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sex as power (#MeToo)
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Rape is a political statement. It says: “I am everything. You are nothing.”
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God of Sky and Rain
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Women hold up half the sky?
In His world
women hold up the sky.
Men sit around, masturbate, watch football,
occasionally,
go out and rape
lowering
that small part
of the sky.
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Rose Red
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I am prickly, admittedly.
I come by it rightly.
Organically evolved defensive weapon
(note, no offensive weapon attached).
You must approach me with care.
Feel the velvet of my vibrant leaves, gently.
My flower, radiant in grace and wonder.
Musical poetry wafting, my enchanted perfume
calling for the discerning touch.
But grasp too hard, too clumsily,
without reflection, a thousand tiny cuts
push you far away.
In no time, you will heal,
leaving me to bleed forever,
attempting to clear from my system
your poisonous residue.
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Bitter Dregs
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You don’t get it.
You don’t want to.
It would be too much to bear
if you let your thought go there.
Briefly unconscious, awakened to
hard concrete ground surrounded
by heels and toes, amazing
they don’t crush me, but no,
like clockstep they walk around
though occasionally a(n unmeaning?)
shove — I’m not a someone,
just a minor obstacle
unnoted in their busy day.
No worries.
Not like shoved down under
hard muscle, jutting bone,
stinking of beer and rage;
or waking from too brief oblivion,
broken pain, bleeding
tears, torn, bruised, a
colorful toy
made for pleasure.
Then the voices, echoes.
Harpies and Sirens, Furies
and sad old women. Fingers
shake in disapprobation.
Shrill voices call me beautiful,
in the way that ugly things are.
So bad, so pitiful, cardinal
status among the neverweres.
Struggling shadows, whispering
curses demurely lest anyone
notice and throw them further
down, below duration.
Never easy, confessing degradation.
The sin adheres. No one wants to know.
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logic of rape culture
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I don’t know.
Would it be morally acceptable to destroy a person’s mind
while they sleep, because they’ll never know they had one?
Would it be morally just fine to cruelly use people’s lives
while keeping them unconscious without consent or prior knowledge,
because unexplained pain won’t rise to legal proof?
Is there value placed on personal integrity?
Must boundaries that make individual beings
complete with self-control,
define a zone of self to be respected?
Do conscious beings own a right to privacy,
a zone of personal integrity,
sacred space for self-discovery:
“This is mine. This is me.”
When we choose to agree for common utility,
what inner prize do we remember to defend?
Or do we prefer to behave as a bunch of random beasts,
subject to convenient moral rules, precepts to defend
hierarchy of self-proclaimed reasonable men?
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I am beginning to think that this whole anti-abortion, anti-contraception idea is about rapists who want to impregnate their victims and then have access to torture them for life. Mighty big hate on.
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Dazzling glitter of star light
is doing its job:
distract and divide while
they rape, kill and rob.
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Ascending spiraled steps in hope of eventually reaching a solid surface, more a chore than a mission as we continue inexorably day by day. Or is that eternity by eternity? There’s not much choice, as these stairs, though solid and seemingly endless, do not provide enough solidity, enough surface, for other sustained activity. There is not even room to climb by twos, thus enabling the solace of close companionship. Certainly there is no room to make love between, stair to stair, to find what respite or pleasure such loving might provide. Perhaps for some of the more daring an occasional rearguard rape may be accomplished, coming from behind as it were, never seeing the face of the victim, so that’s alright. A temporary digression from the rote work, hand over hand, leg up and leg up, monotonous unfulfilling dance.
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The land, when we found her was warm and inviting.
We felt safe, supported, encouraged to grow.
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We ate of her fruit, fish, herds.
We built with her trees, stone and clay.
We drank from her beautiful streams
which we soiled with our waste.
Gaea was saviour and womb.
We repaid her with rape.
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We didn’t understand,
thought her merely land,
thought ourselves masters from afar.
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Perhaps it is not so much a war on women as another front in the war on people with lesser means. I mean, how dare a woman be raped if she can’t afford her own treatment?
