- Her Witch -
When I would stand silent and tall
They mistakened the rising reflections
But when I was harsh and coarse and strong,
When my lover woke in my arms
And when I wept, I was the grieving queen Isis,
I am tired of being serpent and angel.
When I stand silent and tall
I have been to the world a muse,
Yet, I find myself in league with the witch Cassandra now.
Men, it seems, are praised for evoking the muse.
I beg now, fair youth, do not call me Venus.
Do not confuse the reflections of the evening stars
under moonlight and stars,
boys mistakened me for Artemis.
of the stars and moon in my eyes
for a calling of a goddess.
(They say they learned to wish from the stars in my eyes.)
I was the devil-woman Lilith.
She who dared defy God and his pet man.
I am tired of being serpent and angel.
I am tired of crying the tears of Madonna.
I am weary of invoking the passions of the men.
in the late, lazy afternoons of summer,
he proclaimed me Venus.
And when I wrote my poems,
he decided I was a muse (or in contention with a muse).
When I sang and danced I was a Dionysian nymph.
When I threatened I was Great Circe.
In the turn of one day my love proclaimed me all the women
from Homer's tales of his Ithican king.
according to a scholar-man,
when he saw me rise to my feet soon after my crisis.
And to a wayward lad I was both
the sunflower nymph Clytie and the elusive Faerie Queen.
They all wanted into my world.
Yet, they all believed me to be something other than
A Simple Girl.
I am tired of crying the tears of Madonna.
I am weary of invoking hte passions of the men.
I am weary of being given the role of a witch,
shapeshifting from archetype to archetype,
seen for only who she is to represent.
under moonlight and stars,
the boys still, even to this day, mistaken me for Artemis.
I have been Joan of Arc,
I have been Lady Aphrodite,
I have been laden Eve,
and I have been an Amazon Queen.
I have been mistress to Michaelangelo.
I have been Helen of Troy.
She who spoke yet no one heard.
She who defined the future in a voice
that was not acknowledged.
Yet, because I am woman, I need not evoke.
Rather, I invoke the muse within myself.
And oh, the fathers of the world fear the feminine within.
And for being a female poet,
I am forever brazened a witch.
The one whose craft bewitched unwary men.
The one whose unsuspecting search for truth,
involved the forbidden opening of
her own Pandora's Box.
Do not call me angel, saint or Mary.
Do not call me bitch or whore or Lilith.
Do not call me sprite or nymph or consort to a God.
for the rise of a saint or the revelations of a goddess.
I try to whisper a calling of a name quite like my very own,
yet I fear,
It is one you will never hear.
