It's just poetry, it won't bite

Contributor Series 2: Candy and Spirits, La Llorona, The Weeping Woman


11.03.09 Posted in Contributor Series 2, today's words by

(Image courtesy of Manny Beltran)

Contributor Series 2: Candy and Spirits
La Llorona, The Weeping Woman

By Ray Sharp

Mis hiiiiiiiiiijos,
mis pobreciiiiiiiiiiiitos!

My chiiiiiiiiiiiildren, my
poooooor babies!

The anguished cry from the
arroyo

pierces the moonless
night, a wailing

that emanates from beyond
the beyond,

foul ghost-breath on the scruff
of my neck,

stink of mud and rot and
something worse,

shiver of cold lightening
down my spine,

icy hand grabbing me by
the huevos and

squeezing them like two
quail eggs,

a sickening sensation of
bony fingers and

the sudden sound of
dry brown shells

cracking. Why do you
pull me down

to the edge of the black
and swirling

waters, oh La Llorona,
Weeping Woman,

Indian Princess, Traitor
of La Raza,

Doña Marina, La
Malinche,
Wicked

Bitch, Whore of Cortez,
Medea-Witch?

You opened our land and
your legs

to the false Quetzalcoatl,
the white-

faced bearded killer who
burned the ships

at Vera Cruz, and
to the ghost soldiers

on their snorting
demon-horses who

raped Tenochtitlan and cut
out

the beating heart of México. And so
you killed your devil
spawn, held them

fast under these very
waters, and dove

with them, your beloved
babies,

swimming to the depths of
Hell.

But you could not kill the
meztizos,

a million bastard children
born of

Padre España
and Madre México.

To this day, you cry from
the river

for the flesh of your
loin,

for the blood of your
heart,

for the pain you endure,

the never-ending curse of
filicide,

and the suffering of those
who walk

this dry and dusty
God-forsaken land.

Down you pull me, under
the oily surface

into your muddy lair, your
arms like ropes

that bind me tight, your
ghost breasts

two empty paper sacks,
your sex

a dark and toothless grin
that sucks me

with its supernatural
attraction

and swallows my soul. Perhaps,

in the end, you had to
kill for the shame

your kind have worn since
Eve

fell from Grace, the world
in a state

of perpetual postpartum
depression.

Twice our sins wash down
this river,

one time baptism and the
other drowning.

I see now that it is only
just and good

that I surrender to your
sweet embrace

and kiss your dead white
lips,

breathe your darkness into
my lungs

and join you forever in
your watery grave,

wet womb from where we
were birthed.

Ay, Dios Mío!





Ray Sharp’s poetry (Synesthesia; Contributor Series 1: 9/11, Threnody for the Survivors of September 11, 2009; Under an August Moon; (  ); Clavicle; Sternwheeler)
has appeared at vox poetica in 2009.



Comments are closed.

Latest Podcast Episode
0:00
0:00
vox poetica archives