Naming Deirdre’s Mother (with thanks to Karen Haakensen-Kahan for inspiration)

Audio file

Know me.  Forget that beast who stole my child
And she still wet with Mother’s blood and tears.
His Druid named her Deirdre–”Woman” styled–
As she screamed out from my womb in abject fear.
No worth in her but sex from that first cry,
Or so men shouted, grasping her like prey
Before the cord was cut between us two.
Kill her or fuck her the options on display.

Call her Deirdre then, and sing her sorrows
But henceforth name me Danu–Dana cry.
The genitive clearly all that falls to me–
A nameless Cupbearer and a minstrel’s bride.
I poured forth cursed, coveted progeny
Whose mind and heart did blaze just like my own.
But tress, and eye, and lip were all they’d see
And breast and cunt the focus of the throne.

So let Me Mother all that makes up Ireland,
The Gods and soil, as well as my poor girl
since she was forced to be but vocative Woman
That horrid handful of years she graced this world.
For who but unhinged motherless boys act thus?
How else can you explain what drives these men
Who fawn before a King of lies and lust
And slaughter brothers protecting their young friend?

 

Copyright 2017 by Amy Ripton/MKA Lanea verch Kerrigan.

 

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