Lilith

my vaginal canal is lined with razor teeth
my sex is an ever devouring shark
I give birth to the grotesque
many limbs
many heads
many blinking eyes
Lucifer loved me
Adam despised me
I attacked the cities by the sea
I fled to the mountains
and birthed my horrors
I am mother to monsters
the rage of every dominated woman
my children consume the offspring
of that tyrannical god
I am the dark Goddess
the demon queen
I chewed through my ropes
heaved myself over the wall
and spat on the doorstep of paradise
they fell
and we feasted upon them
when there was light
also was bred darkness
and my soul is imbued with it
I am the breeder of nightmares
long hair a tangle of thorns
white rose and my bloodied breath
and so great predators
gathered under me
his puppets tried to slay the great serpent
tried to prevent my fertility
but I came screaming down upon them
my gates were gates of death
and those who came to me
can not return to life
they came only to enter the Pit
and watched me kiss the mouth of Samuel
we are nephilim
the sparse pale moon my sister
I howled through the wind
chased fatted hypocrites
on their wobbling legs
over the hills of my own vengeance
I ate their hearts without fear
I stood on their graves
and terrified their children
I am the Other God
the Blind Dragon
and my femininity
will fill up all the holes
of his most imperfect savage world

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

Bull's Blood

he raised the axe above his head
his swing long and true
the moonlight glinting down the blade
his hands straining against the wood

with my feet pounding down that dirt road
I saw his arms moving
my lungs burning with air
my blood cursing my veins

Big Black Bull
it's hot breath snorting
dust kicking up under its hooves
an eye gone wild pulling against the bonds

Big Black Bull
calling out to the night in frantic timing
my legs faltering as I ran down that drenched road
the darkness cutting before me

the Bull as black as the night surrounding it
I raised it up with my own hands
raised up that Bull
and called him mine

when the axe met its mark
that wild eye rolled back one last time
his arms shuddered with the impact
and the blade came away now dark with blood

finally reaching his side
he turned to me and said,
'gather up the blood in a steel dish,
for to waste nothing is to want for nothing'

I dropped down beside that great beast
its hot breath now cold and un-stirring
I dug my fingers into the dark bloodied fur
and nestled the dish beneath its throat

I wiped my hands on my long skirt
staining the fabric the deep red of Bull's Blood
my hands dark in dirt and fur
Bull's Blood running down my arms mingling in my own veins

I am now a bride of Bulls
mistletoe tangled in my hair
white Bulls at my side
my skin dark with blood

I who have seen them thundering from the sea
I who have seen the priests in the trees
I who have stood as Bull opened up the ground
I who have rode upon his back with swords in my arms

the Blood is flowing in me now
forcing my heart to beat
I turn one mad eye
and my breath comes out in a hot snort

he pivots to me at the sound
the axe still at his side
I run my hand through my hair
and feel for horns growing there

The Furies Bring the Serpents

"Bring me the skin of David," she said

a scream that was heard
from ancient hill to ancient hill
shuddering in the distance

blessed are the cursed
for they know the truth

Erinyes
their voices one
awash in anger
serpents on their tongues
death in their eyes

all the world held a shuddering breath
each wing beat to the movement of blood
each eye an accusation waiting

borne of night
every drop on the ground a resurrection
twisting in her image with a sword in each hand
many heads but one eye
many eyes but one head

underworld, Orestes
that is where you go
to the gates of Dis
where they stand in judgment
one heart beating in many chests
an eye turned on you
an eye of madness
your hand still on the weapon
your mother's breath barely gone
forever

you fed on soft milk
and knew the cursed

Athena, stay your hand
Athena, let them be
let us be renewed in hate
a curse dancing feverishly on our lips
for they have put their will upon us
and we can never rest

here Furies wait
in the violence of every lifted hand
know they are the serpents
in the eyes of your victims
and their anger will never ever cease
when we open our mouths
and let that curse spill out at your feet

fairytale

if this were a new world
and these were our first steps
upon these fabled shores
we would know
that we could not face Her armies
and survive

but in the ignorance and knowledge
of foreign empires
we advanced as if there was nothing
in us to lose
as if the fires surrounding the towers
did not mirror the fire in Her eyes

as if She did not know
that no matter how wicked our hearts
or how vigilant our minds
that Her crimson lips and ebony hair
would stand always as a gleaming beacon
on darkened hills

that could outnumber our quickening breaths
and summon us to our deaths

the unending

embedded in a darker planet
frozen at the center
of my own ignorance

i shattered the silence
of a thousand red fires
glowing in the heart of every sinner

who is my child
and also my only lover

separated by the endless black
of an uncaring universe
and trapped like the
burning stars in my eyes

where white light is the only torture
and the utterance of a thousand sighs
is only the patience to break unalterable law