Reclaiming some of my poetry from almost 20 years ago, and my name as a writer which I haven’t claimed for a long time. My plan is to do more writing in 2015, but to take a running start at it right now. As it happens, it is Saturday and a long while back I used to do Poetry Saturday, so I even have a place to file it!
The form of the poem is changed, and the original form enhances the movement but I can’t figure out tabs in wordpress and am not willing to retype the whole thing here so we’ll just take it as it shows up.
By the way, this poem is the start of Wylde Women’s Wisdom, which some of you will remember, and my whole Wylde Women theme in my art and life. You see that “Wylde” is still “Wild” here – this is the genesis.
Prayer for the Living
- We Meet the Woman Who Is Wild
I’ve lost all my dreams
misplaced the book where I wrote them down
the book I sued to figure out just what it was
I wanted, or what wanted me.
Without it how can I tell you
of the white feather presented to me
just before I awoke to find
the white wolf blinking her yellow eyes.
unmelted snow on her fur?
What if I told you that this has nothing to do
with feathers and wolves or the color white?
If I told you that all of this is
her, whispering her stories
trying to make me come back and play?
What if I told you she id dead
and I killed her? What would you say?
Perhaps I should begin
at the beginning when she crept in
while I was occupied with some drug
whose precise letters I can’t recall.
It was never that I didn’t likke her,
just that I had not context
for what she loosed in my house – the musk
scent she trailed like honey,
the men who came sniffing
like hound dogs on the track;
the body thing – she said our bodies are
beautiful – take off your clothes
and I did. She said speak up
and I did. She said dance bare and
howl; she said ride wild things between your legs;
she said you are who you are
and I was. And then, I think, she went
away or did I tell her to leave or
did I cut out her heart that night
when I closed my mouth, put on my clothes
and began to follow the rules…
Sometimes in the dark I hear something
that sounds like a scream or maybe it’s a keening,
and I wake up, sheets wet with sweat,
nightgown twisted up to my neck
like I was trying to take it off – what
would you say if I told you, after all,
It was only a dream, would you believe me?
2. Wild Woman Speaks
In the closet where you left me
I have found all the secret doors. At night
while you sleep I creep up the passageway
to your room, collect the hairs from our brush
and return to the darkness where I weave
for you a new skin – a skin for you to wear,
the one you’ll find when you open the door.
3. Realization
She sings a story song
born of seawind and earthfire
she says I must
crawl from my mud
into the sun
dry from the cave’s wetness
stand in the light
outshine it
she says I must
stop hiding
in beloved darkness
where I speak the language
of shadow and shade
she says I must
go into the desert
and gather the power strands
I scattered
thinking to be done with the necessity
of taking the pieces and directing them
like reins pulling at the mouths of wild horses
she says I must finish what has begun
and my traitor heart
leaps with joy
4. Wild Woman Prays
Kali, awe/full Mother
Terrible in your darkness
You are called Dream
Creatrix of Night
Take of Life
Giver of Death
Sister of Gorgons
Mother of Anger
Daughter of Ocean
Woman of Iron
Holder of trident and sword
Warrior
Holder of lotus and honey
Passion
Wearer of Peacock’s beauty
Earthquake
Wearer of pearls
Dispeller of fear
Wearer of skulls
Dancer of death joy
Gatherer of seeds
Hear us now
Take this blood and drink it
Take this blood and drink it
Take this blood and drink it
For life eternal
Amen
5. Knight Vision
The heart of the husband has approached
through fireheat, coldburn,
passion;
through hidden caves where sunlight
can’t reach
has tried the surface where all
is reflection where shadows
prowl the edges
has trembled when she comes to him
like some wild animal soft, sleek,
dark
all mouth and teeth and claws.
The heart of the husband has braved
all of this, has thought
about the steam
the steam she lets rise around her
not the trailing steam of mist,
but fog thick and heavy
so dense, sight fails –
and the heart of the husband thinks
of how to sit still
becoming a rock
she can hold onto
if only
if only she would stop beating herself
against the sharp pieces
and find the small places
where toes and fingers can grasp
and the husband doesn’t know
who she will be today
watches moon changes
once ignored tastes
her salt sips
her honey and
loves her
this child this woman this
lover who howls and scratches
at the door of being – and the heart
and the husband let her in let her in
never knowing what they’ll find
6. Thoughts from the Corner
it should be easier than this
snakes do it all the time
shed their skin
with not even a second thought
while I can’t even find the seam
think I might have to rip open
think it might hurt
think I am imagining things
think if I could just wake up
or maybe it’s go to sleep
than I would be normal again
walk around in the sun and
smile again as though
none of this ever happened
as thought I never heard or felt
or knew anything other than this
light, this well beaten path, this
maze of rats, this nest of ants
this pain, this pain, this pain
for so long I can’t even feel it
anymore – so much easier than
learning something new –
some things are best left to snakes.
7. Wild woman’s Declaration
In this closet are many rooms –
all the doors locked
by one key
it hangs
from your neck nestled
between your breasts
swings there gently
bumping against your heart
beating reminders of who you are
in your dreams
the thing that you can never find
already in the palm of your closed hand
the hand you refuse to open, like your eyes,
afraid of what you might see, afraid to stay
in this place where you are, unable to turn back,
dead but breathing.
I am wherever you are
let met teach you
my dance.
8. Behind the Closet Door
Wild and trembly
storm child twirls
feet stamping water
where the creek
turkey tails
into bottom land
and snow battered
sod lies interspersed
with gnarled roots of oaks
older than this
clay soil
from which she has
crawled
spitting mud
from under her tongue
telling stories
born of rock and
liquid fire
9. Secrets
What if I told you
there are no rules?
That there isn’t even a game
until we decide to play it?
What if I told you
that there is no
winner’s circle, only smooth round rooms
with blank white walls
which quiet the quest
make us forget where
we were going and why
soothe us into dreamless sleep…
10. Using the Key
Like a cicada buried for 17 years
something stirs inside
and despite myself and the warmth
of this place where I sleep
I begin to dig through dirt
find myself splitting wide
open as though some
Celestial scalpel descends
to make one clean cut out of which
I emerge wrinkled and white
to unfold in the hours between
Moonset and sunrise
find myself singing a song I don’t know
find others just like me
everywhere I turn singing the same song
All of us pale as lunar ghosts
stretching into air like newborns
finding parts of us that were
not there before, learning to see
what we once only imagined.