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Women are raped by husbands, strangers, dates, bosses, family members, often seriously injured or killed in the process. Implying we have nothing more serious to protest about than “glass ceilings” is a macabre insult.
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Small girlchild, rags and dust – follow
her morning of traverse, this tiny world allowed.
Each tent flap reveals fester of wounds deep
and shallow, ravage disease.
Senses, thought, subsumed to beat of breath
outside rational context.
Stuck in the dirt, her worth a hole where
she bottoms out, tributary blood expelled.
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It could be rape; it could be terrifying violence. But you got it wrong. You blamed yourself. And the reasons you got it wrong go back to that world, not to you.
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Cross Purpose
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At time’s crossroads, Reason drowns
in rage, pain,
radiated rain, treasonous air.
Weary of care, of punishing,
bottomless anger, of sobbing men
robbed of their right to give birth.
Taken from Mama’s warmth, from
the cave, to play brave.
And it’s ladies’ choice as you squirm
in fool’s corner.
Such a chore — kissing at this
and that for a chance to score
the shame, the blame from stuck-out
tongues, the bloody laughter
“I could bite off that little thing — make
you squat to pee.”
Wired to fight, at any cost,
because, of course, the Cross proclaims
“We’re right. They are inherently wrong.”
“Those below must be taught to obey
our superior tools, to be broken,
that we may ride.”
Against our better fate, our race divided
along strict lines, by difference
nature instilled to make us strong
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Our Gang
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Outrage
Depression facing outward
Taking power to give it away.
This entrained impulse
See them crackling, jangling
puppets at puppy play,
bite, bark, entangle,
grab and tussle,
growl, muscle in for the kill.
Bloodlust arousal.
Natural as puke, as death,
violation as violent orgy
violation as ecstatic
initiation to the brotherhood.
Life elevated to dreams, goals,
careful weighing of coin and hours,
dependable plans, actions that honor can favor,
love, duty, allegiance to the rules of sanity
and kind regard
have no purpose here.
Men of blood and battle fluid
need no fine speeches, no valor —
only food and receptacles
for their waste.
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Capital Crime
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Sweet old daddy
Doing his will in the night
Keeping the mamas afright
for the plight of each
beloved child, so tender
so young
He really oughta be hung!
so say the neighbors, clicking
their tongues
Take him to the magistrate
Fill his ears with the voice of hate
while he’s tied, defanged, prostrate
Let our will be done!
Tie him down in a prison cell
Make him feel the wrath of Hell
’til we all are bloody well
exhausted of our fun.
No need to delete old daddy
sweeping shit and burning bones
any toil we deem atones
to repay society’s loans
of wicked sowing days
assuring he damn well pays
for the pain and loss his wicked ways
marred our happy homes.
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Trial
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It was said, everyone knew, some whispered in my presence,
that I was born a bastard of rape.
My mother, a pious maiden, in penance gave me
into servitude to the Brotherhood.
Thus she was allowed to return to her Sisterhood’s
life of humble ministration.
I never knew her, or have no memory
of such an early time in my life.
I knew nothing of the treasured childhood that comes with family.
I was a low thing, circumscribed by duty.
I was educated, taught to read, write, do sums,
memorize long passages of scripture, sing in the Holy Choir,
take my part in ceremonies, taught for useful service.
I was taught to please my masters as my only worth.
Any modification to please their plans was my sacred duty to undergo.
Any master. Any metamorphosis. Any mutilation. Accept.
When he bit me, as the fast-acting soporific emitted from his fangs
entered my artery, I hoped this was my end.
It wasn’t. He did not drain me, but woke me to force his blood
into my sagging mouth to remake me in his image:
immortal, powerful, supernatural, outside of the laws of man.
I learn to create my own sacred place, free of duty, free of the yoke of belief.
I am my own silent sanctuary beyond the touch, the reach of their world.
What good am I, have I, what good does it do me to have a conscious me
apart from my puppet role, plaything of powerful forces and men?
Perhaps after all the trials of my journey, it is enough to have a
consciousness that knows me so well and feels a kind of comforting love.
