Just kidding

Seems I spoke too soon about my move. Seems you can't force the universe to bend to your will.

I was eating at a Chinese restaurant with Doug over the weekend and the word "Tiamat" sprung into my head. Now there is a name for the snake in my dreams. I will keep riding the back of the great mother, and I pray that she guides me home. Maybe she'll guide me through the currents to the ocean, finally. Dunno.

I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other. At least I have a vehicle now. And the words are coming, so all really is well, despite illusions to the contrary.

How Soggy It Is Here

It's amazing that this parched air is saturated with moisture right now following the rain. I should have remembered that the desert offers much to the senses; even considering the light air of the mountains, the cool lushness of this high desert valley at night, where puddles spot the landscape and make the children next door think longingly of romping through them, makes a body happy. It is calm, though harsh, and the heat of summer builds to a crescendo with humidity and dank air before it eases off to bring in cool autumn and winter currents. Explaining the effects of the mountains on me is impossible in a poem; I won't even attempt to do it with prose. It is a complicated, rather mystical thing to explain feeling claimed by the land. Like I was coming home, finally. The displaced woman has no words to express her experience to anyone else, but if you're another mystified, mystical, missed-the-bus-that-everyone-else-rode-in-on kind of person like me, I don't need to write an essay about it.

So it is with a certain tenderness that I will leave these valleys that have been home to me for my three and a half years in the desert. Bittersweet? No. Providential? Yes. But not in any sort of theologically Christian sense. In more of an old pagan, mystical sense of knowing that Fortune has turned her wheel once again.

The Gnashing of Kali

I took some liberties with the percentages of water to cents made per dollar. But that's poetic license, see, and so it's alright.

So much sun. So much sweat.
Makes its own lubrication
hydration becomes the thing, the thing
not power, not power, not power over another
just cooling the blood flow
down, building electrolytes
up, the world turns
around, and pauses.

Earth, seventy percent water,
I, seventy-three, make
the same cents to your dollar
on the average, they say, it all evens out
my fertility earns me ounces to a pound.

Emotional I may be, provocative,
yes, though these wide hips refuse
to fill a dress
sky colors me misty
without water, stained
reddish (not rosy) wearing no panty hose he said:
"Too volatile, too free--
too much beyond me--
too fierce, too competent,
too wild, unkept, become
rational, measured
I do not take my pleasure
(underneath his breath)
in your power, you see,
your past does not concern me
I command that your shoulders hang down
(don't frown)
that your eyes drop low when I pass
kneel to my power
I'll not accept less."

Arrogant man! Regarding me senseless,
stupid, an inferior strain
by two x's a threat, my pain
a proof of the fire that forged me
whole, still my stride glides, still
my pride wide, these wise eyes
accept no fool's chidings, nor the grasping,
gyrating, paranoid man
whose fancies propel him beyond Capricorn.

Do you know what lies beyond Capricorn?
Can you tell what rides behind my stare?
Not so languid, my fury, nor light,
my care, direct my wrath,
Lady, stand me up, I, aware, clasp
my legacy firmly, rock my shoulders back,
watch your fantasy, rotting,
a compromised woman I'll not become
my words are my violence
there is no need for a gun.

Stunned, he rolled me
over, howled, eyes
dropped sights to my chest
with his poker face tried
tried, tried, tried, tried
so very fucking hard
to pry open my side
But I maintain my vision,
seek my peace
repel his greed
retain my grace
insane to stay here
I, aware, break this chains like I cut my hair.

Fury wraps shadows around me.
A snake-led woman, having descended, ascends.



I should have posted this ages ago. A big shout out to the biggest dick of the year, my former boss.