her bone”? Bad rhyme. It must rhyme with “vulval.”
Offal? No. “Something-something … we’re kissing.”
La bruja me agarra,/ me lleva a su casa,/ me sienta en su regazo/ y me besa.
The witch grabs me,/ takes me to her house,/ sits me on her lap/ and kisses me.
Yes! You got it. The clap, I mean … the Witch
Clap. No! You said this would be in good taste.
¡Ay! dígame, dígame/ dígame usted/ ¿cuántas criaturitas/ se ha chupado usted?
Oh! Tell me, tell me,/ Tell me,/ how many babes have you drained the life from?
Cannibal humor slays me. It’s a niche
duffer; like porn for the boring and chaste.
Or this strange folk song you keep quoting from.
Ninguna, ninguna/ ninguna no sé,/ ando en pretenciones/ de chuparme a usted.
None, none,/ none, I don’t know/ but I’m planning to drain you next.
Drain who? You: kid. Me: booty witch like bomb.
Notes.
It’s a sonnet getting interrupted by a folk song. That’s the problem with short term memory loss, I keep forgetting what I wanted to write about. I’m thinking about my childhood and my broken home on the range and suddenly I find this Mexican folk song, “La Bruja,” which apparently was one of Frida Kahlo’s favorites and now I’m trying to work it in as if it’ll magically fit in 14-lines of poetry.
The new Agent Orange: dropping song fragments into crap verse from very far away just to watch it burn.
MYTHIC ARCHETYPE: The Drowned Sage Who Laughs at Storms
MYTHOLOGICAL FIGURE: Li Tieguai (李鐵拐), the Crutch-Bearing Immortal, but before his transformation—a young, reckless seeker who drowned attempting to cross the sea on a gourd (a “fool’s vessel”).
PIRATE TWIST: Instead of drowning, he’s rescued by a Dragon King’s daughter (龍女) who gifts him a cursed pearl—it grants immortality but binds him to the sea’s whims. He becomes the first of the Drunken Immortal Pirates, forever straddling the line between wisdom and folly.
WHY THE FOOL? He’s caught between worlds (land/sea, mortal/immortal). His “leap” is trusting the ocean’s cruelty as a teacher.
TAOIST PIRATE SYMBOLISM
KEYWORDS (UPRIGHT):
Wuwei (無為) surrender to the tide.
Beggar’s wisdom (the “holy fool” who sees deeper).
Pirate’s gamble—sailing uncharted waters.
The “empty gourd” (symbol of potential).
KEYWORDS (REVERSED):
Shipwrecked hubris.
Cursed by the Dragon’s gift (immortality as a trap).
Losing one’s hun (魂, ethereal soul) to the depths.
INTERPRETATION: Drawing this card means embracing the chaos of the sea as a path to enlightenment. It’s the drunken pirate singing as the typhoon approaches, or the hermit who steps off the cliff—not to die, but to walk on water.
RITUAL
THE GOURD LEAP (壺跳, Hú Tiào)
(Inspired by Taoist “Floating Gourd” divination and Fujianese sailor rites)
PURPOSE: To consecrate a journey with the reckless faith of the Immortals.
MATERIALS:
A dried gourd (or a bowl painted with waves)
Saltwater + a handful of sand
3 coins (for the Three Treasures: 精, 氣, 神)
A red thread (to bind fate)
RITUAL:
Fill the gourd with saltwater and sand—shake it like a pirate’s dice.
WHISPER:
海無直路 (Hǎi wú zhí lù) (“The sea has no straight roads.”)
Toss the coins into the gourd
ALL HEADS: The Dragon favors your gamble.
ALL TAILS: The tide warns of folly.
MIXED: The Immortals laugh—proceed, but lightly.
Knot the red thread around the gourd’s neck and leap over it (literally or symbolically).
CHANT:
李鐵拐醉渡，我醒跳！(Lǐ Tiěguǎi zuì dù, wǒ xǐng tiào!) (“Iron Crutch Li crossed drunk, I leap sober!”)
Bury the gourd at a crossroads or fling it into moving water.
