Béatrice Machet #18 Tupperware container

# 18

in response to Dominique Hecq’s poem 

(#14 an army of wombs in response to Magdalena Ball #19 Unpossessed responding to Elif Sezen #2 - Wombtales 1 responding to ..... responding to…)

 Just a Tupperware container

white cover

light yellowish edges

on a bed of ice

as if a hole in the winter sky

had opened

she was told stories

count them all

the clouds so you can sleep

count them all the sheep

in this tide of bright wool

she was told lies

her colonized brain

is playing back the birth game

well knowing from clear intuition

that

behind all this scenery no waiting star

nothing to guide her

but a chestnut sized malignant tumor

having given death to her island-like body

just a Tupperware container

in a widower’s hands

  

announcing the cremains to be launched

into the air

somewhere

call it home if you want

call it universal womb

if you still trust any faith

Dominique Hecq #14 an army of wombs in response to Magdalena Ball #19 Unpossessed responding to Elif Sezen #2 - Wombtales 1

An army of wombs

when the cradle  

 is empty

and your breasts

     solid as rocks

wombs that look similar but are hung 

  differently stalk 

       you like an army

of shadows pressing

    and crumbling

you like a pastry

with no yeast

shattering and dissolving in the mouth

of time not of woman 

     born

Kit Kelen #25 - Artemis be my protector

25

Artemis be my protector

after Maggie, after Elif, after Beatrice

in a womb not telling

that's how long it takes

wild animal of the virgin ages

before the first tree fell

that's where dreaming and we were

hunter and hunted are one

this is the land that I come from

forest was the first matter

half past the clock

and home

never meant to stumble in

to see, be seen

be changed, be torn

rain with stars shone

trees weep

because of here I am in it

the garden to begin

Magdalena Ball #19 Unpossessed responding to Elif Sezen #2 - Wombtales 1

Unpossessed

Responding to Elif Sezen #2 - Wombtales 1

When the last flush passed

waves of heat, an uneven heart

breaking in the night

she knew she had

become invisible.

Her body stretched 

the length of the country

the world, the universe

opened into the space 

she had created

leaned over the cradle

and whispered to the morning

the clouds, the planet

took them in.

Fed, washed, cleaned

gave out, pulled in

water, tears, blood

a thousand excretions

flowing in the river of her 

arms, past her lips.

Opened and opened again

becoming the earth

the little crow, a blue ring

round its pupil

crying hark-hark-hark-hark.

#6 Dominique Hecq et Béatrice Machet - j’ai-si-mal (et) it-hurts-so-much 

J'ai si mal. Mes mains 

sont pleines de mots

assénés à coups de marteau

(et) mes bras sont remplis

de chiffres desséchés

Et toi

trop lourd(e) à porter

fait(e) de corps, visages, horizons

qui me clouent un réel sur la peau

tu voudrais déchiffrer ce que lire veut dire

sans avoir à interpréter

Au-delà des os j’ai si mal.

Pourtant j'ai la tête pleine

         d'imaginaire nuages

                   aérés de triolets doubles

silences comme les yeux d' Elsa

Doubles croches dans la partition

                          y pendre sa peine

j’ai-si-mal : est-ce encore souffrance

si musique des sphères dans les moelles de l’être

do-ré-mi-fa-j’ai-si-là … sol y sombra pour tous

dans un tableau symbolique

                         je te l'assure

         du plus profond de moi

do-ré-mi-fa-j’ai-si-là … où je n'aurais

osé concevoir (       )

                              sauf un monde artificiel

et les sons et les couleurs

se répondent tandis que le temps décolle et

                      s’envole au-dessus de ma vie

qui plane au-dessus d'un « moi-j'ai-si-mal » 

It hurts so much. My hands

are full of hammer words   

my arms are full

of dried out digits

And you

too heavy to be carry

made of bodies, faces, horizons

that nail a real on my skin

you’d like to decipher what reading means

without having to interpret

Beyond bones it hurts so much.

And my head is full

         of clouds imaginary

                   airy thanks to triolets doubled

silences just like Elsa’s eyes

Semiquavers in the score

                             hang your pain on them

it-hurts-so-much:  is it still suffering

if the music of the spheres sticks to the marrow of being

do-re-mi-fa-so-hurts-so …..   sol y sombra for all

In a symbolic painting

                       I swear

from deep within me (from the deepest within me)

do-re-mi-fa-so-hurts-where ….  I’d never have

dared to conceive  (     )

      except some artificial world

          and sounds and colours

          echoing as time takes off

                         and flies above a life that is mine

                         hovering over ‘I-hurt-so-much’