Benin

O, Dahomey,
Spawned from the leopard’s loins,
Your kings have all turned into trees.

Meet me at the mouth
Of the River of Death,
Where the crocodile
Waits in welcome.

The lion sits in the long grass, dreaming;
The leopard hauls his prey up into a tree;
The honeyguide flits above the ratel,
Leading him to a sweet hive.

The male weaver bird selects
A place to build his nest,
At the end of a thin hanging branch,
He strips it of leaves
And then flits back and forth,
Carrying material blade by blade in his beak,
Hanging his nest from the branch end,
Interweaving grassblades into the frame,
And finally when completed
He shows it off to his mate
And if she disapproves she will tear it all apart
And make him start all over again.

Slowly, slowly,
Creeps the chameleon,
Moon-eyed spectre,
White as death.

Every gri-gris at the market tempts me,
The féticheurs’ promises all convince :
A love charm or a travel talisman,
Or a cure for any sickness…
Look: a crucified baboon,
The empty eye sockets
Of a dozen monkey skulls…

The female anopheles comes to feed…
Fever, shivering, headquake …
What are these nightmares?
Despair claws my face,my heart,
Hyena in the dark,
Eyes and ears are in panic,
Heart stops and starts…

In the python temple of Ouidah,
Spirits mount the bodies of the entranced
And dance them to exhaustion,
Speaking through their bones.
They awake in Haiti or Cuba or Brazil,
Among the living dead.
The snake coils and uncoils,
Swallowing its own tail,
The rainbow appears out of the mist,
Flames of running water
Chase behind my eyelids,
This world is a spiral of smoke,
A jackal in the waving savannah grass.

The last road of the slaves-
After they had circumambulated
The Tree of Forgetfulness
And the Tree of Return;
After they had sat in the dark dungeon
For months, till their spirits
Were broken, disorientated and too weak
To struggle or resist
As they were packed into the ships-
Ends at the beach, at the Gate of No Return,
There the slaves, hobbling in shackles,
Emerged, at the edge of the abyss,
Where the Revenants waited to welcome home
The souls of the departed returning one day.

In Abomey
Paths lead through twisted alleyways
Past bright fetish temples
To the palace, and So, the god of thunder, on the wall,
A red ram with lightning shooting from his mouth,
And two axes at his side,
And in the throne room all the kings’ stools
And their personal banners,
With the emblems of their strength and pride;
Thee kings sat on thrones
Adorned with their enemies’ skulls,
And festooned the walls of the city
With the severed heads of enemies,
To relax they had a harem of thousands,
And each night would choose the girls
He wished to spend the night with;
For sport they expanded their kingdom
Through constant war, and sold the prisoners
As slaves to the Europeans;
Occasionally they would perform
A human sacrifice, in times of crisis,
By throwing the victim off the city walls
Where the mob below would finish him off
With rocks and clubs, then the blood
Would be smeared on the city walls.
Proudly he reviewed his army,
Especially his regiment of Amazons,
Half-naked, the Amazons muster for war,
Drilling with rifles and bows,
A regiment of thousands,
The most ferocious and skilled warriors,
The king’s own bodyguard,
Striking fear into the bravest men…

In the Djêho Temple-
Built by King Glélé to house his dead father’s spirit,
With the blood of forty-one slaves,
Golden powder, pulverized velvet,
Silk, pearls and alcohol,-
The sacrificial knife is raised,
Ready to honour the gods.

Of all the kings of Dahomey
The thirteenth, Adandozon, is held in abomination
By his people, as a madman and traitor,
They dread to even speak his name
Lest his evil spirit be conjured up,
For he loved to castrate men and feed them
To hyenas, and slit open the bellies
Of pregnant women to use their foetuses
In black magic, and worst of all he wanted
To end the slave trade, and cease
The duty of unending war.

At the crossroads stands Legba the trickster,
With huge proud phallus ever-ready,
Smirking at the prospect of some fun.

The diviner casts the Fa stones,
Scries how they fall;
The Father of Mysteries
Listens to the air.

I see the first men and women
Descending to earth from the branches of the iroko tree,
Here, where the chicken’s throat is cut.

Out into the crowd
The Egungun is escorted,
Bright-robed and horned,
In seashell mask,
And speaks high-pitched
In inhuman voice,
The counsel of the gods
To lowly men,
Beware, his touch is death,
Seek not his eyes
Behind the veil,
They are death.