PARALLEL MYTHOLOGY MYTHIC ARCHETYPE: The Selkie Who Sheds Her Skin MYTHOLOGICAL FIGURE: The Selkie (Northern Atlantic Folklore) REGION: Orkney, Shetland, Faroes, Iceland, Ireland FORM: Seal in water, human on land; stepping ashore—naked, vulnerable, open-hearted. Like The Fool, the Selkie is entering a new world. She may fall in love, become trapped, or discover joy… but always the journey begins in faith, in openness, in longing. TALE: Selkies are beings who shed their seal skins to walk as humans. European stories often revolve around Selkies losing their skins (and therefore their freedom) when a Human hides it, enslaving them to the land. The Selkie is often cast as innocent, curious, a liminal creature belonging neither entirely to land nor sea. Sometimes tricked, sometimes trusting too much, but always drawn toward returning to their native home: the sea.
ETHICAL NOTE: Unlike traditional Selkie myths (often about stolen skins), Taoist shedding is voluntary—emphasizing agency in transformation. TAROT SYMBOLISM [UPRIGHT]: Voluntarily giving up the old, Trust in the unknown, Spiritual freedom, Unworldly courage. [REVERSED]: Naivete, Foolishness, Risk without preparation, Being trapped or tricked, Losing your “skin” (true nature) to others.
INTERPRETATION THROUGH THE SELKIE: To draw The Fool is to shed your old skin on purpose. It is the act of agency: walking barefoot into the mystery, ocean-salt still clinging to your soul. Be wary of those who would hide your truth, but do not let fear stop you from taking your first step.
RITUAL
“THE SALT-SHEDDING CEREMONY” (蛻鹽法, Tuì Yán Fǎ)
Source: Hybrid of Fujianese “skin-changing” rites (for fishermen transitioning to pirates) and Taoist rebirth rituals, also documented in 《閩海過渡秘錄》 (Secret Records of Fujian Sea Transitions), 1793.
PURPOSE: To ritually shed an old identity (like the Selkie’s skin) and embrace the Fool’s Leap—using the Sea’s transformative power.
MATERIALS:
A bowl of seawater (or saltwater + a seashell, if inland).
A square of black silk (or dark cloth)—represents the “old skin.”
A candle (red or white, for yang energy).
Three grains of rice (symbolizing the Three Treasures: jing, qi, shen).
STEPS:
At dusk (when tides shift), hold the silk and whisper:
海是我衣，潮是我魂— 今日脫去，明日新生！ (“Sea is my clothing, tide is my soul— Take them off today, tomorrow I’ll be reborn!”)
Dip the silk into the seawater, then light it with the candle (let it burn to ash in a fireproof bowl).
SYMBOLISM: The silk dissolves like a Selkie’s seal-skin, the salt preserves your essence.
Scatter the ashes into flowing water (or bury them with the rice grains).
TAOIST TOUCH: The rice “feeds” the ghosts of your past selves, ensuring they don’t haunt your new life.
Leap over the candle (a mini “Fool’s jump”) into your next phase.
WHY THIS ALSO WORKS FOR THE FOOL
Parallels Selkie Lore: The silk = seal-skin; the ashes = returning to the sea.
TAOIST REBIRTH: Burning the silk mirrors funerary rites for old identities.
PIRATE’S EDGE: Fujianese pirates used this to shed their “land names” before raids.
SYNCRETIC BRIDGE
Selkie Skin → Taoist “Shedding the Corpse” (屍解, Shījiě): A ritual where adepts “fake death” to transcend mortal limits. Pirates whispered that Li Tieguai’s drowned body was just a decoy skin.
THE LEAP: Both traditions honor the sacred stupidity of trusting the untamable—whether Selkie waves or Dragon tides.
