Prayer to the Goddess
Prayer to the Goddess
By Alexandra Moltke, translated by Jokum Rohde
And now, Inanna, having become friends, having honored you: here comes my salutation, here comes the song, to awaken you, to summon you:
Sweet sister, honey-lover, blackest of brides: I bow unto you, your power is great, your aim is gruesome: The sky shakes in its pants when you are out riding your lions. You send us storms and hungry hurricanes. You send us stillborn babies, their eyes all milky-white, their thighs hollow and lame. Demented, simple-minded, haunted, screaming. Noble miss Forest Fire, you send us flames and deep burning woods. Birds charred like burnt out suns. You send us water from the sky, from the sea. It rises in the streets, drowns the roofs, it devours the dunes and the plants. You send us grasshoppers, thousands of sets of teeth. Swirling and eating the gardens of black children, eating the crop of a whole year, forcing frightened mothers on their knees.
You send us bats maddened with fever, poisoning us, spreading death and disease, we fall by your hand, as weed before the scythe, and the bodies keep on piling and the doctors are all screaming of exhaustion. Whether fighting by your fists alone or conjuring up hurricanes, you are wonderful. To fight is but a game to you, you never tire. Your song is sung by the joy of the heart. You dip your morning star in blood and mutilations, you break heads with a hungry axe all day long.
Honored sister, cream-drinker, reddest of brides. I bow to you, your power is great, your beauty is wild: You send us flowers, turned-on lilacs. Purple and white and red and blue. You send us foxes, glowing in the forest, you send us horses, carrying us silently onwards, damping with heat, with silken hides. You send us living questioning children. Tiny flat knees, they kneel on the ground, gathering your ants. You send us ants, you send us fruit: peaches, banana, mango and apples. You send us rocks aglow with light and fish from the coldest deep. You send us olives and you send us kisses. Men who lie down with us, filling us with the thick milk. Men who licks us clean, you send us delight. You send us courage, you send us peace. You send us oblivion and healing dreams, you send us hands and arms, clutching us. And the gods live happily by your ample bosom.
Sweet sister, wonderful executioner, forgive us all and remake this world stricken by madness, knock it down and kick it till it lies absolutely still:
Come unto us and strangle the ruling King
He who raises the fences
He who spurts semen into the cows
He who fucks the children and locks them inside of factories and punishes them in the mines and starves them in the cities
He is not your chosen lover
He´s not yours in any way, is he?
He who prints the money
He who never rests
He who designs the machines, rides on the aeroplanes
He strives towards an abyss that will swallow us all
And every time we try to kill him, he falls to the ground and breaks into a hundred new clones
Come unto us and bite him by the balls, come here and crush his head
Beat him into submission
Come unto us and steal his keys, so we can storm his mansion
Piss on his cold marble
Have cats spray his couches with shit
Have dogs fuck him in the ass
Have rats find a home in the large ass and let them shit in his mouth and fuck inside of his mouth
Wonderful executioner, take back what is yours
Come and claim your throne
Sit yourself down with all your might
Tie a necklace with his dripping skulls
And order us to kneel
Every spike, every seed
Every rank tulip
Every man, every woman shall kneel under the
Baffled sun
Remove their fat fingers from the flowers of the honeybees
Turn off their cars and enter into the woods
Lie down in the moss and crank up the crying
Bow their heads to you, goddess, sister, executioner, bride
Let them fear your anger and your might
Wild mountain cat
Ruler of eagles
Massive bull queen
Give us back your heart