Jonathon Earl Bowser

The Shaman

Julie Shiel

He communes with Amazon spirits,
gilded in blood and feathers,
and paints himself sacred
under the dying twilight.
He drinks the vine of death,
climbs from the
underworld to the heavens,
and merges with the souls
of ancestors howling
in hallucinatory rush.
He is the prophet,
speaking in animal tongues
of psychotropic plants
and constellations burning,
and the stars spin silent
over the rushing river,
as his blood pounds yearning
with the jungle’s pulsing heart
and jaguar dreams
of yage revelations.