Among the men in white I walked
Seven and hundreds of times I walked.
First, I crawled;
Then, I marched
And at last, I dead-walked;
A humming corpse driven by the crowds
Around the black house of the men in white.
Cracked feet, skin dry
Bleeding feet, bleeding eyes—
Eyes of the whites studied me
For I must be among the black maids;
I must walk as they walk.
Sing, songs of the dead whites,
As they sing
I must follow.
Bones like leaves:
Maid stems, earth rooted.
Coming out of earth had me skivvying
And I ate the dust of it.
I take no credit for how I was born.
Compass and bloodshed
A chaste tissue, walking
Singing the verses along,
I stutter of thirst and writhe of anguish;
The tongue I stoned in sleep to cease the verses
Stammered. It gave up on me.
Earth—dragged my leaves
Down.
It wants me, it cried for me.
I’m born elsewhere.
Writhing down the Mithraeum
The blood of the maids and my own is all on me
I don’t even recognize mine now.
Blood of a wound,
Or blood of a womb
All are red
All are same.
Here they come
Blacks and bare whites,
For falling,
I get a hit. I stopped. I mustn’t.
For stuttering,
I’m hit. Twice.
Once for it and another for waking up the naked men.
Dragged forward,
Moved, snatched from the earth,
Tossed to the crowds. Again.
Voice lowered, body like a machine;
Moving singing.
It’s all a part of the training
And I’m passing.
How far is it?
Dust—
Dust and heat, a reeking meat
Hope has faded;
Born a venus
Now a dying fetus.
Along the dull endless walk,
A passing verse for a faithless!
Like a shadow or a ghost;
Here at my sight, the man I could never spite
Thrusting off the walking prayers, I ran
Seven and hundreds of times I ran.
Honey eyes, coal hair
Like a Pygmalion carving his Galatea
I carved you;
I made you alive
Smelling of adventure and stories
Of places, people I’m not.
Smelling of the sea—
Whilst its waves hit me,
Woke me,
Drowned me,
Wrecked me,
Yet, I still haven’t learned how to swim in your ocean.
Who are you?
A woman of one’s choice.
Where did you come from?
The valley, thither I prayed for thou.
What valley? And what prayers?
My autumn leaves,
My black house,
My Wailing Wall,
I placed verses and songs into your crack
Head injured of a whack,
How to get you to listen?
Or maybe attempting to break your limestones, I only caused you deafness?
A hope that I followed
A ghost; evaporating
Into stories of his own making, diving—
Into his own sea.
If only your sea was flowed by a Lethe, it’ll be easier for you to leave me.
Abandoned from the prayers and my deity. Alone—
I stand; a woman of my choice.
I shall burry these hopes down the valley.
And I shall rise—
Rise over the illusions of hopes
They are not mine
They are not mine.