I wrote a poem. Aren't I clever?

I know, I know, it's been ages since I updated this thing. I really need to do it a lot more often.

Today is Tuesday; the day, of course, of the Petro Loa. I've been feeling incredibly tense and worrisome lately (for non-Vodou related reasons so I won't go in to them here) and it was perhaps that which kicked my creative brain into gear. I used to write a lot creatively but some years ago my writing notebooks just fell into disrepair.

This morning the outline of a poem about Erzulie ge Rouge popped into my head. I wrote in almost a stream of consciousness style - I did some editing but not a huge amount; just to highlight some of the themes and imagery by changing a few words here and there. If you'll pardon the pretentious biological artiness it was almost as if the emotions which sparked the poem as well as the nature of ge Rouge herself demanded the words just be vomited up rather than honed and measured. All feedback and comments are welcome!


Rouge


On a stained bed
Through a throat clotted with their spendings
I urged them on while my sister self
Fought mute, the other hiding pale eyes behind lace and silk.
I was a tongue
Useful for the moment but not to keep,
Or trust, or treat.

My children drink pus-thick milk and
It curdles in their mouths. Red lips.
We stutter with broken teeth, glass gleaming in our gums
And scrabble with painted nails at half-healed breasts,
Infection dripping with the hot red flood.

I cannot speak.
A sucking wound – seven stabs of the Virgin, seven curses for the whore
Do they reduce me to this?
A tattered thing, pumping outrage through bloodshot eyes.

My strings of wet hair hide my face. You cannot see
The black clots rise in my gorge.
All you will know is the imprint of nails in clenched palms
And the cut-off words
Drying in a throat still full of their spendings.