for jehanne ʻjoan de arcʼ • Poetry Collection
// Anger is the the first word in Homer's Iliad,
so we begin here. Eking out
a saviour from the scraps of a girl, naming every hill she burns-pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.
...
She was a 4 A.M. sky, at the cusp of birth and death Iron-clad and Iron-wrought Joanholds the tongue of Hades's hounds, says she's having the worst of days, shooting at point-blank range.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I / THE BECOMING
There is a song of swords gashing through summer— Herr, you left your favourite sword in my throat Err, the habit of punching holes in martyrs I'm your favourite daughter, Gods pinioned on the walls of my heart.
She is clenched inside the fist of god and she expects herself to burst open with Love. The nation expects some tryst, loose bound liberty There is no such constitution for the self, the corpus is just meat that agrees to be dead.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
II / THE KNOWING
There is no glory without fire. Bottled mary hair in my cupboard, My nose with an exaggerated bridge. I am an aftershock of prophecy, and the narrative is an umbilical cord.
What do you do with a body that refuses to be a body What do you do with a body which is an organ of god The poem does not obey me, the doom in the blood rushes back. Death is the one prophecy I know and I know nothing at all.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
III / THE TAKING
I would gnaw my heart out at god's table with a bad grammar grin. I would know when to show my teeth cause I'm your favourite daughter, born to do this. ... Oh, you want to be a martyr? Get in line—
Nailed palms and bloodied utter tongue She was Joan, bloodshed saint, knightlier and braver than any man in town in all of France.
