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Introduction
These psalms are not driven by plot or narrative, rather they are written as
spiritual odes to a feminine deity, and as alternatives to masculine
frameworks that identify the divine as king, father, son, warrior etc.
The Goddess Psalms
3
Perhaps Goddess carried you
to the soft side
of light where
spirits graze on flowers
and the damp pleats
of mushrooms and their dreams.
Her full breasts soothed
a cranky babe and you.
Then you turned--
as it was in the beginning--
in a warm bath
while my moon dragged
its dirty root
and I rested here in the dust,
the parched earth of dusk.
Da, I bellowed like a calf.
4
This is the lore:
you couple with young men
(as rain moves against the dry earth,
as sky touches sea.)
I imagine you
against the horizon.
For you are the promised land,
and lovers kneel on thee.
6
Her feet are wet
with shattered history,
but she is handsome,
she is pretty.
The aroma of sweet water
in her hair and robes.
Her comb of polished bone.
Here heart is always a fruit, ripe.
And her breasts are of tallow
and shallow wicks.
We nurse at her altar of light.
7
In the beginning,
you swallowed the Word
and its stuttering sounds
and so the world
is really a raw nerve.
Even stones throb as rain,
an ancient pulse
(here and in the heavens).
They will not die
like clocks, wind down.
8
Her breasts bulge like moons.
Black plum nipples.
She sings hymns
over bones,
and lullabies to ghosts,
she croons.
Stories are medicine
and embroidery, too:
lots of stars and flowers.
She puffs on her pipe
and the smoke makes
clouds, and moons and towers.
31
She is a bossy old crow.
She summons
the shadows on the full
moon of a chill month.
Curses Him with boils
and impotence.
Her vagina fastened
with a couple of thorns.
It throws a powerful spell--
as a mute
or a husked cob of corn
82
I am in love,
but will not bear
children, though
my body opens
like a caught fish.
The fallen gown
like a pool of light.
I am turning inside
a long veil.
It is a net.
My gills open wide.
I am torn
and gasping for life.
83
I am the shape of low,
the body opening
its shadow--
a snake
pulling from me,
its tongue and its face.
And my heart, too,
is a coil,
the skin shedding its lace.
I am afraid of marriage
and its veil.
His soul
in its vase.
My ring
swallowing its tail,
dying before grace.
Excerpt from "The Goddess Psalms"
April Bulmer has four books and a chapbook. She holds graduate degrees in creative writing, religious studies and theology.
She is interested in women's spirituality. She recently won first prize in the TOPS, "Second Time Around Contest."
April lives in Cambridge, Ontario with her puppy, Lichee.
Email: April Bulmer
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