Brother And Sister

[edellin.livejournal.com]

(ok I haven't posted anything here for such a long time so here are two poems that are supposed to be connected. If you haven't read the tale "Brother and Sister" by the Grim Brothers then you will most likely not understand this)

The Sister

do you remember, brother

those days in the wood

when you ran with the deer —

falling bloody on my doorstep at dusk

stepping from the skin

grateful to be a man?

and do you know, brother

just how I longed

to wrap myself in the golden hide

smelling of musk

blackberries and rain?

tell me that tale

give me that choice

and I'll choose speed and horn and hoof —

give me that choice

all you cruel, clever fairies

and I'll choose the wood

not the prince.
 

— Terri Windling

The Brother

you long to run in musky rain and princely skins

but, sister, I have sped that hidebound marathon

wearing golden hides that warped my hands to hooves

and broke my scalp with a crown of horns —

I've run through thorns and thirsty fens

through wolves that bite and cats that catch —

those blood-dried hides of hoary kings

scoured raw my skin and

deadened my heart with hammering —

when I reached your hearth I shucked that hide

and faerie hands unveiled my sight:

ever beneath that scouring skin

proud, callow princes were scraped away

revealing numb and bloody men below.

but no more hides and no more hurts

run, sister, if you must but no more marathons for me

for I choose this hearth, not the princely hide,

and I will let my skin knit smooth.
 

— Barth Anderson

(I haven't seen anything like that... so I hope you like it... I certainly do)
(And I certainly advice everyone, of all ages, to read the tale!-If they haven't-)
Ow and a request if possible... any poems about friendship, the love of two friends would be nice ... and some feminist poems... I am in the mood for both so I can't choose

Comments

[object-sleep.livejournal.com]

I dug it, definitely.

[wind-hover.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this!

The Triumph of Achilles | Louise Glück
In the story of Patroclus,
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him;
they wore the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted –
their source is the survivor,
the one who was abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to his loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal.

[wind-hover.livejournal.com]

Feminist or a Womanist | Staceyann Chin
Am I a feminist or a womanist? The student needs to know if I do men occasionally and primarily, am I a lesbian? Tongue tied up in my cheek, I attempt to respond with some honesty. Well, this business of Dykes and Dykery, I tell her, it’s often messy. With social tensions as they are, you never quite know what you’re getting.

Girls who are only straight at night, hardcore butches be sporting dresses between 9 & 6 every day. Sometimes she is a he, trapped by the limitations of our imaginations. Primarily, I tell her, I am concerned about young women who are raped on college campuses, in bars, after poetry readings like this one, in bars. Bruised lip and broken heart, you will forgive her if she does not come forward with the truth immediately, for when she does, it is she who will stand trial as damaged goods. Everyone will say she asked for it, dressed as she was, she must have wanted it. The words will knock about in her head: "Harlot, slut, tease, loose woman" – some people can not handle a woman on the loose. You know those women in pinstriped shirts and silk ties, You know those women in blood-red stiletto heels and short skirts. These women make New York City the most interesting place. And while we’re on the subject of diversity, Asia is not one big race, and there’s not one big country called ‘The Islands’, and no, I am not from there.

There are a hundred ways to slip between the cracks of our not so credible cultural assumptions about race and religion. Most people are surprised that my father is Chinese. Like there’s some kind of preconditioned look for the half-Chinese, lesbian poet who used to be Catholic, but now believes in dreams.

Let’s get real sister-boy in the double-x hooded sweatshirt. That blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus in the Vatican ain’t right. That motherfucker was Jewish, not white. Christ was a middle-eastern rasta man who ate grapes in the company of prostitutes and he drank wine more than he drank water. Born of the spirit, the disciples loved him in the flesh.

But the discourse is not on those of us who identify as gay or lesbian or even straight. The state needs us to be either a clear left or right. Those in the middle get caught in the cross – fire away at the other side. If you are not for us, then you must be against us. If you are not for us, then you must be against us. People get scared enough, they pick a team. Be it for Buddha or Krishna or Christ, I believe God is that place between belief and what you name it. I believe holy is what you do when there is nothing between your actions and the truth.

The truth is I’m afraid to draw your black lines around me, I’m not always pale in the middle, I come in too many flavors for one fucking spoon. I am never one thing or the other. At night I am everything I fear, tears and sorrows, black windows and muffled screams. In the morning, I am all I ever want to be: rain and laughter, bare footprints and invisible seams, always without breath or definition. I claim every single dawn, for yesterday is simply what I was, and tomorrow even that will be gone.

==

You should als try: Lit (or: to the scientist I am not speaking to any more) by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz. It's somewhere on this comm.