{"id":216,"date":"2020-12-18T07:44:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T07:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/?p=216"},"modified":"2020-12-18T11:06:59","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T11:06:59","slug":"a-prayer-to-oshun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/?p=216","title":{"rendered":"A Prayer to Oshun"},"content":{"rendered":"\nthere\u2019s the neon lights and the signs of passed deities<br>\nblessing me twice in the gloom illuminating my grazed knees<br>\nshaking pillars under a temple that is nowhere to be seen<br>\nor heard in the disordered symphonies of the after hours<br>\nthe screeching banshees hidden in the passing tires<br>\nand the remains of sacrificed flesh wrapped in plastic<br>\ndecomposing amongst tin cans robbed of their elixir<br>\ncoloring ornaments to the gaping mouth of the altar<br>\nwhich the saints and the hobos salute in their pilgrimage<br>\nall dressed as one they<br>\nfrom another mystic<br>\nwalk on the edge of the halo under which I stand<br>\ntheir foreheads held down by invisible strings pulling from the cracks<br>\nin the cement<br>\nthey do not look away as it may be<br>\nthey merely do not look<br>\nand my body displayed in a bridled posture to honor Oshun<br>\nbends to offer gratitude to the meagre gift of their virtue<br>\nand the devoted disregard they bestow upon my rituals<br>\nI, priestess of the skin<br>\nwhistler-sister of the pungi players from the East Indies<br>\nI, arched back and angled sesamoid heightened by needle-like obelisks<br>which puncture the ground in a metronomic elegy<br>\nto lure in the lustful shapes of the night<br>\nI take the scepters from the anonymous hands of my disciples<br>\nto unlatch their coffined sanctuaries and bless them in the fabrics<br>\nuntil they no longer are surfaces but<br>\nbillowing under the scorching breath of my suspiria<br>\nthey borrow the moon through its fullest circumference<br>\nthen come to its splitting halves<br>\ndipped in limitless vials of perspiration and other nectars of initiation <br>ripe enough to consume the worship at once<br><br>\n\n[&#8230;]<br><br>\n\n<em>Mother I have let the tide come to me<br>\nI have welcomed the bruises as beacons of your artistry <br>may you revert the fortunes I collect as I roam<br>\nto the green pastures of your home<\/em>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>there\u2019s the neon lights and the signs of passed deities<br \/>\nblessing me twice in the gloom illuminating my grazed knees<br \/>\nshaking pillars under a temple that is nowhere to be seen<br \/>\nor heard in the disordered symphonies of the after hours<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4,3],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-4","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web1.unine.ch\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}