The Maenad's Bone Garden

No matter what no matter where Keep it nice, keep it clean, don’t make waves Don’t speak of white supremacy or white treason Don’t speculate about bullshit liberal reasons Why it’s not cost effective to care for Americans Or stop the onslaught on our seasons Bought, stock, and full of quarrels. Keep the state as quo Let me Be silent nevermore   Family friendly and inoffensive Nothing that interferes with The arts serving as a digestive No tits, no sass, no smarts, no ass, Only simple ways, to look and be Say what we want you to, Don’t’ talk about class or fiscal inequality Or how it intersects with, Others Oppressed by your racist whiteness, by your Heteronormativity Look at me not my advertisers, not at what’s on your screen What’s the price to look at me Look like me, be me, it’s pretty tremendous  

My mother was, before she ran away on a magic bus to California to become a hippie, a hill child from Appalachia. I spent a fair bit of time there when I was very young - in a lot of ways it was a primal time, lots of things.....imprinted.   I have not been back there now in many a year. I would love to but I would need to be a bit better prepared for such a trip.   And maybe a small army.   That's just if I encounter family.   Being a mutt, all of my ancestry is buried below the surface where you can't see....and honestly 99% of it means nothing to me anyway.  But I am ashamed of nothing about where I came from and what made me.   I am the product of whores, and hedge witches, border jumpers and hillbillys.  All of this lives in me.  The Old Coal Miner Taking the particles Inside of me Apart even as my will Struggles to hold it together Decay is how time is measured Spun, reckoned, and cut   Angels in...

Letters to Dead People - is pretty self explanatory. All of these are old, composed sometime last year or before.   Most of them wound up in my Bergman sub, which was largely ass,  and so needs to stay confined to a file cabinet.  Most but not all.   September to November is always the time the many ghosts I have accumulated seem the loudest, for various reasons.   These past few years it seems they have spoken louder than the living.  I'm having a really hard time writing _anything_ right now so this is as much a one foot in front of the other / get to the next screen thing as anything else.     All of these are a good bit more primitive than what I've been doing lately so it seems weird to share them but .. whatever.   I'm thumbing my nose at the uncaring universe just by posting this.  There will be at least two others in this series this week. I may just post them all today rather than ride the anxiety rails ...

Fire, Magic, Madness, and Change! The Maenad is a transgender goddess who creates art with words, pictures, motion, and flesh The Maenad (She/her/hers, also My Dread Majesty,, or simply my Queen) is the pen name of Gwendolyn Harper a Maenad, perceptual explorer, supernaut,  and Class V Full Roaming Slut who writes poetry, prose, rules, and essays.  Her work has appeared @fahmidanjournal @redplanetmag @wickedgayways @365tomorrows, the Gongfarmer’s Almanac and Madwomen in the Attic. Her first chapbook, the Ishtar Cycle, is forthcoming from @lupercaliapress An independent DIY e-publisher, model, camgirl, and sex worker, the Maenad writes about gender, class, sex, inequality, mental illness, and the intersection of these points, sometimes also writing about culture, games, space, futurism, and the human condition. Thinking of other worlds and how best to help this one  Trans queer poly kinked, mad, and Proud, Troublemaker Everyone gets liberated or not at all” No nazis Fuck g...

 The Maenad’s Bone Garden Here lie the rest of me. The \best of me  Here grows the night  bloomers reaching for rarefied light silver roses, blue mold and fungi rings,  naked rites on moonless nights Thorns and blood and stars and soil webs and mold that grows on bone Grave and ash and bone and bloom A living, green, growing tomb.  Lavender, scarlet, marmalade, saffron Old rust here, an empress’ garden For mine is a riot of many flowers Vine towers growing together  Shadowed rings where mushrooms grow into wild, gooey things Take time, climb these trees a million worlds to see, all strange and free Some hybridize, some change, but all are  One garden, roots growing together,  The same water, the same need  to grow and expand, thrive and be.  Each star in the skies of night  is a flower and it’s worlds pollen, petals, stamen, and nectar-wine the same seed, grown and died, a thousand times  A million colours separate but one Shar...