mirror reflection self-portraiture: confronting one’s own image twice
my published and unpublished self-portraiture — with or without the use of mirrors — has been affected or influenced by Francesca Woodman
Continue reading “self-portraiture: proof of life”
The CruX: historically, continually, and invisibly stationed by, and on the crosses of, men
women, womxn, womqn, womyn and girls have been both the cross-bearers and the crucified – ever since the unnatural and unholy “conception” of the Roman Catholic Church and all its subsequent patriarchal, misogynist Christian derivatives.
my hair holds memory,
i know this because
i cut my own hair today
as i held the ends
in my hands
i said
did you touch the Merced with me and my boy?
i said,
do you remember my father?
and my other precious loss?
i said,
do you remember the first dog?
i said,
were you here when
i still loved
and was loved?
i said,
you were there when my mother was so near death’s door
i said,
and when i found and lost,
and lost and found, my Self again?
smiles
sighs
cries
laughs
rage
wail
and
song
i still have possessions from all those times
and places
but no skin,
my skin long shed, my bone resorbed
but my long hair is still me from many years ago
that is why hair is so precious,
i thought,
this is the genesis
of what i have always
mistook as phobia
but no,
i know today
that
physical memory is held particularly, and only, in my hair
more than Samsonian
or vanity
or femininity
my long hair
is
my body
my health
my energy
my sensation
my emotion
my years
my identity
my essence
thank you
for growing
for remembering
for showing
for staying
for flowing
for tangling
for blowing
for graying
for glowing
for floating
for knowing
with me
all these years
no more cuts
without ceremony
and
i promise
i will never agree to lose you
I walk bare
out in the open
on borrowed land|stolen
to be returned to the people, to all be-ings, to them
with my bones or ash interred, one day
the Sun, Moon, Rain, Wind, Clouds, Sky and Stars
kiss me at all hours
did you see me open up
this Autumn?
after a Summer spent crying,
wet, yet fruitless
spent Spring wading into lies instead of soft blossoms and new grass
Winter approaches, maybe the frost will kill this disease,
for good
For now, I bathe
nearly naked in sunshine, cold rainstorms, wetland pools and moonlight
unapologetically
|out in the open|
unabashedly
baptising
my face,
hair,
and eyes,
my breasts
vulva
and legs,
my lips,
throat,
spine,
and my wild heart
ceremonially, first
with wine, like Magdalene, anointing and anointed,
in the name of the mother, Sun and holy ghosts
|cabernet henna|
then, with rainwater from the willow’s edge, like Ophelia,
lying in the woodland and meadow, flooded
to cleanse or drown [to be, or not to be]
in the name of the Moon
|I ponder the stone cistern laden with glacial deposits and ruminant bones|
the woodland is abundant with new mushroom, new overnight growth
[puhpowee]
the hint of ancient circles supplants my judgment with instinct
and overrides decorum with new delights
| and old delights, revisited |
an aged grapevine is rooted deep, climbing, trailing, snaking
hidden in plain sight, everywhere
and I’ve intuited It as Ol’ Scratch,
I take a hatchet to quell Its influence, here
You,
Your windows are not true eyes
Your lamps are not enlightenment
So, bless the dark
of the night
of the country night sky
And the Moonset
of my moon
it’s been decades,
but
this place wants to birth or impregnate me,
and I want that too
i want it to
|I come here and open up|
I learn so many new things each day, that I feel like Samantha, the AI operating system OS¹ in Spike Jonze’s film, “Her”.
It’s as if I am birthing myself out of my own ignorance each and every day.
– kimtnt ⊕
the limineen | poet & crone 