Perhaps the kind of love a mother feels for a child she never wanted,
who is yet of her, a companion to her trials.
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They arrive, enter a door next to a large glass window decorated in bright colored paint. It is a portrayal of a man on a cross. Bloody red holes mar his hands and feet. A thorny green crown sits on his head.
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Inside are cakes and hot black drinks on a short table. A few others are also eating and drinking. On the floor, next to a large, tattered chair, a woman sits, rocks, dirty and worn looking. Her shaking hands make attempts to feed coffee to her lips, but more is spilled on her worn and spattered dress. She has been mumbling incoherently. She is getting louder. Renata starts to make out words.
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“They fill yer belly with their babies. No more babies. They hurt and make me so sick. The men, they fill me with their nasty liquid babies. They make them grow in me, take over my body, make me sick, and cut so hard to get out. I won’t take them, horrid demons. So they throw me back in the street for the men to fill me again, hurt me again. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. No more babies. No more pumping out their nasty babies. I won’t. I won’t go there. You can’t make me leave.” She burbles, gasps, cries, mumbles, and repeats her litany. She rocks her body, suckles on her fingers and strands of long, lank hair. She seems in a trance, perhaps poisoned, perhaps cursed.
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From further back in the room, a man dressed in black, prominently carrying a black book, approaches the group around the table.
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“Don’t mind Betty. She’s a hard case. We can’t find anywhere that will take her.” He seems perturbed by this inconvenience, embarrassed by this woman’s plaint.
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Thoughts of keeping still while learning how to blend in have flown from Renata’s mind. She goes quickly, yet with gentle motion, to sit beside this Betty. Close up, she is surprised to see this woman is young, certainly no longer a child, but not the old used up hag she had appeared to be. Her burbling snot and tears mixed with spilled coffee and older stains make her an unappetizing sight. Yet, there is something so fragile, so
.sad and affecting in her defiantly defeated form, Renata can not help but reach out her arms to comfort.
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Nobody likes to talk about Betty; but you can bet we cream over her (secretly, all cozy in our beds, in our heads and groins).
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Nobody likes to admit what casual cruelty we are capable of. Gang-raping children because we can doesn’t appeal to our desired self-image. Her mother allowed it in exchange for food, a place to sleep, the blessed drugs to keep away the pain of knowing the endless, hopeless misery life had become. Or, she was alone on that dark street, lost and frightened, with nowhere safe to go, no one protecting her just then. Her sexuality tempted me, in all that frenzy of bonding blood cries, heightened primal energies, hot insistent bodies falling under ritual spell. She is but a sacrifice, a holding cell for sin. There is no freedom for will to grow within her, only unwanted, tainted seed, thrust outward from the nauseous collective psyche to poison her potential. Does she need to be defined by what has been done against her nascent will? Is there salvation in finding a slim, hiding, healthy cutting from her core, carefully planted and watered in hallow grounding? And what of all those other sacrificial lambs? What cosmically sympathetic vibration can be turned to healing, calling forth a will to grow whole, to become one’s own desired destiny?
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Mothers’ Night
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cascading shards
uneasy
echoes falling
“It’s our calling.”
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Rape of Earth,
hot spurts of words
savage knives
Abiding Mothers,
sacred and mundane
twist into harridan
cold stars
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wail, hurtling waves
Sad, old, crust of ages
sliced, screwed, carved up for profit
“It’s not the color of the skin,
the culture of the smile”
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the scent of danger,
the inborn stranger —
all excuses for Us (superior)
and Them (inferior)
“They are not like we;
but lower curs.”
we may harm with unfettered glee
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Cursed to be cut to our requirement.
Borders clear
“Here, fear fences in
our livelihood and wives.”
Leave THEM to putrid pits
cunning jabs,
our pleasure.
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Thus, all treasure that might regale,
heal, reveal true worth,
of man and Earth
sold for pittance of potash
to dance a weary jig
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Post-trauma
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A child of my own
rape, it shaped me, made me
less and more
Memories stored, to
when I can’t go on implore:
“You’ll feel betterwhen you’re gone.”
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