Artist: Raymond Nordwall

I think it is time for me

To go on a shopping spree

No ordinary spelling bee

Can you undo my rhyme

A little bit of chicory

to sweeten my time

 

Got me a jungle rhythm & got me a jungle vine

Going to find me some rosemary and

some Thistle and Thyme

Going to cook me a fine pot roast

Got me yeah a bean

Got me yeah a bean

From down New Orlean

 

Got me a sign

Got me a sign

What do it say

Say it the Jamaican way

Rub it and Roll it

And lay it out hard

Got me some smoke

Enough to keep all under

All under so happy

So joyfully freaked

They freak They creep

Shrieks to hear no peep

no sound

A big fat ugly clown

Enema vine dragging the ground

 

Gonna make a white fire

In every room a light

To fill dark shadows

Underneath the sky

Where serpents to tend to fly

They lap up the visions in your mind

They plant the willows in the park

 

Take a view the dreams unwind

Cooca cooca choo chonta

Cooca cooca choo chonta no more

Fly back your merry way

Home to boo Home to boot

 

White powder shine like water

As it rains it pours

The fire on the flesh

Burn baby burn

No more fuckin

Little game of Barbie and Ken

 

When you leaped

You played for my soul to keep

But now it’s my turn

And my Head is fuckin Red

 

The chiefs are my elders

And home in the vast pale sky

They will lift me and pluck the thorns

And place me back on high

 

Higher time Transcendent mind

In sleep in Play in all hours

of the day

 

Forever they will be

Everywhere with me

Untangling my veins

Enrapturing your brain

 

Yeh, I guess there will be a price to pay

Whose heart is going to burn today

Did you think you could escape the gravity

Of my orb

I think not lest

I cast you out

I think never will I let you be

In you I will always be

Remember boys to eat your peas!

 

April of 1996

A cathartic process had ensued after a question was asked, a psychologist whom utilized the work of Virginia Satir, along with Mexican shamanistic influences working in health management, and at the time traveling with and working for for R. Zombie crossed my path one day, he “may have” tried to chord me according to a friend of mine who did energy healing work. More human than human, interesting enough paved the way for me to discover a journey where all matter of energies play out in this world. In Boulder, I observed these influences, and walked away, never to be lulled for long, within me a countenance holding on. A magnifying glass held up to the light, to unleash the pain, it burns and carves no more. Somatic internalization questions were answered.

Must also note an instructor, F. Benson had captured pictures of Aztec and Mayan pottery down in the vaults of a museum in Mexico when it was decided he could not take pictures by the curator, however some shots had been taken. Their pottery portrays stories of the above world and the under world. The priests would mutilate their eyes, or ears, or lips, but more interesting than this widely known fact, they would use herbs and use them as hallucinatory substances by ingestion via enemas (not a pretty image, but a truth). The pottery revealed in his classes, showed us these images where it represented these acts by priests to journey from the above world into the underworld. I used that imagery in this piece to signify man’s quest for power over others, is a dirty deed.

Just with any belief system, there are good and not so good ploys and forces. I had never heard of curanderismo at the time our paths crossed, for it is a study of healing but can also be used for not so good aims as well. Once, I learned of these possible influences, I refused to be near or associated with anything, or belief practices that could be used in ways that were not for healing purposes; not saying it was being used that way, but I had a concern developing it may have been, and that was the impetus that moved me to write the above, as merely a fantasy piece throwing in references of the Haitian influences on the practices in New Orleans I was already familiar with through prior educational analysis of their methods.

The reference to eat your peas boys, referred to this individual and his mentor in the healing practices of Curanderismo. A thought that came to mind, as I left abruptly to board a flight back home, and ventured to walk out on a branch to see where my life would lead me given I had the one answer I truly sought.