Red, like the F on your term paper

I was browsing Etsy.com yesterday and was brightly surprised to come across a poem on a page selling a unique little necklace . Hoorah for poetry in unexpected places! This had to be shared with everyone.

R e d
by Laura Carey

Red like the first thing we see
Our mothers body from the inside out
Born in a cloak of deep blood perfection
Only to be scoured of this holy shower
Wiped and refined
Red like the inside of eyelids and anger
Fury that only this color can connote or contain
Like the potent power of menses
The immense grace and power of reproduction
Captured only in the piercing authority
Of deep blood red
Red like the juice of pomegranates
Eating rubies that dribble and squirt
Holy water like the Great Mother
About to spring a leak
Too full of possibilities


Three cheers for spreading poetry in uncommon places, but oh, god, this poem is an atrocity. The only redeeming factor is that it doesn't rhyme.  "Like the first thing we see/Our mother's body from the inside out"? Rule #46 of poetry: Do not make allusions to the reader's mother's hooha. Talk about your own vajayjay, talk about your mom's vajayjay, but for some reason people get touchy when you start pointing fingers at Mom's vagina. Especially when you do it badly. For no poetic reason.  Next two lines! "Born in a cloak...scoured of this holy shower" Make up your mind. Is it a cloak or a shower? While cloaks are often helpful in a downpour, they're usually not called for in the shower. And people usually get scoured IN the shower, not because of it. Was it a Golden Shower? Because that might make sense.

"Red like the inside of eyelids and anger" I had no idea eyelids and anger were the same color! I was always thought anger was the color of something more intestinal, like the spleen.  "Fury that only this color can connote or contain" Seriously? Red can contain fury, kinda like a superhero? I had no idea that colors could do that. I bet Blue can stop flooding and Green can control forest fires; I wonder what Fuschia does.

"Like the potent power of menses." Yes, the potent power to make me blow up like a balloon, crave chocolate, and eat everything in sight. "The immense grace and power of reproduction." ::sigh::  Here there was almost a chance of a nice line, "immense grace and power"; okay, so it's a little cliched, but look at what we're working with. But then we get to "reproduction". Oh. How...charming. And stark. Besides, how do we get from 'menses' to 'reproduction'. Are you including menses in the "grace" of reproduction, 'cause that's insane. A woman's period is about as graceful as squeezing  rhino into a girdle.

""Captured only in the piercing authority/of deep blood red" Besides the religious symbolism of blood and its ability to make people faint I fail to see how blood has authority. Especially 'piercing' authority, a bad word, by the word, to use in conjunction with blood as it immediately brings to mind stab wounds. Personally, I was reminded of a Law and Order episode which featured an ice pick.

And now we reach the point where everything becomes a disgusting, confused mess. "Red like the juice of pomegranates/Eating rubies that dribble and squirt" Must we use "dribble and squirt" when we've talking about menstruating and the rather clinical term of 'reproduction'? For the love of all that will not make me hurl up Cheerios on my screen, please do not talk about women's periods dribbling. Or enjoin us to eat it. And let's just quickly move on.

"Holy water like the Great Mother/About to spring a leak/Too full of possibilities" Thank heavens, the end of the poem and not soon enough. Now we know what's being 'dribbled, etc': holy water, though how or why, I've no idea. This "Great Mother/About to spring a leak" baffles the hell out of me. Does she one day awake to find a small puncture in her side with a stream jetting out of her? At first I thought the author meant the Holy Mother Mary, because of the holy water reference. But how would she spring a leak? And what would she leak? Holy water? Jesus candy?  But all-knowing Wikipedia says that the term 'Great Mother' refers to the general idea of a mother goddess. Okay, so what's she gonna leak? Given the rest of the poem, I'm thinkin' blood. Menstrual blood. A huge, flooding leak taking out Tokyo before she moves on to China and even Siberia. The world hasn't been eating right or going to bed on time and the Great Mother's about to spring a leak of whup-ass. As long as you eat pomegranates, you'll be fine.