subterranean

simone speaks:

I recall seeing in a primitive village of Tunisia a subterranean cavern in which four woman were squatting:the old one-eyed and toothless wife, her face horribly devastated was cooking dough on a small brazier in the midst of an acrid smoke; two wives somewhat younger but almost as disfigured were lulling children in their arms – one was giving suck; seated before a loom a young idol magnificently decked out in silk gold and silver was knotting threads of wool.As I left this gloomy cave – kingdom of immanence, womb and tomb – in the corridor leading upwards toward the light of day I passed the male dressed in white wellgroomed smiling sunny. He was returning from the marketplace where he had discussed world affairs with other men; he would pass some hours in the retreat of his at the heart of the vast universe to which he belonged from which he was not separated. For the withered old women for the young wife doomed to the same rapid decay there are was no universe other than the smoky cave whence they emerged only at night silent and veiled.

***********

our guest the intruder, entered
our subterranean cavern
hollowed mouth of stone

where four voiceless women,
fair and foul,
squared a circle
amid the acrid, throatburning smoke

our guest the intruder
came all in white
with imperious step
and with her coming
our eyes turned inwards
as if we looked upon ourselves
our eight eyes on the white
quiet placidity of her face
saw ourselves reflected
reflecting her light

turn to the wall, velvet voiced
in her head, insidious
turn to the wall

and study your four
pictures of a woman's life:
of a cacoon life hemmed in
waiting for a grave more wide
veiled, cavern-dark and blind

hungry for our allegory
our guest the intruder
stares, and her eye is a hand
drawing lines with a swift stroke
a needle pinning ghost
butterflies through the smoke

simone begins:
her face is the first I see,
the first wife, once one
now one-eyed and toothless,
face horribly devastated

devastated? step into our circle
hungry sister, burn clean
of artifice, taste our tragedy,
see the ruined face
seared in the smoke
cooking dough,
come share our bread!

simone recalls: then, almost as disfigured
the middle two
alike and undistinguished
soon to be as withered
as the one-eyed withered wife
stoop over swaddled burdens

and the firelight flickers
over their darkness and over
the androgynous yellow faces
clenched in sleep - we're all
born princes

disfigured? hang our faces
on the wall to be your portraits
of despair, drive
home your point,
eyes nailing thin
wrinkling skin

lulling? let us lull you
to the serenity
that your struggle
somewhere down the white
woman's shining road
will lead us up
out of our cloistered
veiled, night-entrailed
subterranean life
out into light


we the unsanctified
cyphers, bereft of loveliness
content in our shadows
passive as the possum
tongue a dry dead thing -
we will spit you out
we won't write back
we'll feed our fire
with your white papers

simone remembered:
and there was the last before the loom
perfumed indolent idol with smiling cheeks
plum-dark, magnificently decked out
in silk, gold, silver
white wool knotted in her fairy tale fingers
and black harsh wool, disfigured hair
escaping the silken, shimmering wrap
in medusa barbed wire tangles

idol? come pray
for your metaphor
fold your distaste, and your anecdote
into your stiff, blanched paper
and offer it up in sacrifice
to the burning bazier
where the shapeless dough
is rising, rising
from the hollowed
patient knuckles of a fist

against the cavern wall
the fire plays shadows, chiaroscuro
the four portraits
have flickered their full
circle and the sun
outside waits, white
with patience, for four faces
cacooned for the moon

sated, our guest pressed
white cloth to sealed mouth
having pinned us down on white paper in white milk's ink
without life, without blood
she wrote us down, tore our faces off
for the pages of her books

then our guest the intruder
filled up with our allegory
dreaming other black miseries
departed, and our subterranean cavern
kingdom of immanence womb and tomb
ejected her, bloodlessly white,
out and up into daylight

and the sun dazzles blinded eyes as
I, simone, returning from the adventure
passed the male of the species,
returning from the market-place
dressed in white
smiling, sunny, well-groomed
having heard all the world's affairs
all the world's affairs in french
retreating into the dark dank shadow
of his retreat
heart of the vast universe

before him withered women
and idol bride,
and heart, hearth, home, foul hole
smoky subterranean cavern, world
from which they emerge
only at night
silent and veileded

and steal back stolen faces

10/07