vagina dentata — part 2 [warning: anatomically correct ghost witch]
I have always rooted for the villain in fairy tales. They were always so much more interesting than the hero or heroine, who usually appear humdrum, obsequious and tiresome in comparison. Take the rebel angel Lucifer, the Morning Star, in Paradise Lost. Why does Milton give him all the best lines? Why is he so amazingly interesting versus the wooden stock characters the Lord sends to do battle against the upstarts? Sure, Lucifer fails, we all know that, but the point is, by the end of the poem, I am much more invested and curious about the original anti-hero's outcome than, say, the predictable Adam and Eve.
Or, more recently, I watched Tim Burton's not very satisfactory stop-motion film, The Corpse Bride. I say "not very satisfactory" not because there wasn't interesting characters in it, there was — Emily, the Corpse Bride herself — piqued my curiosity. However, true to Hollywood happy ends, our hero, Victor, goes off with Victoria Everglot, a rather watery, bland, commonplace individual when you get down to it.
The Beatles lied to us. Didn't Paul sing, "all you need is love"? Why is it, then, when the motivation of 90% of all villains everywhere is to be loved (a true 20th Century concept at that) that suddenly the damned, devil women, the unholy find it impossible to get a date? strike up a romance? spend some quality time with someone who cares? Once, just once, I'd love to see the anti-heroine win whoever it was she had kidnapped. Why not? It'd be a twist ending!
This brings us to the subject of ghost witches. After I posted yesterday's blog I re-read it and slapped my forehead sheepishly. In a letter I sent a friend I wrote:
i might not have actually tied together the idea of ghost witches and vagina dentata, teeth and teething (now there's an idea, do young ghost witches suffer from teething the way we do when our baby teeth fall out?) hmm …
And not just ghost witches but Lilith and succubi of all kinds. When is someone going to wrestle the myth of the demon lover away from tiresome, boring, misogynistic story tellers who have nothing new to add but seem obsessed with the idea that female sexuality is not only treacherous but unnatural? I know I might be treading on someone's toes here since the succubus seems to be a basic necessity for many in the Goth world (at least the red skinned, big breasted, tiny little horned version that more or less looks like Betty Page with a bad skin condition). Whatever happened to thinking outside the box?
Take Yusef Komunyakaa's poem where he writes, " … He jolts awake/ With her scent in his mouth/ & on his big clumsy hands./ Her tongue, her lips flicker, as if/ An alien has seduced him …" What new twist is the poet adding here? Nothing, as far as I can tell. That, I think, is my point; we need someone with enough courage, resoluteness, daring to revision the tale of the succubus. Just once, somebody, just once.
Theses are not answers behind
magnolia petals the spits are
turning the dream's curtains,
barred with silver and black,
shriveled and lustreless, lies
what? ecstasy? despair?
nightmare? in the sky,
dew, sluggish flesh.
I did not come here to
ask for answers. I cameto your pregnant center, salt
in the lake bed. the air was
thick crude oil (the air is
always thick in these
tableaux, oil, blood
seeping from the electric
socket), because I speakthe dialect between
these fusty sheets," call
this: "wild rumpus," Then
a light, a certain slant
of your own undoing,
the tenements of
the jackhammer and
backhoe, all our body's
machinery, even mine.Let the howling of dogs
invent the moist reason
of lust, someone had to.
I came because you called.