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.