Artemisia Gentileschi / Judith
By Canonette
- 1044 reads
Artemisia –
Named for bitterness, motherless child-apprentice;
envy of the workshop as you ground chalk to powder.
Your blood tinged with pigment; Burnt Umber, Sienna,
and Indian Yellow mixed in your genetic code.
He was a serial rapist, but you weren’t to know.
Self-improvement became your spoiling. His tuition
in mysteries of the vanishing point, saw you impaled
on a Lead White bed, held down, outnumbered;
your screams smothered by his linseed oil stink.
He promised indemnity for your brutal deflowering,
but the only rings slipped onto your supple fingers,
were those of the torturer’s Sibille. Did your flesh
tear as they tightened the cords to twist out the truth?
Judith –
Self-portrait as Judith the apocryphal decapitator:
soft slayer’s hand grips beard fur – dark curled tufts
peek through. Hot fluid spills and hints at his unmanning.
Holoferenes has brewer’s droop – our heroine seduces
to emasculate. A mirror-image longsword for severing;
her blade wields vengeance in the Bone Black darkness.
Her brow, lined with determination, lips almost smile.
Brawny arms debone scrag end – slice through artery.
Arcs of Carmine spot her dress, brushstroked rich
Ultramarine or another hue: Artemisia Gold –
named after you.
- Log in to post comments
Comments
Bloody heck, Ru. This is as
Bloody heck, Ru. This is as deep as an ocean and very hard for me to decipher but it has the ring of a cracking tale for a poetry buff to enjoy. I'm going to re-read it.
- Log in to post comments
Cor, it's a real seascape of
Cor, it's a real seascape of claustrophobic bleakness, like swimming underwater and suddenly realising I'm in the afterlife. You're geting good at this poetry lark.
- Log in to post comments
fantastic - you can almost
fantastic - you can almost taste the colours
- Log in to post comments
A fabulous portrait of
A fabulous portrait of colours, very gently conveyed torture, too - it barely registers until the that glorious blood-spattered ending.
- Log in to post comments