Lilith is Alive and Well - Samantha Birch and "Beat"

I have a very special guest on "The Passionate Mind" tonight. In June of last year, I had the privilege to write the introduction to a book of poetry by Samantha Birch, called "Beat". Without further preamble, here's what I had to say:

Do not stick your head out of the window of a moving car.

That admonition, from Samantha Birch’s poem 87, could easily be applied to the poem itself. Climbing into the passenger seat of her mind as she takes language and wrenches it into forms that are vital, harrowing, inspirational and terrifying, can make you feel as if your head’s going to be sheared off at any moment and left tumbling along the highway as she speeds on.

But it’s too late for warnings. When you read her work, there is no stopping.  

It feels like an old house

It is home to me

The broken motorbike

leans against the shed

Telling me I belong here,

I am loved

The above lines from Custard Creams and Midget Gems echo with the happiness and ache of something as simple, as precious, as coming home. But the world is not a place where we can retreat into the warmth of home forever.

Rid the deranged of bizarre spirits
in hypocritical excess of black bile and shame
It sticks and swirls; There are no winners here

As in those lines from Folly, the great monsters of our time—things like hypocrisy, cruelty, ignorance and pain also take unforgettable shape in her writing.

To characterize Birch’s voice in the words of an introduction is not possible. The poems themselves will speak to that.  They offer an indelible journey into the thoughts of a woman who is a visionary, a fierce lover, a caring friend, a warrior, a mother, a daughter, and who at times wields her gift with words very much like a scythe, cutting away anything that is false, exposing necrosis in the body of our society; looking hard at things that make us flinch, challenging us not to turn away.

A wild wind is calling to me beyond the closed window of a moving car.  I should stay in my seat, safe within walls of glass and metal. But no, that sense of safety is illusion. And there are words in the voice of that wind that I am desperate to hear. 

And here is a sampling of two of the amazing poems from the collection. Sammie, I hope you'll give us some insight into the visions these two works present!

Thoughts On Losing Lilith

On first wake with beast, quietly tethered

A beauty appeared; born of filth and sediment

groomed from my own creation

Impure dust forged clean

Coccyx stump hacked and weeping

Burned and bound

As weakness flows into rivers of primary blood.

Surely not the same earth and clay

From which my own perfect ego birthed.

Thoughts of capture re-emerge

As the beasts distaste struggles

against a futile coupling.

Turning to face my glorious gift

I feel hope, with a prayer

That the tide would turn

To my favour...

"Will you match me in strength and faith?

and not ask that I lie beneath you

still and tolerating as the beast you tamed and refused?"

She bears Sin, the first

Of independence and strange notion

The blood of a hardened mind shows

Within universal eyes

Weakness desert me!

I cannot contain us

The burden is hers

To re-live...

To hold...

Forever more.

"Those who know Love as the sacred word

and who use it justly,

must be strong enough to hold on for the ride"

She speaks of the light within

And travelling poisonous tides

Soaking in corrupted rains lest myself be lost

We were one, her front to back

Yet now she seeks to utter a name

In rising above, she takes the blame.

She... demon queen; in separate form,

I see my need abandoned; a limb

A shadows departure through the boundaries

A flickered glimpse through gates of destruction

and catastrophic shores of abandoned oceans

Shame, my love, shame; show remorse

For lives of whispered children lost in "defyant" battles

Slumbered seduction bears the spawn of life's ruin

Punished and banished in free-will's cage.

With ego dimmed I ask for more

My falsified rib is ripped and torn

Re-emerging as succulent fruit

To tempt and strip bare the truth

I am no longer protected

I see the purity that once was

And I turn to regard the amputated part

With contempt and anger

My own proclivity mirrored

once more, in beauty's face

Her Sin is the second...

She has unveiled my failure as a man

____________________________________________________________________

87

Prophet!  (or Profit?)
Your reflective surfaces show sickness
in magnified proportions

Look... LOOK
Your attention please!

An inspection of the air
reveals sullied skins; grime
boiling in iatrogenic conditions
with superbug resistance
See what you have done
See what you have become

Selfish concentric, ever INCreasing circles
play and ripple in pools of cynicism
and forgotten peace

So-called civilised playgrounds appear
Organic, at first, rollin' with the trees
To be heavily replaced
with perfect, concrete slabs 
In cracked and open doorways
and solar-mirrored walls; cue sunglasses

Human nature is corrupt
(no-brainer)
The destroyer of all things
That means you
So keep your fingers to yourself
Steal nothing, protect EVERYthing
Play dead

Do not stick your head out
of the window in a moving car
You'll barely breathe for long
before it's swiped off at the neck
and smashed up like coffee beans
for a motorway brew on double yellows

So much to lie about, so little time
but you'll only have survived the ride
if you're mad...

or eighty-seven

________________________________________________________________________

 

Sammie's book is available in hardcover and as an electronic download here:

BEAT by Samantha Birch