sketches for without

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

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without

04 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Feminism, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

≈ 8 Comments

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.

the tale of the coffee cup: a story without words

03 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Armenia, Illustration and art, story without words

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

1915, Armenia, Armenian Genocide, Der Zor, Medz Yeghern, Narine Abandian, Ottoman Turkey, որ հայերեն ցեղասպանությունը, story without words, The Great Calamity

A couple of years ago I was working on a graphic novel about the 1915 Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Young Turks. When I lived in Gyumri often when I’d visit a student’s house the grandmothers would read the coffee stains at the bottom of my cup (Armenian coffee is as thick as tar) and almost always my fortunes would be the same: I was very nice and would marry an Armenian and have lots of babies. That got me thinking about how useful soothsaying would have been back in 1915 when the Ottoman-Armenians were unaware of what their countrymen were about to do.

The story is about a young woman, Narine Abandian, who is told a different sort of future at the bottom of her coffee cup by her grandmother than she is normally use to hearing.

with wild heartache

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Ares, Enyo, Greece, mythology, Queen of Hell, sonnet, war horse, Waster of Cities, with wild heartache

enyo tames her horse

* * *

Once, long ago, a small girl, Enyo, tamed
a war horse. This was before she was known
as the “waster of cities” and was famed
for her blood-lust; being “Ares’ backbone”
in war. The horse came down from the rooftrees
of Mount Ita. Enyo heard his snorting,
clearing his nostrils to read the cool breeze.
At six she barely reached his nickering
muzzle; yet she did tame him. Strong of brawn.
Strong of bone. You know the rest. How the two
remained life-long comrades until he fell
at Thebes. How she, a myth from a bygone
era, went mad with wild heartache and slew
countless men, earning her name Queen of Hell.

Notes:

Ares is the Greek god of war and Enyo (sometimes described as his sister or his lover) has been described in some texts as “equal in violence” as the god, as well as being a war goddess herself.

Mount Ita (also spelled Ida) is one of two sacred mountains in Greek mythology. Both being called Ita, one is located on the island of Crete and the other in Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey). The mountains are associated with the goddesses Rhea and Cybele.

bezaliel stubs out his cigarette and begins

28 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Bezaliel, fatherhood, ghost baby, rebel angel, sonnet, war in heaven

And so last night I became a father.
Who would have guessed at my age? The baby
came, as babies always come (a neighbor
had to point this out) in an Oui Toffee
tin I picked up at Marks & Spencer. Small,
blue and semi-transparent, I held it
for days. It seemed to like watching football
… but not Chelsea. Then it began to shit
itself. Odd. I thought bladders of the dead
were like their vast joie de vivre, all dried up.
I guess I’ll have to give it a name. Good
parents do things like that, or so I’ve read.
One more fallen imp raising a lost pup.
One more old wolf mellowed by fatherhood.

* * *

Note:

According to the Book of Enoch, Bezaliel (The Shadow of God) is the 13th Watcher, one of the fallen angels that waged war against heaven. The fact that he is also a chain smoker should not worry the reader, since ghost babies are, by definition, unaffected by second hand smoke.

lost in the clouds

27 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

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Basho, clouds, lost in fog, shaman, sonnet, winter

Reading in the cold of the afternoon
I grow sleepy, stand up to get my blood
flowing. Under my window there’s a dune
of snow, a hillock. I have tried acid,
hashish and opium, but none of them
bring me such visions as that half-way state
between our life and death. When the warm phlegm
freezes in my throat, and all my deadweight
pushes upon my heart, then the dreams come.
Then I leave this body, cold as iron,
and fly, as Basho said, like “wild geese lost
in the clouds.” There is a lovely wisdom
to be found, lost in clouds. When I return
I find my poor body covered in frost.

* * *

Note:

The Japanese poet Matsuo Basho wrote the haiku I’m quoting part of. The whole poem reads: “Friends part/ forever — wild geese/ lost in cloud.” Ah, heartache.

varghonans

27 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Erotic, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

female wolf, poverty, secret love, sonnet, taboo, varghonans, winter

… varghonans is swedish for female wolf

* * *

It has turned bitter. The mountains look scarred
and blue in this light. Up from my village
is a waterfall; last night it froze hard.
Ice scares me. Far out in the dark savage
spaces I can hear wolf calls and other
voices, too. The rays of the setting sun,
ghostly, shines through our cooking smoke. Lover,
you are with your pack. Your clan that you run
with, that would kill me for blood sport. I hear
your song that hovers up in the cold air.
A song of the wild hunt warming my hut.
No one knows that you love me, for you fear
for my life. It’s why you keep our affair
from your Varghonans sisters a secret.

bride of the yellow river

27 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Erotic, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

a drowning child, China, cunnilingus, human sacrifice, mythology, orgasmo divino, sonnet, Wu, Yangtze river

This is a way of telling a story.
Wash it down your throat.
— Wong Amy, Narration

* * *

I knew a girl once, a farmer’s daughter
from Wu, who was married to the Great King
Yangtze. Yeah, that’s what they said to her,

as their sole explanation for drowning
her, one more sacrifice to the Yellow
River. One more River King’s Bride. Soggy,

I could taste in her kisses marsh gas, woe
and weeds. “There was no king,” she once told me.
“So I’m no bride.” On her face a smile brimmed,
swollen and in flood until I too drowned

as I went down between her thighs, her trimmed
black curls, her mons pubis, her venus mound

that made her rain cloud burst. I thank Eros
we met for death made these passions endless.

* * *

Notes:

Wu is a region of China near the mouth of the Yangtze river.

Historical records tell of the custom of sacrificing a young girl each year to the spirit of the Yangtze, a “bride” to the god of the Yellow river.

is all i have

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

cat girl, crone, female blacksmith, gypsy butcher, Harmaa, is all i have, Krig Haxa, maiden, mother, Navalha, Nuu-Nuu, sonnet, synth-blood, war witch

my grandmother blacksmith in her workshop

Why pray to the gods when nothing is spared
before faithless thorns? little pricks? That itch
none can scratch, save my Harmaa, the gray-haired
blacksmith, who forged Krig Haxa, the War Witch,
for me. I learned my trade from a gypsy
butcher, Navalha. I keep my heart-stone
with a cat-girl named Nuu-Nuu (a cutey-
cutey war machine) Now you know the Crone,
Mother and Maid I share my synth-blood with.
For blood, even in a white-boy machine,
is all I have. I’m a very pale male.
Keep faith for me, my dear Mama Blacksmith
and my Na, who cuts rot from the bone clean,
and my chrome Nuu, with her cat-ears and tail.

war loves you

23 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by babylon crashing in Erotic, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

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copper wire, craters in the moonlight, gas mask, mohawk, sonnet, war loves you

To love war is to resurrect it out
of stone, to fondle it from head to toe,
until war’s body and blood, a burnout
cypher, a hex, a woe, begins to glow.
To love war is to turn its ash-blown night
into a deep crater, somewhere a hawk
can roost down in. Craters in the moonlight;
inside war wears kick boots and a mohawk.
To love war is to give up your bizarre
heart for copper wire, chrome tubes. Can you, who
loves, say what love is? No, it just is. War
doesn’t know either, but it loves you, too.
Like all love it presses its blade, pointed,
sharp, to your heart until you’re drained of blood.

memories of my ghost sista

~ the dead are never satisfied

Category Archives: Illustration and art

sketches for without

without

the tale of the coffee cup: a story without words

with wild heartache

bezaliel stubs out his cigarette and begins

lost in the clouds

varghonans

bride of the yellow river

is all i have

war loves you