Posts tagged abuse
Art and Earth
Because earth Without Art is Just "Eh."
4 notes &
CANTARE PATER NOSTER (Chant Poem by Doug Westberg)
Father, you will die before the autumn leaves
Agnus Dei, nobis miserere
Leaving your beloved son behind to grieve
Agnus Dei, dona me vivere
Visiting is like attending Latin Mass
Agnus Dei, nobis miserere
Talking through a foot-thick window of stained glass
Agnus Dei, dona me vivere
Body wasted, bobble-headed, failing heart
Agnus Dei, nobis miserere
Trying to connect, not knowing where to start
Agnus Dei, dona me vivere
Too late to obtain the truth I really want
Agnus Dei, nobis miserere
Rage has finally faded to bewilderment
Agnus Dei, dona me vivere
Too late to explain the broken collarbone
Agnus Dei, nobis miserere
Falling off the bed or an abusive home?
Agnus Dei, dona me vivere
All those childhood races to Emergency
Agnus Dei, nobis miserere
Covered up and Mother sworn to secrecy
Agnus Dei, dona me vivere
Hitch your tortured soul on a robotic God
Agnus Dei, nobis miserere
Wield an iron fist and never spare the rod
Agnus Dei, dona me vivere
You think sacraments ensure your being saved
Agnus Dei, nobis miserere
Even if you take your secrets to the grave
Agnus Dei, dona me vivere
I’ll be left to wonder how it might have been
Agnus Dei, nobis miserere
Left behind to fear your ghost and wear your skin
Agnus Dei, dona me vivere
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Copyright 2013 by Doug Westberg, author of The Depressed Guy’s Book of Wisdom.
Image: Octavio Ocampo
(Cantare Pater Noster = Chant ‘Our Father’. Agnus Dei = Lamb of God.
Nobis miserere = have mercy on us. Dona me vivere = grant that I live.)
4 notes &
Inside Old Man Rattler by Selene Skye
When I am old
it will be okay for me to talk to old man snake
out in the sun
up the spine of Canyon de Chelly
I will be beveled like stained glass
with sunshine in my veins
and sand underneath my fingernails
When I have the luxury of being gray
and bent over the mesa in my many skirts
it will be okay for me to be crazy
and tell the stories
about the rattler who fell in love with me
when I was a young woman
He was old and lonely
tired of coiling around rocks
and I came with bruises on my lips
and cherries in my little apron
our from the hogan
where eagle sat drying his drunken youth into an aging man’s
dying liver
Jack Daniels dripping down his fingertips
with my blood
Old Man Rattler loved my youth
he came to eat the cherries from my palm
and pull me into the shadow of his rock from the burning Arizona
sun
he coiled me into his dreams
shifting me across a thousand miles of sand and mesas on sleek
belly
and scales
he kissed me a thousand times
deep inside my heart from the cold desert night
we watched the stars
and he dreamed of being human again
and knocking the hell out of the jackal for this bad joke of a forked
tongue
and unhinged jaw
and I dreamed myself into the stars
out of the blood taste in my mouth
and the bruised taste on my soul
When I am an old woman
it will be okay for me to talk to rattlesnakes
and to find the rock
in canyon De Chelly
for my bones
but for now
I cannot talk to snakes
and my manicure must be perfect
and my hair must hide the silk strand of white at the temples
with gold
But one day I will be old
and I will be happy
in my big skirts
and my wrinkled skin
rattling bones
*********************************************************************************************
Copyright 2012 by Victoria Selene Skye-Deme; Images: The Nude Snake Charmer by Paul Desiré Trouillebert circa 1880; Detail of Snake Women by Boris Vallejo.
