

yesterday’s skins

for the talisman necklace

of your ebony claws.

January 2011

Posted for   Fireblossom Friday   at real toads

Header image: Post card. Bear totem on grave. Ketchikan, Alaska.

Source: US National Archives, series: Photographs of the Inhabitants of Metlakatla, British Columbia and Metlakatla, Alaska, compiled ca. 1856 - 1936
Public Domain via wikimedia commons