My favourite poems part one

Sekhmet the Lion-headed Goddess of War

Written by: Margaret Atwood 
He was the sort of man

who wouldn't hurt a fly.

Many flies are now alive
while he is not.

He was not my patron.

He preferred full granaries, I battle.

My roar meant slaughter.

Yet here we are together
in the same museum.

That's not what I see, though, the fitful
crowds of staring children
learning the lesson of multi-
cultural obliteration, sic transit
and so on.


I see the temple where I was born
or built, where I held power.

I see the desert beyond,
where the hot conical tombs, that look
from a distance, frankly, like dunces' hats,
hide my jokes: the dried-out flesh
and bones, the wooden boats
in which the dead sail endlessly
in no direction.


What did you expect from gods
with animal heads?
Though come to think of it
the ones made later, who were fully human
were not such good news either.

Favour me and give me riches,
destroy my enemies.

That seems to be the gist.

Oh yes: And save me from death.

In return we're given blood
and bread, flowers and prayer,
and lip service.


Maybe there's something in all of this
I missed.
 But if it's selfless
love you're looking for,
you've got the wrong goddess.


I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
that in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion
will come with bandages in her mouth
and the soft body of a woman,
and lick you clean of fever,
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck
and caress you into darkness and paradise.

Alice's notes

I have discovered that there is a book of poetry that was snuck in by one of the other patents here. They have since succumbed to the influences of the cards and moved off to the secure wing so I now own this novel. Sneaking into their room and stealing an item is basically the same as owning it in the first place anyways. I am going to share my favourites to all of you out there, the Dormouse says that you do not exist and that I am just talking to thin air, but I know you are out there, as does the Cheshire Cat. I hope that you will enjoy these as much as I do, and I will try to read you more whenever I find a good one.

I particularly enjoy the mythological basis for this poem. In Egyptian mythology the goddess Sekhmet was both a fierce warrior, as well as a healer. She had blood on her hands, yet she is also able to heal others. I think she was the one who made the Phoenix possible, the one who healed as well as the one who kills. She could have been the one who set the fire that killed my father, as well as the one who allowed my mind to heal so I did not care for him once he was dead.