Erysichthon’s Seed

By Shanta Lee
                                                            Hunger like her mama
                                                            Most strong in White gaze as in
                                                            a Cowbird’s flirtation
                                                            Sprouted in eyes to tongues
                                                            to bellies pregnant with stolen milk
                                                            to restless hands
                                                            These fingernails filled with Black body,
                                                            scrapin to get back to forgotten

                                                            Here, the Gods of this
                                                            New World demanded...

Before, Brown bodies dealt in
Brown bodies. Before the Portuguese
Before, Europe knew little bout Black...
how it lingers on the tongue

                                                            Erysichthon pulled Hunger
                                                            out of his bowels figurin,
                                                            If l can’t soothe her, I’ll marry her
                                                            We can eat the world together          

Eyes taste beginning, make new words
Hands taste bodies, make new narrative
Black bodies...a synonym for Empire

                                                            They birthed many... Ark of Agony,
                                                            Ocean, Hunger, Terra... Balm

Equiano tells the tale, Captain threatens to eat me...
Vanished bodies continue to tell...
from Lion Mountains to Roar of Thunder
to Land of Burnt Face to Corridor
of Camps                      these be Ministers of Destruction

                                                            Merchants of Doom, Soul Carriers, Flesh Mongers,
                                                            He-Who-Butchers-Bodies,
                                                            Demons of Desolation,
                                                            Priests of Wheckage, Flesh Eaters,
                                                            Magicians...

The stories remain in the bones
of bodies blessed Black. Equiano
said what others said what Geronimo warned:
White eyes, they speak hunger
White eyes, they be danger

                                                            Ark of Agony fed on howls, screams &
                                                            stench...his empty-bellyful needs more bodies
                                                            The Demons of Desolation steal more bodies

From oil to anything, barnacles scraped, candle wax
to leather...this crew of Peggy, that crew
of France’s Tyger, others on Nantucket’s Essex
knew the rule: What’s at sea stays at sea.
When all fails at sea, fake a draw to decide
When all fails, feed from a stolen body

                                                            Ocean swallowed the unwanteds
                                                            He took children, he took women, swallowed
                                                            the old, swallowed infants, ate the sick, mouth
                                                            opened wide to all who said they’d fly back

                                                            But bones don’t stop singing,
                                                            sing loudest in water
                                                            Black bodies became Whale Fall
                                                            Those bones be the Bimini road
                                                            from there to here

Lilburn’s playscape, betta than a formal ball
Black body wonderland, body bound to plank,
fire high ax in hand. Others chose urge
at arm length, handcuff ’em to a bedpost
Others chose to feed bodies to the Cotton Jinn

                                                            Terra stretched across the New World
                                                            rivaling her brothers and sisters
                                                            Necks, knuckles, limbs of all kinds
                                                            Skin, scalps, skulls, blood. Most preferred?
                                                            A Feast of Flayed Men
                                                            that rivaled Aztec tradition
                                                            Skin as shoes
                                                            Skin as money purse
                                                            Skin, the inheritance given to White children

Leather Face be no fiction but old deity
Leather Face one of the Eternal Hungry
A sacrifice to shallow graves of many bodies,
bodies of no bury. Nat Turned and Sam Hose,
constellation points to all the othas
Taste turned unstoppable cuz...
We can dine on Black bodies for generations

                                                            Balm took no form, endless appetite like her kin
                                                            Took anything in the ministry of feel good:
                                                            Human fat to soothe the bruise
                                                            A mortar pestled skull to dull a head’s ache
                                                            Kings drops with wine or chocolate,
                                                            mommy’s helper turned mummy fever

                                                            Human flesh to tongue to cure? Nothin new
                                                            Appetites be not created. Crave be groomed

Something bout diamonds, rubber, cocoa
Something bout cotton, copper, tin, tea, and all them spices
Unbroken from the boy somewhere in Texas in 2016...he tells the class,
I’ve got a leather purse made of Black skin.
Gotten from great grand to grand to papa, soon it’ll be his
Man handin hunger to man forgettin why they were trynna
get back to Gods of names forgotten.

Invoking seasoning, adding years, feeding tongues to language.
Hang a live Black body in a smoke house or a kitchen
Use pepper
Use salt
Add vinegar
Add coal oil
Add some turpentine...
Whatever will do for a Black body
Whatever is sanctioned from the Old World
 
                                                                             Hunger left Erysichthon,
                                                      birthed the twins Lust and Appetite on her own
                                                                                                                                                    
                                                                                  They wanna know,
                                                             you got room for what tickles your tongue?
                                                                                                                                                    
                                                                                      Black body,
                                                                                  no silent cuisine,

                                                                                Black body demands,
                                                                You got room for                in your belly?

Notes:

Annotations for this poem were written by Shanta Lee to accompany her poem guide. Read Keyne Cheshire's annotations to "Erysichthon," the poem that inspired Lee's rendition.

Copyright Credit: Shanta Lee, "Erysichthon's Seed" from Black Metamorphoses. Copyright © 2023 by Shanta Lee. Reprinted by permission of Etruscan Press.