Category: culture

Uncomfortable Compromise

Caught relaxing –
ignorant sleep,
treacherous faith

beneath security
salvation preyed upon,
skin-crawling danger

support ill-gotten
rescuer threatening
outcome beastly

misunderstood
I am off-work,
harassed

refuse light
failed legs
kicking back

enemy projects
feigns warmth
damage protected.

I’ll compromise
exert smiles
exit and breathe.

(Today we attend a memorial service for a friend.  My former co-workers will be in attendance including one who tried to stir up trouble for me in my absence.  Grant me strength.  I’m linking this up to Reena’s Exploration Challenge which is compromise.)

 

Duelling Personas

Outward facing –
contrived effort –
composure checked,
face appropriately presented.

I turn away –
internal chaos clouding –
lacking resources
for social banter

Wolves taunt me –
predatory monsters
shaming me into retreat –
defences down.

Wade back into superficial,
desperation seeking solace –
hide the flooding within.

 

 

Wrong Place

Temporarily encamped
in enemy territory,
a confidante, observer,
practicing external camouflage –
a dangerous game.

Am witness to hatred –
the deep-seated, ‘us’ vs ‘them’
mentality that divides –
vulnerability on high –
I am clearly ‘other’ –

a tourist trapped,
powerless to affect change,
in need of escape.

Good Woman

Cater,
Good Woman; keep your pantry full –
there are mouths to feed, and
whims to answer,
smile on.

Smile on,
Good Woman, feed the children young
and old, their needs cry out
for nourishment;
be strong.

Be strong,
Good Woman, tending your oven,
concocting recipes,
born to serve, raised
to please.

To please
Good Woman, be sure your own pot
is overflowing, lest
fatigue sets in,
and then

And then,
Good Woman, who caters to you –
the children are gone and
husband retired –
what now?

(This is a Crown Cinquain written for Dark Side of the Moon’s challenge.)

Black Madonna, Revisited

Remember that Autumn,
we drove up to Campbell River,
like teenagers, skipping out of class –
a cackle of women, spiritually forming?

Felt as if we had bided our time, willing
this union to occur – high on anticipation,
giddy that our routine femininity had
been strewn across the barricades
of our socially contrived existence.

We were like lesbian lovers, unafraid
to explore our crevices, our souls
hungering for release…

We were researchers, reinventing masks
adopted in formative years, stretching
our capacity to believe…

awakened by the crones amongst us,
sisters united, standing in the the flood
of our collective herstory, shedding
the padding of our religious upbringing,
teetering on the brink of a lost divinity.

Weavers, once paralyzed by the guck
of patriarchal dictates, fear of ascension
retreating, we broke free, immersed in
Goddess splendour, felt the ecstasy
of true abandonment, were wild women
unrestrained, catalysts for change.

How is it that the passion faded so abruptly –
that motherhood and responsibility, and
the rigours of competing in daily life stripped
away the afterglow, smacked me back into
this rigid self-definition, prayerful, thankful,
yet lacking the empowerment of the island?

Have I stored her somewhere; is there even
a space within me capable of housing such
expansiveness, open to wading once again
in the waters of a lunar deity, wiling to sacrifice
superficiality for the compassionate mystery
of the Black Madonna haunting my memory?

( Black Madonna first appeared here in November of 2016.  I resubmit her (edited)  Art mine)