Mahakali's Kiss
I'm told it rained on the day she was born,
a January Sunday on streets of snow
that melted away like the life she wore,
like time's black kiss, like a riot of crows.
She makes each thing with a blind innocence
that starts a smolder in a long-dry field
just to leave an ash that cannot rest
til love itself belongs to the dead.
So fill your mouths with her acid, boys,
that seems to taste as sweet as mead.
Fill your arms with her empty husk
whose midnight touch will make you bleed
and when lips rot and skin weeps red
remember her smile and the charm she said
to reap your heart in her willow bed
where she dies of cold as soon as she's fed.
December 2024
Posted for the Word Garden Word List
at Shay's Word Garden
Process notes: Mahakali means 'Great Kali,' and is the honorific title of the Hindu goddess of Time, Death and Liberation, Kali, whose name translates as "she who is black" or "she who is the ruler of time." wikipedia: "Mahakali, in Sanskrit, is etymologically the feminized variant of Mahakala or Great Time (which is interpreted also as Death). Mahakali...serves as the agent who allows the cosmic order to be restored.."
Image: Goddess Mahakali, Delhi Museum via wikipedia Public Domain
