Icon that clashes with current image for the masses,
a mass of love and flesh and wisdom and power
clasped between fingers of true devotion
on a chest that beats for shine and shadow.
Silver comfort of your weight
around my neck dangles in the darkness,
grants a blessing of handheld moonlight.
Iconoclast—I C On this Clastic heathen point Your bosom
still cradles the weariest of heads,
Your hips hold the entrance
to the most sacred of temples, and every curve of You
deserves the softest caress and highest respect.
Every non-conforming curve on You not physically seen but
metaphorically felt on me
adds strength to fight
the cold stares at the voluptuous lips that sing
Your praises and mahogany skin that
holds Your pulse and cosmic-cloud hair
that ferries Your prayers adds strength against
disdain of non-believers,
adds strength against the sorrow
of being misunderstood
or acknowledged only in time to be
some peon’s punch line.
Icons transform trauma into treasure,
small but heavy power shaped into a surprise,
curiosity, mystery, dilemma of a hater’s day,
month, lifetime of transformation of flesh, soul seeping through pores
to escape forsaken vessel.
Morph Her into monster, strip Her into stranger,
claim fame in defaming the legacy always originally birthed
to cover your blame.
Cloud the mirror’s gaze until you can’t see,
until you believe there is no shadow of She
within you.
When will you feel the lies of dynamite
that line Her sacred spaces?
How pure must one be considered before
poison deems itself
unworthy of stealing glory?
So much splendor to crave in Your divine glow,
one must know
how to once again stand in Your glimmer.
Simone Liggins earned her MFA in Writing at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics of Naropa University. The foundation for her love of writing and literature was paved at an early age and blossomed during her teenage years through the kind of tortured freedom that only the ostracism & funk-weirdness of being an African-American Gemini mystic can grant a person. Her various influences include but are not limited to: Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut, Dorothy Parker, Audre Lorde, Lenore Kandel, Laurell K. Hamilton, Octavia Butler, The Beatles, Lady Gaga, Fiona Apple, and Jimi Hendrix. Her work has been featured in Raven Chronicles, Buddy--A Lit Zine, BEATS Poetry Periodical, Boulder Weekly, Outsider Poetry, SurVision Magazine, Reject Press, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Visitant Magazine, S/tick Magazine, Petrichor Magazine, and work in the forthcoming publication Folklorist with HarperCollins.
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