Five
Poems
by Andy Young |
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Voodou Headwashing Ceremony Wear white and bring an offering: something for the fiery Petro, for the cool and gentle rada. : Any one could be possessed : Like all life it begins with a nothing, then a small chaos, then the first faint beginning of the drum any one any one any one Scrape fuzz from the muzzle of the black violet. Squeeze succulents to an oozing juice. Stir yellow powder into champagne. Spread blue cloth for ocean spirits: Agwe, Lasiren John the Baptist laps this slop of honey locust we splash on this his feast day, growing hairy wild unchristian souls while Mary, Mother, Ezili, remains, candled red, inked to the scapular span of a copper-headed woman. Smell of sandal, myrrh, rum spat in spray through the teeth. A hissing. A hiissssssssweat a sweet, salt film. Trace of rust on the tongue. Eyes drift, flutter in socket. : Any one could be possessed : The lwa want to plant in you capillary roots. You may become some one, thing, else. Your spine may stretch to make the new body, bathing in calf's milk, wanting salt offerings. You could be possessed. You could be Legba, god of crossroads, collecting broken trinkets, standing on tracks, arms spread in embrace of coming light, whistle screaming toward you -- you could be Gede, god of death, sex, regeneration wanting shots of rum, decked like a bruise in black and purple, possessed, possessed Rattle the snakebone baubles in your lobes pirouette * pirouette it will all unravel yes pirouette * pirouette Let the rumble tell you what it must. Body moves when summoned as animal, from a place past thought in the tooth-growl: the inborn taste for blood, sinew, spine deep whine of one who wants it wants to grasp an oh a massive summons to the union. If you fear the taking over let us stop it simply holler we can make it go away, but you should know that we invite it sprinkle cornmeal circles, fires, build altars of skeletal offerings, beseech them to descend. Possess us. A sound like silk ripping -- the feral reign, the human gone, instinct whittled to a pointy talon. Hold back to point of rupture. Seek the frenzy and pluck its too-ripe plum. Get it to your mouth before it bursts. Open the top of your head and let the screams fly out- Liebestod The night you lay shivering, liquor of blood simmering in your limbs from a night of fever, I looked at your frame shimmering in sweat and wanted to fuck you, draw your sap in, hold your form in my arms like the pietà, kiss your neck until you cooled. How could I not love you in a dying way, the arc and curve of all love anyway? How could I not want us to devour each other: finger on the beat of the throat hand on the throb of the cock, offering the pulse because there is nothing else to give? Toenails As if we are young and only know play you pick the Malaga wine polish, want me to paint your toes the fresh blood red you dread so much, blood they drain from you, leech-like sort into numbers chart to chart. Foot to thigh I ply the paint on your sad toe soldiers rank and file, see the third toe naked of its shield, the fourth a shrivel of cartilage wrinkled and ridged, a trick of your medicine, your poison, your own body rejecting itself, a bitch who shoves her pups from succor, leaves the gape of dumb mammals who know only suck and its lack. I pause between feet afraid of the next flesh waiting, its toes: small bald men in a mess of flesh and cuticle, angles of dead protein shrinking to nothing. A gasp inside, a rush as if risen to a too-high altitude skull pressed in the pressure and the swim of nausea rises up and up I end up meeting myself again though from a distance, you a stranger left below, right toes a-wiggle like a kid. You look you see the pause, the stutter of my love for you -- what small love is this what kind of friend am I as high above us both I am looking down at you. I cannot be your lover and if I were what would I be -- a still same empty handed one who'd watch your skin for spots of change, chart stars in an indifferent sky. I can only cradle your other foot, begin again to paint the red like your tongue I have wanted to suck, red the Cherokee blood we share, red the blood in the seep of our dreams, the blood that you live by and die of, red that leaves your toes a mangle of small wounds toes your mamma little-piggied home, never knowing this moment could be. Venus Explains Her Love for Vulcan No other man has his mettle. He comes to me with rumble and flame, ignites me, forges gold. I watch him weld metal, meld an elemental liquid: fire is solid, liquid fire, and I see the beginning of the world. You can keep it, Eve: the rib and the work and the root of pain. This is genesis -- burnt earth, new as the steam which lifts from it. They say he is the ugly god Í All of them so perfect! I get tired of my own smooth face, and all the cheeks like apples in a row. He has the lava, the always-fed fire. One touch and you'd know. For one thing, he's well-tooled, capisci? And what stamina! Millennia after millennia he never stops, his tongue slipped to nipple tip ooh! The man is hot! His love explodes, bursts, makes thirsts to slake and thirst for more and more and more amore. Just watch: under the naked moon with the stars all thrown like dice -- a fountain of fire against the velvet sky. Sulfur billows, pillows in the bellows where he blows on the cauldron, then silence till the thunder, the boom the boom boom Invisible Eros Vagabond, tumbleweed, gypsy. You vanish all trace of yourself before you even arrive. I pray to you: do you hear me? Come back. In light this time. Let me see your smooth downed body, your skin of spice and umber. Your eyes must be the color of water. I'll sink in their seas. I'll study and study your pupil. Your scent lingers, musk of temples. Come back with your blindfold, then. Your skin is enough. Prick my skin with arrow's point, tender to the quiver. My desire is thick as molasses. My mouth is filled with rain. We will buzz to the same plucked note. Vulcan will bake at our feast: wine and truffles, blood-soaked raspberries. I know it is love that turns us into gods. |
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