for a quiet voice...

more or less complete ...

from the gilded girl...

Sigh

I am listening to your silence:
It trembles with prescience,
with the prophecy of all
your words yet to come.

Inside you have gone still and quiet
afraid of your own unmaking,
when the world itself comes undone.

You are a breath held,
you are a dream suspended;
You are the fear of what yet may be.
You are waiting for someone to breathe
the words back into you aching chest,
You are waiting to be befriended,
You are waiting for words that will unlock
the secret rooms inside your heart
and set your imprisoned hope at long last free.

I would kiss you, I would sigh you my words --
though they be frayed and incomplete --
I would gift you with the seed of my creation
to see your lungs draw long-lost breath
to feel your heart remember how to beat.

I would give you my words
if you could make them
complete.

Brighid 2002

briddy

Words

I am more at home, I think, with words than people. I use words like touches, like brush strokes, like blades. They give form to the yearning  in me, the straining soul, the fire that burns and will not be quenched.

Yes, the following makes wild use of Judeo-Christian imagery ... but it's not really about that. Not totally. It emerged in play with my friend, when we were talking about words, and the Word in us, which is, of course, the spark of creation, the whisper that echoes through all things, the filament of the web.

Promise

In the beginning there was the Word
and the Word found form
and the Word was the Word
of God,
of Creation,
of stars, singing,
spinning in their shadowless
spheres
their song an echo of the
the Alleliu which set
their souls ablaze:
Light fathered forth
in whispered chorus
glorious, piercing through
the night,
bedazzling all with
breathless bright,
and this was only
the first utterance,
the first inspiration
realized.

In later days,
heaven still brilliantly
ablaze
over earth and water
newly torn asunder
yet touching still
in passionate wonder, 
The Word was
sighed
against the rich,
ochred clay,
the red of birth and
blood and sweet decay:
Then man himself was
born that day:
through breath and hope
and gentled hand
and spit and bone
and coarse,
crimson'd sand.

So we inherit the Word,
enshrined in our fragile
human heart,
a song in the blood,
in the pulse's leap
and dart:
We sing with the stars,
our promise yet
unspoken,
with the Word as our covenant
strained but still
unbroken.

Brighid (c) 2002

briddy

<B>NOW WITH ADDED VITAMIN B</B>

I played with the look. The title is from a piece of Renaissance music, the side subtitle from Aramaic and X-Files, and the picture is me that is now, not four years ago.

The poem, below ...

is me, now, as well.

Not a brand-new poem, but one I was re-reading this morning. It's a response to another friend's writing, but it stands alone, and it spoke to me this morning. So, here it is:

New Genesis:
A Revelation

When night was torn from day
the earth lay
as yet unmarked
silt and clay
and none could hear
the lamentation that pierced
Heaven like a sword
in the side
(in the heat
in the heart)
of a dying god:
Beloved rended
asunder from beloved,
doomed to follow
and yet not to touch
to define and not
to comingle.
The angels were the
the Lios Alfar
the bearers of the light,
and Hell was made of
fallen stars,
the burning fires of
the night.

In your mouth I taste
the memory
of when we were not
bright and shadow
but one substance
one stone one star
one void that in
the paradox of all
things made
and unmade still
was filled with the
yearning
to be;
We spiral inward
to the
first impulse
when your flesh
pierces me,
when we are
a circle
unbroken,
a breath
unspent,
a world before
night parted day
and stars fell in
lament.

In that moment,
in the shadow of
(ah)
bright wings,
we build anew
a creation where
dark and light
unite,
Beast and Bright
between them find
possibilities
undreamt in Heaven's
ageless mind.

Brighid

(with a riff of GMH, if you care about such things)

briddy

He was five today (holds out hand, fingers outspread, say it again, cheer in your head!), FIVE! and the Macdonald's playroom was a wonderland and he kissed J on the mouth, but only held M's hand, because J was his best friend, so safe, and M is his new girlfriend and she kissed him in circle and so she was ... wonderful and magick and far too good for every day.

He leapt the tunnels like Spiderman, face-painted and red and blue and full of superpowers, like laughter and joy and innocence (and FIVE! FIVE!) and he leapt up, legs over my shoulders, hands in my hair for a piggy-front ride, little five-year old (FIVE!) bottom seated firmly on my chest, feet banging happily against the blades of my back, sticking his fingers in my mouth to count my fillings because he's getting his first one and he is ...

a miracle.

His sister's pretty nifty too, and she's SEVEN! and she covers her eyes when her mum and auntie dance to Pink and she rolls her eyes when we sing too loudly and she wanted to teach him to read, tonight, with the pile of books we bought him, and she slipped her hand through mine in the parking lot and they are

FIVE and SEVEN and I remember when they were measured in hours, in days, in months and I think:

Hurrah.

briddy, auntie by love, if not biology

Sleepy, sleepy, sleepy morning after sleepless, sleepless, sleepless night.

I slide from the bed as dawn and dream collide and listen to the cat, who loves the morning with a passionate intensity known only to poets, madmen and felines. This morning the cat is in the window, singing to the birds, sweet-throated chortle, and it is a love song and a lure. Such pretty teeth, such neat little feet, such a song for red-breasted spring. His song lilts, lifts, moves through pale blue morning light.

First light is purest, cleanest. No buttery tones, no ochre or amber, just ... prismatic, perfect, smooth as marble. I pull the pale blue nightshirt off, let it drop, and morning light and morning breeze touch me, ripple me, smooth the marble of my back, the alabaster of my thighs, peak the heavy, ripe curves of my breasts.

My body is in the process of ... rebirth. I run my hands, criss-crossed, over shoulders, down to fingertips. Stretch so my breasts bob and sway. Run my thumbs along newly-defined, sharper, yet still wide-spread hips. They are a shark's jaw stretched, a shell opened, a heart half-broken.

I stretch and touch the drifting splinters of sunlight overhead, bend low and stroke the whisper of breeze that darts my ankles. Then ... the shower starts, and I stand beneath the hot, hot jet, let it sink into me, let it melt the stone, the marble, the alabaster. I become malleable, and pliant, and in the steamed mirror ...

my hipbones are less sharp, and my eyes are secretive and full of promises.

briddy