What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered, ripped her and bit her;
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn and
Tied her with fences and dragged her down." --Jim Morrison
The sea gives up a child,
But the child that comes is wrong.
It holds a rot-bird by its limp dead throat,
And, sick with eating of its companion, goes walking up and down.
Love me, says the child,
Its lips an obscene wet wound--
But no one can love it,
This black-fruit from a fever flower bloomed.
The sea gives up a child,
A rapeling ill-conceived--
It dies but leaves its zealots loose
To spread what it believed.
______
for the Poetry Jam prompt "genre". I have chosen the protest genre.
I cannot listen to this song without weeping.
Shay--This was NOT a good way to start my morning...Jim Morrison's lyrics (what song?). Your poem. And then, to heap more bleakness, the song and video.
ReplyDeleteWell done, but deeply depressing.
The sea gives up a child,
ReplyDeleteBut the child that comes is wrong.......intense, excellent verse.
intense indeed but some how oddly comforting .. i know, i must be off my meds
ReplyDeleteAnd the zealots, they spawn, morph, and evolve until they have more flavors than baskin robbins.
ReplyDeleteNo one get's out alive, and the house burns down.
Jim wasn't nearly as crazy as many would suppose.
Brilliant again, fb
Rick
The short phrases and clean construction drive this like a knife to the ribs...the sense of wrongness, or something perverted in the truest and worst sense, radiates through every word. And your opening quote is even truer today than it was thirty years ago.
ReplyDeletei should know better than to eat a late breakfast when i read your poetry...
ReplyDeleteOW. Make this protest loud, you have already writ it clear. If you buried it under HORROR would anyone hear?
ReplyDeleteAnd the music with video? Tears, as you predicted.
Protest is your genre,Shay. As Hedgewitch said, the clarity drives the point home like a knife to the ribs. And Loreena's voice against the desecration of the film? Perfect. I wish this would go viral.
ReplyDelete4:24 minutes of pure unadulterated beauty ... protest is good!!!!
ReplyDeleteSioux-- I believe the song was "When The Music's Over". Maybe another reader will know for sure.
ReplyDeleteWow, this packs a punch! Sometimes a person just has to protest!
ReplyDeleteAwesome visual! This begs to be expanded into a longer story...
ReplyDeleteAching
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought this was about the recent Akin debacle.
“The sea gives up a child,
A rapeling ill-conceived--
It dies but leaves its zealots loose
To spread what it believed.”
But as I sat with Child, it became clear that this poem was really about something deeper and more insidious. It’s about a worldview so fundamentally flawed that it justifies our separation from our human selves, each other and the canopy of life.
It’s about our aching for the earth that is disappearing.
I watched the trees being felled. And I thought about cap and trade. And how there were ten million Indians living in the Amazonian Rainforest five centuries ago. And today there are less than 200,000.
And I was reminded of when I first read Woman and Nature by Susan Griffin (1978)
The evening
darkens itself
or is darkened,
though the distinction
hardly matters.
What comes from
inside can
seem as foreign
and unwilled
as any
natural disaster.
--Susan Griffin (2007)
http://www.bigbridge.org/BW-GRI.HTM
The sea gives up a child.
I feel like Jim Morrison!
ReplyDeletexoxo
i think you actually use more than one genre here, Sis ~ protest and horror! there is an ugly feeling to your poem that is frightening!
ReplyDeletebrilliantly written, but difficult to take! and the video is heartbreaking!
thank you for joining in at Poetry Jam, SP!
♥
This is fucking brilliant.
ReplyDeleteWhat they all said above me.....
ReplyDeleteWhat your label said, too.....
Excellent! I think I already took a liking to you and to the poem because you chose to quote the doors. I'll be coming back for visits :)
ReplyDeleteLove this: "Its lips an obscene wet wound"
ReplyDelete