This is a tribute to Pussy Riot, Artists as Activists, who believe their punk performances are civic and moral responsibilities to fight all oppressors of freedom today (particularly Putin and Trump) https://youtu.be/C7SuYxA24PI
This is a tribute to Pussy Riot, Artists as Activists,
who believe their punk performances are civic and moral responsibilities
to fight all oppressors of freedom today (particularly Putin and Trump)
Oh Mary mother of God,
did you conceive a perfect man,
Was He flawless, flushed, immaculate?
Did your womb consume the cavern light
as the Bethlehem babe got born?
Was he a man’s man (or so they say),
of biblical prowess and predispositions?
the kind of prolific predator who bites
before he kills?
Was he a formidable superstar,
an ego driven dragon slayer?
A man-god whose love of power
turned chariot killings into plays.
No, Mary, your son staged a coda,
he bore your gentleness
he wore your handiwork
he honored your womanhood
in every facet of his life.
Because of you,
Heaven and Earth were joined.
Spirit and love entwined
Peace settled on the seeds of the soul
creating a new breed of man
wrapped in linen, laid in animal straw, anointed forever
with a mother’s water and blood.
God stepped back, Mary arrived.
In you, through you
this warless man emerged,
this all time famous harbinger
who preached only Love as the intent,
the one true goal.
Yes Mary
Blessed are you among women and MEN,
standing equal to your son forever.
Help deliver us from these oppressors,
these obsolete madmen who condemn us all
for the sick psychological need of a legendary greatness
they will never possess.
pattyv
What a beautiful meditation of the preeminence of Mary as mother and teacher of compassion and love to her Son and therefore, Mankind. Would that it would come to pass.
Patty, thanx for another thoughtful poem.
Brava to artists as activists and the feminists throughout our histories!
Your featured image reminds me of Woody Guthrie’s guitar
“This machine kills Fascists.”
Thank you Betsy. Someday all bias of genders, colors, religion, age, sexual preferences will disappear. Who will we be then? Equal in all ways, beautiful and miraculous in our differences.
All of your work is powerful, Patty, but this is sooo powerful and rich, full of resonance with what we are struggling with. You seem to be dancing around a man who could survive with the intention of Jesus as a young man with special gifts, a man for the future, for our present, but the image is chimeric, as you throw up, with the deliberation of your art, the most succinct, hard-hitting, and accurate portraits of miscarried men — the old testament punisher, the modern destroyers, full of “the sick psychological need of a legendary greatness.”
God stepped back and allowed Mary, the woman of women, to deliver us a man of goodness, kindness, wisdom, and compassion. I love the way you use “harbinger” in a reversal of its usual connotation as precursor to doom. A harbinger to the “man’s man” who “bites before he kills.” Damn, woman, what portraits you create with so few lines!!!
I would have all these men gone, and pray to no god that I am not one of them in any molecule of my body, breath of my spirit, spark of my mind.
Hail, Mary, full of grace…
they will never possess.
Chaz, can I go back in time and take a master’s writing course with you? I missed out on getting one from Sarah Lawrence. Couldn’t afford the tuition. Throughout my college years I did excel with the poetry and had a few excellent professors, but try as I might I couldn’t write a story. I love the way you write, reminds me of poetry. I think you could’ve helped me break through. But of course, I love poetry as an art form and the many poets who have inspired me. And you, your feedback always inspires me.
Pussy Riot is awesome in their uncompromising and courageous speaking of truth to power. Your poetry is strong and clear, with so many lessons we seem to have to learn repeatedly.
Yes Khati, ‘truth to power’ is exactly what Pussy Riot stands for. Our goal is to keep TRUTH alive, and not let these maniacs rewrite our reality. Where would we be then?
Dear Patty:
Your line “God stepped back, Mary arrived.
In you, through you ” is priceless as well as startling.
I am not sure I have written the following event to the group, but it can resonate with your fine poem.
When I visited the Louvre, I joined a group with a docent to concentrate on early pictures of Mary and the infant Jesus. The docent often asked for our comments. When he pointed to a verry early painting of Mary looking at her baby, he asked us what she was thinking. I immediately answered, “I wish he was a girl.” The docent never asked for my opinion again.
Richard. This was the best. I read it to my sister and we enjoyed such a laugh. Now whenever I see a picture of Mary and her babe, I’ll think of this, and I also think Mary and Jesus would enjoy it too.
Another very powerful poem, Patti. Women need all of the help they can get these days.
But why Laurie? Why? I don’t care what anyone says, if Hillary had won we would have had such a different country right now. It’ll take us years to fix the damage of a Trump presidency and the sick Far Right conservatives. That’s if we save ourselves first.
Very eloquent, Patty. Actual Christians seem pretty rare among those who claim to be Christians. So many are enamored of Republican Jaysus and his message “Screw you, jack, I got Mine.”