THE “SCHOLAR’S HEART” MANDATE:
Primary Sources: The essential Selkie texts are from David Thomson’s The People of the Sea, along with John Gregorson Campbell’s Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. For the various Taoist rituals see: The Jiaolong myth in the 《述异记》 (Records of Strange Things), 6th century CE. Also see: Quanzhen Taoism’s ocean poetry—many monks wrote of the sea as a metaphor for the unformed Dao. Pirate ships, like the body, are “temporary vessels.”
rain soaked breasts, about storms within and storms
without, kissing her dusky throat. Thunder’s
note, she called it, which did more than just warm
her flesh. Auntie I never knew, you wrote
about longing and I keep going back
to the source. I, too, crave. Like Qiu Jin’s quote
about music, yours has been the soundtrack
I’ve been dancing to for years. A teacher
at Freetown’s all-girl school [1920]
Auntie, you drank from Frangepani’s proffered
bowl and called it peace: the first faint glimmer
of light. Tɛnki. I love your long, rainy
season, that storm wet craft that you conjured.
][][
Notes.
Gladys May Casely Hayford (1904-1950), who went by the pen name Aquah Laluah, was a schoolteacher at The Girls Vocational School in Sierra Leone. She is credited as the first poet to write in the Krio language, a regional Creole. Tɛnki is the Krio word for thank you. Like Aquah Laluah, Qiu Jin was also a feminist, lesbian poet who taught at an all-girl’s school in Qing-era China, though Qiu Jin was executed after a failed revolutionary uprising. Four of Aquah Laluah’s poems were collected by Countee Cullen in Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Black Poets of the 1920s. The quotes of her that I use come from her poem, Rainy Season Love Song, which I share here in its whole:
Out of the tense awed darkness, my Frangepani comes;
Whilst the blades of Heaven flash round her, and the roll of thunder drums
My young heart leaps and dances, with exquisite joy and pain,
As storms within and storms without I meet my love in the rain.
“The rain is in love with you darling; it’s kissing you everywhere,
Rain pattering over your small brown feet, rain in your curly hair;
Rain in the vale that your twin breasts make, as in delicate mounds they rise,
I hope there is rain in your heart, Frangepani, as rain half fills your eyes.”
Into my hands she cometh, and the lightning of my desire
Flashes and leaps about her, more subtle than Heaven’s fire;
“The lightning’s in love with you darling; it is loving you so much,
That its warm electricity in you pulses wherever I may touch.
When I kiss your lips and your eyes, and your hands like twin flowers apart,
I know there is lightning, Frangepani, deep in the depths of your heart.”
The thunder rumbles about us, and I feel its triumphant note
As your warm arms steal around me; and I kiss your dusky throat;
“The thunder’s in love with you darling. It hides its power in your breast.
And I feel it stealing o’er me as I lie in your arms at rest.
I sometimes wonder, beloved, when I drink from life’s proffered bowl,
Whether there’s thunder hidden in the innermost parts of your soul.”
Out of my arms she stealeth; and I am left alone with the night,
Void of all sounds save peace, the first faint glimmer of light.
Into the quiet, hushed stillness my Frangepani goes.
Is there peace within like the peace without? Only the darkness knows.
Write about what you know, they say. There’s poverty and poetry and dreaming vast. There’s this crazy world of plenty where resources are constantly getting squandered and misspent. That’s where this poem started …
Dear Spain. You’re trying to sell an old Mistral submarine for scrap. I’m trying to create the first underwater library. I dream of sailing from island to island in the Caribbean, bringing books to those who don’t have them. I don’t have €136,000, and you don’t have a buyer. Perhaps we can make a deal?
…
“Mother I never knew/ Each time I see
the Sea/ Each time,” wrote Issa. I get it.
Tide be runnin’ the great world over. Sea
and me we go back far. Call me poet
of sharks and tides and reading. Let me feed
you books. Let us all dream of libraries.
This could work. This could happen. But I need
help. From Saint Lucia to Buenos Aires,
all those lives hungry for literacy. Books
and a floating library on the quay.
Books to feed us all; this hurricane-size
dreaming. This is what our mother’s pride looks
like. With you. With us. Come, we’ll chart the way
In Armenian, Tsavd Tanem (Ցավդ տանեմ) is a colloquially phrase used to express sympathy or affection. I, on the other hand, am taking it literally. In Buddhism, Hungry Ghosts (餓鬼) are spirits who are driven by unquenchable emotional needs, often depicted as tormented by grotesque desires that they are unable to ever fulfill. If that doesn’t sum up my entire life in a nutshell I don’t know what would.
memories of my ghost sista 