the blog as mask • (halloween suite)

THE POEM AS MASK

Orpheus

When I wrote of the women in their dances and wildness,
it was a mask,

on their mountain, gold-hunting, singing, in orgy,
it was a mask;
when I wrote of the god,
fragmented, exiled from himself, his life, the love
gone down with song,
it was myself, split open, unable to speak, in exile from myself.

There is no mountain, there is no god, there is memory
of my torn life, myself split open in sleep, the rescued child
beside me among the doctors, and a word
of rescue from the great eyes.

No more masks!
No more mythologies!

Now, for the first time,
the god lifts his hand,
the fragments join in me with their own music.

Muriel Rukeyser

From Muriel Rukeyser:
Selected Poems by Muriel Rukeyser
Copyright © 2004 by William Rukeyser.

how in youth we create identities, or we wait for them to be revealed to us. we shop for them in things, in clothing, in reflections in store windows.

at last the search is done and we have our story. now if only we can live up to it.

then one day we are old and realize that we never found a thing, we just found masks to suit a daily life, and then became them.

when we are old, we realize our own folly.

charade • (halloween suite)

When we played our charade
We were like children posing

Playing at games, acting out names
Guessing the parts we played

Oh what a hit we made
We came on next to closing

Best on the bill, lovers until
Love left the masquerade

Fate seemed to pull the strings
I turned and you were gone

While from the darkened wings
The music box played on

Sad little serenade
Song of my heart's composing

I hear it still, I always will
Best on the bill
Charade

Mercer & Mancini

who are you • (halloween suite)

Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?

I woke up in a Soho doorway
A policeman knew my name
He said "You can go sleep at home tonight
If you can get up and walk away"

I staggered back to the underground
And the breeze blew back my hair
I remember throwin' punches around
And preachin' from my chair


Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
'Cause I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

I took the tube back out of town
Back to the Rollin' Pin
I felt a little like a dying clown
With a streak of Rin Tin Tin

I stretched back and I hiccupped
And looked back on my busy day
Eleven hours in the Tin Pan
God, there's got to be another way


Who are you?
Ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa ...
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?

I know there's a place you walked
Where love falls from the trees
My heart is like a broken cup
I only feel right on my knees

I spit out like a sewer hole
Yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone now
After such a love as this?


Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?

(note to those helpful readers who've suggested i code my posts so the images open in separate windows so that the music is uninterrupted-- i have tried this at least twice now, and both time have lost the entire post, or major parts of it! this has never happened otherwise!)

and don't miss

that old devil moon • part two • (halloween suite)

MINNIE THE MOOCHER

with Cab Calloway and Betty Boop

Folks, here's the story 'bout Minnie the Moocher
She was a red hot
hoochie-coocher
She was the roughest, toughest frail
Minnie had a heart
as big as a wha-a-le

Hodee-hodee-hodee-ho
Hidee-Hidee-Hidee-hi
Heedey-hee-dee-hee-dee hee
Hodee-hodee-hodee-ho




She messed around with a bloke named Smoky
She loved him though he was cokey
He took her down to Chinatown
Where he showed her how to kick the gong around

Hidee-Hidee-Hidee-hi
Wooooooh
Heedey-hee-dee-hee-dee hee
Hidee-hidee-hidee-ho

She had a dream that
the King of Sweden
He gave her things
that she was needin'
He built her a home built
of gold and steel
A diamond car
with platinum wheels




hidee-hidee-hidee-hidee-hidee-hidee-hi
hodee-hodee-hodee-hodee-hodee-hodee-ho
scoodley-woo-scoodley-woo-scoodley-woodley-woodley-woo
zit-dit-dit-dit-dittle-but-dut-duttleoo-skit-dit-skittle-but-dit-zoy

He gave her his townhouse and his racing horses
Each meal she ate was
a dozen courses
She had a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes
She sat around and count them all a million times

Hidee-Hidee-Hidee-hi
Hodee-hodee-hodee-ho
Heedey-hee-dee-hee-dee hee
Hidee-hidee-hidee-ho




Now Min and Smokie,
they started jaggin'
They got a free ride in a wagon
She gave him money to pay her bail
But he left her flat in the county jail

Whoooa, yeaaaah
Hey de he de he he
Whoa Whoa

Poor Min met old
Deacon Lowdown
He preached to her that she ought to slow down
But Minnie wiggled
her jelly roll
And Deacon Lowdown yelled, "Lord save my soul!"

Hi de hi de hi de hi
Ho de ho de ho de ho
Skiddley doodley doodly do
Skiddly diddly day

They took her where
they put the crazies
Now poor Min's kicking
up those daisies
You've heard my story
this is her song
She was just a good gal,
but they done her wrong

Hi de hi de hi de hi
Skooby de be do
He de he de he de he
Whoa, Whoa Whoa

Poor Min, Poor Min, Poor Min.

that old devil moon • (halloween suite)

RENEWING THE ASHEN SCRIPTURES

You brush leaves from a stranger
sleeping beside your gate

and welcome him to your estate,
with its sunny fields and barns.

He admires your bins of wing nuts,
your fine linens and deep well.

You show off your net strung between trees
for capturing sunlight,
your ponds and goldfish.

In the storeroom, you offer him dates and grain,
purified water, buckwheat, and dry ginger.

Take what you need. Rest.
The stranger answers: Follow me.

I will show you where the trail begins
to the encampment of souls in the forest.

You follow him across muddy fields,
past the ox swishing its tail,
tethered to a tree,

past the pond where stocked fish peer through surface clouds.
At the forest edge, you push through brambles and ivy.

You stuff your ears with moss to mute the abacus of trees
and press through spindly pines into thick woods.

