Late at night you can hear the sound, I don't know where it comes from or when it will come.
Rushing across a landscape draped in shadows, gorse and heather. The soil sandy,
nothing takes root too long or too deeply. it aides escape while giving the impression
of commitment. To the cause, to the lover you lay with through the dark hours into
the exposing violence of a new day ripping across the sky. Tolling bells sound from a church
in the village. Built, burnt, built, pillaged, plundered. And that was just the priests and Christians. Domestic violence. We must always war against faith when we are fearful of our own beliefs.
Humanity is a violent word.
I can taste your fear as I lick the sweat from your brow. This is an expression of love. You
say it is an countenance of affection, love bites, love bruises. To discern the difference is to
question your sanity. I have desire but courage abandoned me as we crossed the waters into your homeland. I have no sanctity here, heathens are burnt at the stake. Burn me, turn me. I am a believer. Never leave her, or him.
You are sexless here in this space. Reflection turns us opaque. We have spoken of the ocean of noise across which loves lies have spread, an oil slick thick and heavy lines my stomach. No amount of scrubbing can cure this. Now as I start to find my appetite you begin feeding me roots and nightshade. Our wild garden grows fox gloves and lupins because, you say, you venerate the beauty in death. My body is your cage, you say this in your sleep so I know it must be true.
Dreamers are the free, you have whispered this before, from under your halo, laid beneath the mid afternoon sun. Hawks circle overhead, none are well sized to lift me from here. The cleft are only between the pages of a book I read before you burnt it. Words are useless if they are not your own, I have swallowed them down though. My mouth full with pulp and ink. Absorbed vowels and consonants seep into my blood stream.
There is life in the corpse of a child despite her lack of movement.
Sleeping lion, the danger is always hidden in long grass unseen until you stand upon
it. You collected snakes in a pit dug at the bottom of the garden. I remember now the clang of steel cutting through sods hitting stones. If you had dug deep enough we would have found the bones of the dogs my grandfather buried when I was ten. One died of old age, the other of a broken heart.
I have to feed myself or I keep forgetting, repeating the same lines over and over again until your irritation peaks, pours over me as scolding water. My skin boils as you rage, flame and furnace. You have told me again and again the fire of my sins will rain down on me. My skin peels and lifts, exposing bones clean and white. You move to gnaw on sinews and ligaments because they taste best and provide you the greatest source of nourishment. When did I become your Mother, to be consumed by the tyranny of love.
Skies turn to ash as the humidity pushes down heavy as the dead child you say you found in the east woods sixteen years ago. You said it was in the newspapers, but I was a late learner when it came to reading and my grandmother refused me access to propaganda of the masses. I stand exposed in moors of heather and wild orchids as the reverberating menace rolls closer. My feet have greyed as my toes dig into the sandy earth. You should always ground yourself in a storm. My voice becomes lost in the spaces between the wind. I pray for salvation and rescue. I pray for an ending and absolution. I pray to be struck down for my sins and to never again to be reborn in the arms of my God.
Copyright: Samantha Ledger 2013
Rushing across a landscape draped in shadows, gorse and heather. The soil sandy,
nothing takes root too long or too deeply. it aides escape while giving the impression
of commitment. To the cause, to the lover you lay with through the dark hours into
the exposing violence of a new day ripping across the sky. Tolling bells sound from a church
in the village. Built, burnt, built, pillaged, plundered. And that was just the priests and Christians. Domestic violence. We must always war against faith when we are fearful of our own beliefs.
Humanity is a violent word.
I can taste your fear as I lick the sweat from your brow. This is an expression of love. You
say it is an countenance of affection, love bites, love bruises. To discern the difference is to
question your sanity. I have desire but courage abandoned me as we crossed the waters into your homeland. I have no sanctity here, heathens are burnt at the stake. Burn me, turn me. I am a believer. Never leave her, or him.
You are sexless here in this space. Reflection turns us opaque. We have spoken of the ocean of noise across which loves lies have spread, an oil slick thick and heavy lines my stomach. No amount of scrubbing can cure this. Now as I start to find my appetite you begin feeding me roots and nightshade. Our wild garden grows fox gloves and lupins because, you say, you venerate the beauty in death. My body is your cage, you say this in your sleep so I know it must be true.
Dreamers are the free, you have whispered this before, from under your halo, laid beneath the mid afternoon sun. Hawks circle overhead, none are well sized to lift me from here. The cleft are only between the pages of a book I read before you burnt it. Words are useless if they are not your own, I have swallowed them down though. My mouth full with pulp and ink. Absorbed vowels and consonants seep into my blood stream.
There is life in the corpse of a child despite her lack of movement.
Sleeping lion, the danger is always hidden in long grass unseen until you stand upon
it. You collected snakes in a pit dug at the bottom of the garden. I remember now the clang of steel cutting through sods hitting stones. If you had dug deep enough we would have found the bones of the dogs my grandfather buried when I was ten. One died of old age, the other of a broken heart.
I have to feed myself or I keep forgetting, repeating the same lines over and over again until your irritation peaks, pours over me as scolding water. My skin boils as you rage, flame and furnace. You have told me again and again the fire of my sins will rain down on me. My skin peels and lifts, exposing bones clean and white. You move to gnaw on sinews and ligaments because they taste best and provide you the greatest source of nourishment. When did I become your Mother, to be consumed by the tyranny of love.
Skies turn to ash as the humidity pushes down heavy as the dead child you say you found in the east woods sixteen years ago. You said it was in the newspapers, but I was a late learner when it came to reading and my grandmother refused me access to propaganda of the masses. I stand exposed in moors of heather and wild orchids as the reverberating menace rolls closer. My feet have greyed as my toes dig into the sandy earth. You should always ground yourself in a storm. My voice becomes lost in the spaces between the wind. I pray for salvation and rescue. I pray for an ending and absolution. I pray to be struck down for my sins and to never again to be reborn in the arms of my God.
Copyright: Samantha Ledger 2013
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