08 Wednesday May 2013
Posted in Armenia, Armenian, Feminism, photograph, Translation
≈ Comments Off on do not love me as if i were a flower
Do not love me as if I were a flower
I want to live a worthy life —
as if I were an atom in a mass of troubles
as a child of street mobs!
Shushanik Kurghinian
07 Tuesday May 2013
Tags
Charlie don't surf, hijab, kickass girls, Middle East feminism, Muslim Women, surfboard, surfing
Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Feminism, Illustration and art, photograph
≈ Comments Off on charlie don’t surf… but farah does
05 Sunday May 2013
Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Feminism, photograph
≈ Comments Off on armenian soldiers during nagorno-karabakh war
30 Saturday Mar 2013
It was in a valley of sunflower
blooms when the maid, the mother and the crone
came to our door. They called you out. “Daughter”
is a word hard enough to shatter stone
so now all I have left are broken rocks.
I am fine with the rites and all we do,
but not this. First they cut off your dreadlocks,
tattooed your skull, gave you a sword, taught you
how to kill. My daughter now makes chaos
kneel and beg but was taken one spring day,
leaving nothing for my arms to hold tight
but air. I wait for you, love, so that my loss
might be found. You’ll always be my blessed, fey
child; not some blood-soaked woman, dying knight.
30 Saturday Mar 2013
Posted in .gif, Feminism, Illustration and art
* * *
Whether or not Guinevere from the legends of King Arthur painted herself in blue ink just before running screaming into battle is not important. It just looked brilliant when I watched it, so I am sharing it with you. It’s never good to upset the Picts.
18 Monday Mar 2013
Tags
cunnilingus, lifetime of love, lithic muscles, Lucky Strike, Moroccan patterns, pubic hair, scar, sonnet, woman warrior
When I trace the scars on her shoulders, thick
as my finger, grotesque tattoos that wrap
around each arm. When I kiss her lithic
muscles she starts to tremble. She could snap
my spine like that. She has killed thirty men
like that. When I play with her softest part,
the part I will not name, her talismen
I call a lifetime of love, my sweetheart
opens. It’s not words but other’s secrets
that that I won’t share. When I light her lucky
strike she groans the earth before volcano’s
blow. She clamps my face in place; her ringlets
tease my nose. I love her, from her forty
broadsword strokes to each of her missing toes.
04 Monday Mar 2013
Tags
Aloisia, armor, Bathilde, Hildur, Hillevi, Livia, Matylda, nude, sword, Thyra, Torhilda, woman warrior
This morning I wrote the poem “without” and after re-reading what I had written I quickly decided none of the images would be in anything remotely resembling good taste when it came to a grieving father over his lost daughter. So I present them here instead in the hope they might get used one day for a different poem. Cheers!
Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Feminism, Illustration and art
≈ Comments Off on sketches for without
04 Monday Mar 2013
Posted in Feminism, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet
Tags
blizzard, childless father, daughter, fallen in batle, grief, pride and joy, sorrow, without, woman warrior
Daughter, how many years does a woman
have? You are now shapeless and I a lice
ridden old man. You knew all the Koran
by heart. You could wrestle any boy twice
your weight. The long bow sang only for you.
So did the war ax. Now I itch with grief.
From the vast and bleak steppe country a few
worn sobs can be heard. There is no relief
for the father I’ve become. I despair.
I’m lost beyond words. All I know now fails
me; all because of some mongrel swordsman.
Somewhere in a grave you hide; with your hair
that has stopped growing; and your tiny nails
that will never need to be cut again.
23 Saturday Feb 2013
Posted in Feminism, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet
Tags
A Bad Girl's Book of Animals, afro, amazons, coward, sonnet, The Muses, Themyscira, wait, war, woman warrior, Wonder Woman, Wong Amy
waiting for themyscira
* * *
“He says, it
cannot be done,
But it is given,
(and mostly as punishment).”
— Wong Amy, A Lesson
You might have left for the Himalayas
or the island of Themyscira, somewhere
I won’t go. But you didn’t. The Muses
know I will never find the rhyme to share
your fate with the world. You were a creature
of war. I valued peace, provided I
didn’t have to give up any leisure
comforts. I know why you left. I know why
I stayed, too. The flip side. I use to brag
that long ago I’d be burned as a witch.
How posh. What airs. But that ignores our fate.
You will always know blood lust, while I’ll drag
my feet in this world and the next. I’ll bitch
but you’ll hear the call. You’ll go and I’ll wait.
* * *
Note:
Themyscira is the fictional island where, according to DC Comics, Wonder Woman and her sister Amazons came from.
19 Tuesday Feb 2013
Posted in Feminism, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet
≈ Comments Off on like cherry blossoms swift we fall
Tags
Bushido, female samurai, Japan, mythology, Onna bugeisha, sonnet, sword, The Way Of The Sword, witch-queen
If she dies? She has her hand on the hilt,
aware of herself; aware of what she
must not do, not yet. Nothing has been split
out of her, yet. She knows of the red sea
and the purple stars. Her father told her
about the witch-queens; how that long ago
one of them helped save the world. Her mother
taught her the “Way of the Sword,” Bushido
and how death in war is the greatest gift
any samurai could hope for. What’s death
next to letting down your mother? Afraid
does not work here. “Like cherry-blossoms, swift
we fall,” the poem goes. With a deep breath,
she took a step forward and drew her blade.
* * *
Note:
Bushido, “the way of the warrior,” is a feudal Japanese word for the samurai’s code of ethics. It has been compared to the Western concept of chivalry. As a philosophy, it stresses loyalty, martial arts and that death in battle is the greatest gift a warrior might receive.
memories of my ghost sista 