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.
...
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a girl with a glaive
ruins of a fallen city have been dispersed in my bones but by custom i am cloistered within walls of this home by the scullery, washing blood off my nimble hands running only do scream, when the sun spills on the meadowland.
i know the wild, i could be the alpha or some other clan (not the consort to a throned man) but i'll do as my mother says, and go place my heart by the fireplace. watch as the chimney inhales it; strand by strand.
words are my weapons of choice holstered at the tip of my tongue, cause if i possessed the mightiest of glaive i would've to hide it in the pits i dug
i know the wild, i wait for it as i whet my words the fresh weather song of liberty; the local revolution chiming in anti-clockwise. i am devoted like that, i put the blood back in the crucifix
i heard it from the tales travelling in my veins in arms of far-flung constellations, i had been cradled feast one's eyes on the shield, how would you feel if you're handed over the ladle? would you fear a girl fleshed with one need; to conquer?
i know the wild yet i'm tamed tamed like the wick of the candle, once lighted i'll melt the chains i am a scalpel with no end, bedaubed maiden red with old meat in God's fridge.
i'll pile up the pieces and through ashes, thatch and stones i'll raise a kingdom on my own.
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A SELF PORTRAIT IN RED
I'm a little w r e t c h e d thing, born under the planet of venus
I've stolen fire from my burning house Wearing frenzy like a scar,
Girlhood cavalcades; a procession fancied by none Find me where the lost daughters go, bitten by time and fate. /
I gloat good like a villain, weep like an uncivilised child. Raised with no sobriquet, no fear of being recognised,
In the cineplex, they only sing of happy heroes. You'll never see my city, if not in the guise of someplace else You'll see my face in the false colours of anyone, but myself
/
I want to tear my knee-length frock, my legs should be meaningless I have no wish to humanise myself
Young hands looting grapes and fate from Eden, writing the best gold-goose elegy Maybe If I get martyred I will be remembered.
/
Girl with a loaded gun mouth, too much to say and crow My mother's hand-me-down jewels stuck in my throat
I spit out tradition, I am the bitter salt of your blood, unhappy with the wonted place in this old court
A cutlass ready to bite, anointed with black gold, and in line for the throne.
/
I've been written as an exception or so I thought— I've stolen fire from my burning house, gifted it at the temple of gods
Wasn't I supposed to be a kid? Can I still be a young heroine? WRITE ME THE SONG OF DEBORAH, HAND ME THE TORCH
___ ... Writer's Note: every chapter in this book prefixed with a 'pt.' is simply a pair of poems, a story told in two parts.
