Sekhmet's Tits and other poetry

Three poems

Sekhmet’s Tits

Sekhmet’s tits are my revolution.

The run in my tights that leads me to you is my revolution.

Gonna start a revolution from my bed.*

A fierce red love;

fearless on my breath**

massively attacked you as Sekhmet’s bloodlust raced in our veins.

They broke my bones and my heart and their hands fought to find my pussy.

But my pussy fought for the revolution from my bed.

You kissed Sekhmet’s tits and you cried when we fucked and

I knew love would free my cunt and my heart.

Does Sekhmet cry when she cums?

Om Kalthoum told the sun to come back in a year و نقول للشمس تعالي تعالي بعد سنة***

Give me your eyes for mine to wander through,****

Give me your arms for mine to find comfort.****

They broke my fucking arms.

And fucking you released my rage;

gonna start a revolution from my bed.

My Napoli poet with the hands of a butcher and the soul of Neruda

says my hair is like war and my pussy is like fire.

I burned you I burned myself.

Sekhmet’s tits cannot be groped.

You kiss them and my revolution is my orgy of freedom:

Pink is the colour of my spray paint,

Pink is the colour of my pussy,

You want to fuck me in my pink coat.

Red red red stay close to me Sekhmet;

bleed me pure. I didn’t bleed when they broke my bones.

Red red red bleeding the words from me but I can’t stop thinking:

Sekhmet’s tits are my revolution.

I’m the proud savage.

I’m Sekhmet’s daughter.

Your damage is more than mine but your revolution is mine.

I tried to find a person undamaged but I need your pain.

You kiss Sekhmet’s tits when we make love and you know my revolution must start from my bed.

Sekhmet’s revolution starts from my tits.

——————————————

(With thanks to Oasis, Massive Attack, Om Kalthoum and The White Stripes; drawing of Sekhmet by Molly Crabapple)

* From “Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis

** From “Teardrop” by Massive Attack

*** From “Alf Layla wi Layla” by Om Kalthoum

**** From “Enta Omri” by Om Kalthoum

To My Unborn Daughter

I would not have known how to love you.

I would have taught you to be too big to be a wife.

I would have taught you to disobey everything I taught you.

What could I teach you when I’m still unlearning everything I was taught?

The revolution came too late for you, my love;

I fight for your unborn daughter.

As you wrote, those months before you jumped, what did the balcony sing to you?

Who live-wired it for freedom?

They kept you locked up at home for as long as their Burmese brutes-in-arms kept The Lady under house arrest.

But who doesn’t know Aung San Suu Kyi?

Forever at home like a “good woman” should be.

Innovations in the Art of Erasing Women:

Some use niqab.

Some favour house arrest.

Destroying your publications.

Erasing you from the public record. Erasing you from our minds.

Accusing you of attention-seeking.

Shrinking women to their natural size.

Virginia Woolf said women had been taught to reflect men at twice their natural size.

We are the Over-Inflated Woman - too loud, too much to say, you’ve talked beyond your designated 5 minutes, now shut that fucking ego up, woman!

He wants his designated 23 hours and 55 minutes.

I saw a Mona Hatoum installation once at the Tate Modern in which domestic appliances zinged, alive with live wires ready to kill.

“Home is what finishes you off,” Mona said.

“That is why I run,” This Mona said.

“Why do you think I jumped?” Doria said.

————————————-

(Egyptian feminist Doria Shafik, who stormed the Egyptian parliament along with 1,500 women on Feb. 19, 1951 to demand equal rights for women, died by suicide on Sept. 20, 1975 after 18 years of house arrest by first the Nasser regime and then Sadat’s)

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Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.  

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