mygeeseourgeese | Entries tagged with theme: witches

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redcheekdays

A Baba Yaga is the ultimate tester and judge, the desacralized omnipotent goddess, who defends deep-rooted Russian pagan values and wisdom and demands that young women and men demonstrate that they deserve her help. But what Baba-Yaga also defends in the nineteeth-century tales collected in this volume are qualities that the protagonists need to adapt and survive in difficult situations such as perseverence, kindness, obedience, integrity, and courage[…] In all the tales Baba Yaga is compelling and dreaded, because she forces the protagonists to test themselves and not to delude themselves that there is an easy way to reconcile conflicts.

redcheekdays

When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me, my pale face, the way the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire. I saw how much that cruel necklace became me. And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away.

redcheekdays

it is cold in the room, and I am hungry but whole. I open my eyes, climb out of bed. I pull a sweater over my head, fill the kettle. I break the hand, slice the heart—I mean I break the bread, slice the apple—and eat them.

redcheekdays

She pins you to hotel doors—
not a goddess anymore,
but she still looks like religion in high heels.
She kisses you godless. Whispers,
We dress like princesses to go out and kill kings.

redcheekdays

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun ‘tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.

redcheekdays

All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

redcheekdays

Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else’s liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back. The true witches know that.

redcheekdays

if they pronounce
your name like a curse
then you may as well
teach their mouths how
to taste a growing hell

redcheekdays

A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.

redcheekdays

Ignore every instinct to flee. Remember: you are a monster too.

redcheekdays

When people were in serious trouble they went to a witch.*

* Sometimes, of course, to say, “please stop doing it."

redcheekdays

they called her witch because she knew how to heal herself.

redcheekdays

A girl never knows when she’s gonna need
to soak up some blood.

redcheekdays

& there’s nothing
more holy than holding
a man’s heartbeat between
your teeth

redcheekdays

Once upon a time there was a wicked witch and her name was
Lilith
Eve
Hagar
Jezebel
Delilah
Pandora
Jahi
Tamar
and there was a wicked witch and she was also called goddess and her name was
Kali
Fatima
Artemis
Hera
Isis
Mary
Ishtar
and there was a wicked witch and she was also called queen and her name was
Bathsheba
Vashti
Cleopatra
Helen
Salomé
Elizabeth
Clytemnestra
Medea
and there was a wicked witch and she was also called witch and her name was
Joan
Circe
Morgan le Fay
Tiamat
Maria Leonza
Medusa

redcheekdays

Special powers were attributed to the orange in Renaissance England, Italy, and Sicily. It was believed witches could bring death to an enemy by pinning the victim’s name to an orange and leaving the orange in a chimney.

When he comes in, late again,
the whole house smells wonderful,
but he can’t quite recognize the scent.
The fire is almost out, a few ashes
flicker in the absent light,
and suddenly he recalls
his mother holding orange peels
over a flame, the singed skin
curling back like petals,
releasing that fragrance.
She did it daily, all one winter,
just for the pleasure.

He doesn’t see on the hearth
the remains of paper, traces
of his name printed in clear
black ink. He wonders how his wife
knew about sweetening their rooms
with oranges, wonders whether it means
the air is cleared,
she wants to make up.
He breathes the evening in,
imagining her in bed, waiting for him,
forgiveness on her lips
like the taste of oranges.

redcheekdays

Peel your heart like a pomegranate.
Offer it to him, palms outwards.
Say “eat.”
Watch him come away
stained red by you.
You’re in his teeth.
He’ll kiss you with that mouth.

redcheekdays

Expose yourself!
Show me your tattooed spine and star-encrusted tongue!
Admit your feral snarl, your bloody jaws
concede your nature and reveal your dreams!
each beast contains its god, all gods are dreams
all dreams are true

redcheekdays

Always these young women in search of power,
their eyes rolled back in their heads, midriffs exposed.
Always some girl with a candle in a dark room --
and poof, her face brightens as she achieves
some moment of bliss. The raindrops around her freeze

in midair, the wolves stop baring their fangs, and for a moment
the young girl marvels at her own invincibility.
But then it's fire, fire, always someone with a stake or a knife
ready to do her in. She is a spark about to go out.

redcheekdays

Everyone thinks of [fairy tales] in terms of poisoned apples and glass coffins, and forgets that they represent girls who walked into dark forests and remade them into their own reflections.

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