The Word

I wrote a single word upon his lips;
One Word--
--Vengeance.

And I kissed that Word,
worked it upon my tongue,
forcing it past his objections--
wetting the interior of his mouth,
and shoving it down his throat.

In my eyes he saw Hell;
In my face he saw will;
and in my hands he felt the force,
of what I had become.
Held the name of it with his fingertips,
and whispered it out loud--
--Evil.

"Are those snakes upon you?"
Serpents, my love;
Serpents with knowledge of your ills,
and your preference for pretty young things--
Firm tits under your hands,
round asses between your knees;
Wet mouths dripping with hunger,
and overt drug-induced pleas to fuck on the kitchen counter.

"And what are you, so darkened on this diatribe?"
Me? I am disillusionment with heavy breasts.
I am the weapon in sexuality.
I am the fear of intellectual aggressiveness.
I am the undelicate, the weighted, the unrest,
the opened-eyed antithesis to morality and concept.
I am the voodoo poet, the neurotic sex symbol,
the reverence for the systemic failure
of your little self-important world.
I am the Devil come to sit with you for lunch,
and talk about your house plants.

I am the one with the Word.
I am the one who has stored up that Word,
and given birth to the Idea of the Word--
I have taken the Word,
and molded it,
and fired it,
and breath'd life into it.
I have become the Word--
The Idea;
The moment when the Idea becomes the Word,
and forces itself upon your ears and lips and eyes.

And I am forcing it past his lips,
ending conversations and confessions--
Pleas and rebukes-- ending with the Word.
His eyes are rolling back in his head;
he is twirling his neck from side to side,
wide-eyed, mouth working, tongue flapping;
But I am now consumed in the Word,
coming out all sweet and dripping--
and with sticky fingers,
trailing along his shirt collar,
I leave him with the loss of the Word,
bleeding out onto the table.

And I am Vengeance,
with the Word firmly written upon her lips,
and a kiss too unspeakable to ever want.

Blueberries and Ash

I am hounded by your hands
my evil-throated man
the drumming of your fingers on my thighs
the beat of your breath in my ear
all madness

I have taken your unwillingness up in my mouth
rolled it over my tongue
swished it between my teeth
and spat it out again

you taste of blueberries and ash
remind me of my homeland
where the trees bent at my passing
the grass forming knots as I would go

you called me ice maiden
mad with the cold
you called me
the eternal virgin
and sent me on to arid pastures

you looped my hair over your fist
and held me there
mad eyes rolling, mad eyes
you stood on my hands
and tried to reach God

and I am throat
all calling and want
voice straining for Heaven
past your tilting mind
riding your last thought
to stars just above your head

body now my own
unfettered by your slipping grip
your bones under my heals
your neck at an impossible angle

you forever quiet
and me
with Sun in my mouth
rolling on eternal hills
in the Grace of the Ever Shining All

The Burden

He called my name;
--It made me shudder;
and stutter,
and try to say something important.

He, who was unguarded,
now had dogs at his feet.
He wanted me to bend over,
and do as he said.
He wanted to force himself into my mouth,
fill me with his importance,
his singular word,
--His seed; unerring his strength and malice.

I resisted the urge to bite down.
I resisted the urge to plunge something into his chest.
If I opened a hole in him,
he could feel what it was like to be penetrated;
He could feel what it was like to be a woman.
I could force the birth of his organs,
--and through pain he could know what it was to be us.

Us, weaker sex; us, stone around your neck;
You love to hate us; love to watch us under you.
Watch us on our knees- taking what you like,
what you see as order in the eyes of God;
Speak your word and we can have a place at your side.
You hate to love us; hate our tidal bodies and pointed stares.
Hate the word upon our lips,
our teeth set to free our sisters;
Latched to ship's poles we never break,
we know you and shut our eyes at your blows;
And you will never know how we birth'd our disdain,
and hid it behind our tongues.

And with his veiled dislike of my unfolding,
he forced me down, cooed my name;
Told me to run my hands over my eyes.
Said this was right;
This was a game of control,
but he offered no respect to that other sex,
read no fairer author, saw no art in the hands of delicate ease.
"I am man," he mouthed over my head,
and shoved his fingers past my lips.

--He called my name;
Burden,
and I turned away.

Lament of Gold

strange now
that I should be bore here
upon the backs of my countrymen
through golden fields
upon shoulders uplifted
that I once liberated

strange now
that I should be bore here
upon your soft hands
and silken breasts
carried on the scent
of your golden hair

strange because I had
wandered far from you;
far from this dawning land;
this holiest of holy homelands

I, who had seen the Pharaoh's
kneeling at Ra's pyramidic feet
I, who had watched
Druidean priests scurry up
giant mistletoe trees
I, who had accompanied
mad Arabs to the holy land
beyond Saladin's great city walls
I, who knew the sword of foreign nobility
and drove armies to the edges of the earth

strange because I had
fled from your hair and breathe
into the arms of Athenian whore mystics
seeking visions in the form of knowledge
and the taste of forbidden pomegranates
on my tingling tongue

I was unpracticed in you soft ways
I listened to the waves of foreign shores
for the voices of mimic gods drawing me forward
and outward
and I stayed my heart at your voice
your hands could not sooth my fettered mind;
my rattling soul jittering for great sails in blustering wind
and pounding horse hooves down dirt roads

your languid eyes could not hold me here
in the times of my youthful heart
and it is strange now that on the years of my death
I should find myself in your arms once more
those pools of eyes staring softly at me
as great and free men carry me over endless oceans
and rocky gates
to the glittering fields of my childhood
strange that your arms wrap as tightly around me now
as they did then
strange that your face has not changed in the intervening years
and I realize in these last dim moments
that I have heard your soft voice singing to me
all this time
across all these lands

you, who have drawn me back here
cradled me to your breast
and sang the hymns of a homeland
I had almost forgot
that my eyes should once more see
vast fields of gold on gold
and my body should flow onto this sandy shore
where children race down the beach
throwing their voices to the wind
and I could look upon your eyes
one last time
and see the mother of all this land
in your fading smile