Monday, November 1, 2010

For Stephen Dedalus and For Those Million Unmourned Martyrs, Mothers and the Marooned Others

Last night, Mother came to me

Her body was blue with poison and pain

Like some dream I did not see

I saw her once and I’ll see her again


There was music in the streets last night

That mist-lit fleet of fairies and elves

With snakeskin eyes glowing bright

They sang, they danced and they burned themselves


With every beat my window throbbed

By the rainwashed domes of ivory town

Children died and heroes sobbed

But silence fell as Mother came down

The rotting scent of her wasted breath

And that ancient womb that bore my grave –

They smelt of salt and moss-green death

As I stood naked by the hollow wave


Her gaze was cold like candle-flame

I lay still as the roots cried out:

Mother! Mother! Where’s my shame?

From where did this poison sprout?”


But by the time the thunder clapped

I had lost my crown of thorn

The throne was broken, the cord had snapped

And Mother died and I was born

The three-horned beast went speeding by

And the forlorn mist had cast her spell

As whispers adorned the bleeding sky

Through the dark edges of the wishing well

As madness set the night ablaze

The only sorrow I couldn’t tame

had melted away in the timeworn haze –

My blue Mother – she has no name

And since that night it’s this fever

On moth-winged flames it rages high

This hunchbacked doom shall stay forever

Mother, Dearest, do you hear me cry?

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