Everywhere God goads you
with green ignorance.
The souls of trees shout, Speak! Speak!

One of the moon's thirty names will save you.
You forget your hunger,
the Names of God,
the alef-beit.

Emily Warn

Shadow Architect
Copper Canyon Press
• 1

i put a spell on you • (halloween suite)

MY FATHER IS A RETIRED MAGICIAN

(for ifa, p.t., & bisa)

my father is a retired magician
which accounts for my irregular behavior
everythin comes
outta magic hats
or bottles wit no bottoms
& parakeets
are as easy to get as a
couple a rabbits
or 3 fifty cent pieces/ 1958

my daddy retired from
magic & took
up another trade cuz
this friend of mine
from the 3rd grade
asked to be made white
on the spot

what cd any self-respectin colored american magician
do wit such a outlandish request/ cept
put all them razzamatazz hocus pocus zippity-do-dah
thingamajigs away cuz
colored chirren believin in magic
waz becomin politically
dangerous for the race
& waznt nobody gonna be made white
on the spot just
from a clap of my daddy's hands

& the reason i'm so peculiar's
cuz i been studyin up on my daddy's technique
& everythin i do is magic these days
& it's very colored
very now you see it/ now you
dont mess wit me
i come from a family of retired
sorcerers/ active houngans
& pennyante fortune tellers
wit 41 million spirits critturs & celestial bodies
on our side

i'll listen to yr problems
help wit yr career yr lover
yr wanderin spouse
make yr grandma's stay in heaven
more gratifyin
ease yr mother thru menopause &
show yr son
how to clean his room

YES YES YES 3 wishes
is all you get
scarlet ribbons for yr hair
benwa balls via hong kong
a miniature of machu picchu

all things are possible
but aint no colored magician in her right mind
gonna make you white
i mean
this is blk magic
you lookin at
& i'm fixin you up good/
fixin you up good n colored
& you gonna be colored all yr life
& you gonna love it/ bein colored/ all yr life/ colored & love it
love it/ bein colored/

Spell #7 from Upnorth-Outwest Geechee
Jibara Quik Magic Trance
Manual for Technologically Stressed
Third World People

Ntozake Shange

c copyright ntozake shange 2009

My friend from Asia has powers and magic, he plucks a blue leaf from the young blue-gum
And gazing upon it,
gathering and quieting
The God in his mind, creates an ocean more real than the ocean, the salt, the actual
Appalling presence,
the power of the waters.
He believes that nothing is real except as we make it.

I humbler have found in my blood
Bred west of Caucasus a harder mysticism.

Multitude stands in my mind
but I think that
the ocean in the bone vault is only
The bone vault's ocean:
out there is the ocean's;
The water is the water,
the cliff is the rock,
come shocks and flashes of reality.
The mind Passes, the eye closes,
the spirit is a passage;
The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself;
the heart-breaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.

Robinson Jeffers

turning mother goose • (halloween suite)

three dames walk into a bar: a witch, a hag, and mother goose. 'aha!' cries the bartender -- 'it's the triplets!' am i the only one it took so long to figure this out?

the elements of cats, brooms, and good old age appear so often in illustrations of all three, that one becomes confused just trying to get it straight.

"The existence of demons and the efficacy of witchcraft were accepted facts throughout the world in 1692. The Puritans of Salem Village were certain of the devil's hand in every incident of evil they suffered, from petty misfortune to apalling tragedy. Witches and agents of 'the ould deluder' Satan delivered to the people of the commonwealth all manner of torments: deadly epidemics of smallpox; murderous raids by Indians; and ignorant children."

The Witches of Salem were hanged. This was less painful than the burning of witches in Europe. They thought the burning of a witch was the only way to release the evil, since the Devil would be forced to exit the melting body through the smoke.

Witchcraft in Massachusetts singled out:

• spinsters
• barren women
• the ugly
• the extremely successful
• the independent
• the reclusive
• the litigious
• the willful. 1

i can assure you, i am every single one of these (well, maybe not litigious), and i suppose i am also, now, old -- or at least to the degree these other women are. and while i have no goose, i do have a cat.

would you need more proof?

let's look at that list once more: every single item challenges authority (usually male). if one is any of these she must be punished or laughed at or belittled: silenced.

to live the quiet, solitary life, free and in constant communication with the birds and spiders and fish, and the cat, to tend the garden, read a book, answer to no one....

There was an old woman
tossed up in a basket
Seventeen times
as high as the moon;
Where she was going
I couldn't but ask it,
For in her hand
she carried a broom.

"Old woman, old woman,
old woman," quoth I,
"O whither, O whither,
O whither, so high?"
"To brush the cobwebs
off the sky!"
"Shall I go with thee?"
"Aye, by and by."
•

Old Mother Goose,
When she wanted to wander,
Would ride through the air
On a very fine gander.

Jack's mother came in,
And caught the goose soon,
And mounting its back,
Flew up to the moon.

•

The words of the original Old Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme can be interpreted to find a darker meaning to the identity of ' Mother Goose'! The title ' Mother Goose ' probably originates from the 1600's -- the time of the great witch hunts. Comparisons can be made between the Mother Goose in the above children's poem and the popular conception of a witch during this era!

• Witches were able to fly (the broomstick has been replaced by a goose).
• A witch was often portrayed as an old crone (with no man to defend her
against accusations of witchcraft).
• Witches are closely associated
with living alone.
• Witches were known to a have 'familiars,' most often cats but also owls. 2

so who am i now? from east or north? good witch, bad witch, in-between? & i know it doesn't matter. i'm a happy old woman, with cat, with garden, of modest means and expectations, will the iris open, will the spider catch the fly?