Okay. So I’m guessing there are still a few people who have me in their feedreader. Your hopes were not in vain. Of course, some of you probably just kept me there so you could get those claws out as soon as I posted again and blast me for being the Queen of All Disappearing Acts.
So get those nail files out because here I am.
I’ll be writing something about International Women’s Day sometime very late tonight. You’ll probably be in bed.
But don’t expect this return to be without interruptions – I know. You weren’t actually foolish enough to expect that! – because this Wordpress version is hopelessly outdated and I’m not even sure I remember how to fix it. And I find this theme quite loathsome now so I’ll be fiddling around with the stylesheet sometime in the near future too.
Also, there was so much spam in my comments folder that I just did some wholesale deleting. If something you wrote, that I never read, got lost in the fallout… Well, you probably don’t remember writing it anyway.
Love you all. Missed you all. And I will be dropping by your places for a visit sometime in the near future too.
Until then, here a some repostings of poems which seem somehow appropriate for International Women’s Day…
— Prenuptial –
When the time comes, I will quietly press God’s jaw
And bite at the tendons of his stiffening neck.
I am disoriented.
When the time comes, I will face East.Bedlam is the home of women with tangled hair
And I have no hair.
This is my home.
Men wear white when they visit me;
They are bridal.
I pick flowers from the fields to earn my keep.
No. That was in another place.
I’ll tell you a story.When I was a girl, the grass grew.
Oh, I know the grass grows still
- I am not crazy -
But then it grew in the fields I grew in
And I raced to grow faster than it,
Taller than it.
But I fell and it defeated me.A snake entered the pit of my womb
And planted there a seed
Which grew round and downward.
My woman’s body was not built for movement
So I lay still.
This is the meaning of the story.
The teaching.When the snake enters,
When his fangs are poised,
Do not interrupt. Lie still.
Talk to the grass for whom you raced and fell.
You belong to the grass.
This is an old, old teaching.My bridal men stand poised with syringes
While I murmur to you.
I have another story.
When I was a girl I wore a crown.
Now I have no hair and God is coming.199?
— You Begin –
When your soft fingers
flex against the walls
of my deep cavern,
you begin.
Or is it sooner?When you first feel
the pulse of my hot
blood in your own veins,
is it then?
Or is it whenI feel him still
beneath me, still
enclosed by flesh,
but still.
Is it then
that you first move?Almost you.
Or when I run
screaming
to my own mother,
blood on hands,
wanting to swim
with the bloodless girls,
already ashamed
of my blue bra?Is that you then,
new, impatient?
Or is it whenmy own fingers
flex against the wall
of her deep cavern
and further inside
I drum life patterns
into waiting rooms
and you begin.— The Pitch –
I love men.
I love the stillness of them
Their lack of agitation
When they shake off
Their workaday
Clothes
Their ability to not
Talk, to not repeat
Their thoughts
Over and over again
Their lack
Of doubt.
Men are peaceful.
But there are times
When they need
To think beyond
Their words
BeyondOther men’s words
Times they need
To see the
Queen trapped
In the corner
Of the chessboardWhile they laugh
Albeit humourlessly
At another joke
At the Queen’s
Expense
While she shrivelsBeneath the gaze
And turns to ivory.
Women talk
But men hear
Men’s voices
Like dogs
It’s all
In the pitch,
Bitch.
When they
Are not funny
Why won’t you
Snarl at them?