in collaboration with frances m. lynch and vocem electric voice theatre
which took place on 6th march 2004 at the media centre, huddersfield
these are
group texts
composed by Naomi Booth, Glynis Charlton,
Dianne Darby, Kath Jones,
Mary Males, Siobhan MacMahon,
Eleanor Rees and Liz Tolan
© copyright 2004 close to the bone.
island of kaitalugi
need wet spread
folds
spread wet and scandalous
wet folds for grinding
aroused blood & spread
need voice intimate muck
voice scandalous muck
grinding voice grinding intimate
voice inspires wet folds
wet spread folds on tafetta
gruff grinding voice
spreads the wet fold
inspires white muck
drag into savage sleep
and I shall
go once more
down to the shore and stand
like a rock
hail mary full
of grace
the lord is with thee
only he is not
and still I wait
and watch
since before time
the decades string out
joyful sorrowful glorious
endless
blessed is the fruit of my womb
and my daughters
grow old
and the beads are worn
aced thro fingers
clinking in the glinting sun
hail mary full
of grace
the lord is with thee
only he is not
though many have come
none have found me yet
they flounder on the wreck
of their lust
washed up flotsam picked clean
hail mary full of grace
only I am not
I am an old woman
A rock weaving old beads
Through knarled hands
Waiting
And you come
With your eager unzipped cocks
Your thrusting bellied sweat
Headlong
Into the wasteland of your desire.
Blessed art thou amongst women
And blessed is the fruit of my womb
Only they are
not
I see my daughters
A thousand thousand times
Coming through wet mists
Like phantoms rising
Their bell hands ringing
Taut bellied proud
With child
Bearing down aaaaaah
Blessed is the
fruit of your womb
Aaaah
Beating upon
the tight belly
Of drums a rhythm
Moving
And still I wait
And I smell
The breath of your promises
On the salty air
Dispersing through shifting sands
I breathe your longing
Lost now. I breathe it in
And I breathe it back
Holy mary mother of god
Only I am not
I have breathed your first breath
Soft and open a gasp of delight
And I shall breathe your last
Pray for us
sinners
Now and at the hour of our death
The hour of
our silence
I am alone again
I and my daughters
Growing old with the waiting
and the praying
and the longing
pray for us
sinners
now and at the hour
beads slip through my fingers
this rosary rose are ree aree aree eee
hail mary full
of grace
the lord is with thee
in death if
not in life
only I am still waiting
and my longing is without end
silvertrap
luckjuicy uncoiled whispers
hard nipples upside
down now arse
ready hole gut
water quivers
the hate in yr gut
the shove
the abuse
is not bluder
burn lewd river burn
river made lewd hurt
made lewd river
dissolve laugh pant
twist & dissolve
dissolve gold voice
voice eat voice
eat gold & laugh
of belly
rub & roll
mouth open
throat ready
Andraste
She was going to do it anyway there was no stopping her. She didn’t need permission. She was going to do it because it was in her guts and entrails to do it. It was in the deepest dark purple, rolling, wet rounded places of her inside self. The sucking, veined and throbbing places pulsing secretly beneath her flesh where cells expand and urge life through. She was going to do it. She was so much force and perseverance, so much passion and intensity. She was so much woman with her strength of hip her pleated ribs her unrestricted hair.
When the moon was full she rode high on her white horse. In winter’s depths she sank and waited.
In the woods
they are burning her hair
Three of them
They light it with a match
And she lets them burn her hair
Watches the
ends smoulder
Watches the ends curl, her curls
Curl up like leaves
She lets them
burn her hair
There are long dark shadows
between trees
like corridors
blocked with boulders
- the area is cordoned off-
She let them burn her hair
-the area is cordoned off-
When the sun splits open
The gaps between trees
And the sun slices into the scene
They see
That she let them burn her hair.
Let them hurt her
But she was always armed and ready for battle.
to defend what
was right cuts clear smooth lines
to save those who were innocent an intricate design of black feather
to safeguard her heart – strength and weakness combined crossing raw
flesh
to protect those of her blood hanging by the neck
to rescue her self from fine threads
For all the times she had been wounded, bruised, scarred, cut, burned and beaten down – bouquets of spikes
her hair crazed,
her flesh discoloured, bones knitting but her eyes clear and sharp.
There was no end to her. Sometimes I wear a white mask
Earth blossoms beneath my hand
Sweeter than
any ferry man of death
Let me tell you who I am
I am the last woman
A man sees before he dies
Before he leaves the edge of the world.
She was a red-head. And not in the palatable sense. In the wild, barbaric, texture of dead leaves sense. You say hair before her. Blazing down the street or clumps of matted fire in the plug-hole. As a child I was amazed, obsessed by it. Baubles of scouring-pad hair collecting around the house. It was so bright, so crude it didn’t seem natural, like those varieties of lichen that grow day-glow yellow where the air is particularly pure.
Little bits of her story were held out to me like shiny snow-storms, locked solid for me to shake up and watch in my head. Her taking photographs of ----beaches. Her in a wild and mythical land. Her talking to trees. Her crying late at night in the room below mine. I hoarded these chunks of story like penny sweets saved them up for eating later.
And somehow she had ended up here. In our house. A voluntary scheme after university. Youth and community work linked to a church. Accommodation in the parish. In our house.
My father was quiet that year. I don’t think he expected so much red. When she arrived, the first day with her bags and her plans he hair was hidden under a hat. She had brought it out like a trump card, like an entourage of warriors, like autumns fury. My father stayed out of the way.
My mother, like me, was enchanted. We begun to fight for her/ My mother had her in the days when I was at school There was nothing I could do about that. But in the evenings, my mother had to give her up. Her eyes would watch us jealously as we sloped off after dinner upstairs. We would sit in her room which burned with orange light like her hair.
Was the rest of her body hair like this? Crevices a blaze of orange? Was it a red warning against thinking such things. No-one else’s hair made me wonder what their secret places were like. Her woman-ness was obscenely compelling. I wanted to drown in the smell of cheap scent and perspiration that collected on her clothes.
Drac
i hang from
invisible thread
you will see me first as a spot of red
in the fingers of trees
i
will snag yr breath
you cannot move
i have lead
eyes
their weight will drag
hold you alive
while I reel you in
you cannot move
i lie in wait
delicious how the water fills yr mouth
in lurk blue as I
fester you
shrill voices
smothered w/ water
you cannot move
caught
skin
on a bed of
lurid green
i wrap yr legs in hair
and lick away all trace
you cannot move
the scent of
death arouses
blood petals my pillow
under sound
ground
under
soft
foot run to
mummummymothermothermothered
mud lung
weedful mouth
shush
shush now
it needles ooo
guggle chuck
cluck
cluck cluck
there
there
oh her mothrsong puddles me
tonguesilly
noodlings
from surfaces unheard since
watersucked
earkissed
and bottled
sundread
in lurk blue fester me sequestered sequin nested
let
me let me let me let me
quiet now
handgag
my
bagful of babies tongues glistening
no I’m no sister don’t sisterme this sisterme that
bloodflood
linesunk
