Lavinia by Harold MacNeil

Babalon.

by Katherine Sutherland

 

I am she who tilts the axis of the world,

a red lipped, holy hipped heroine;

a flame within the red fire of wars and freedom,

I am the justice of the Judas kiss.

 

I am entirely other than your expectation,

ready for your words, precipitator of your actions;

a passionate dare or leap in a darkened abyss

where you slough off reality to begin again.

 

I am she who waits for you down a darkened alley,

whose knife sharp wailing brings you to your knees,

I am the challenger and the judge, the sentinel

at the gate who weighs hearts between muscled thighs.

 

I am the one for whom you have searched,

across the blasted icy wilderness of the world’s

barreness, I have called to you, a siren song

of oil-slicked, fire tipped beauty.

 

I am she who rose at the dawning of time,

yet broke the rules and flew free in the face of stricture,

pursued by patriarchy, I ran into the collective mind

of many, of men who have challenged my shattered image.

 

I am not as your iconography would have me be,

a scapegoat for wrongs, an excuse for the many,

a curse of original sin in which I played no part,

I am as you will find me, different for all.

 

I am the power of a jet engine, a atom splitting time,

I am the coiled serpent of DNA that courses

down the centuries through the veins of humanity

and carries the record of all that will be.

 

And the lion and the serpent shall lie down together,

caressed within my loving embrace,

here, in these interesting times,

I am waiting for you.