aliceisak

[aliceisak]

Restoration

“Following further investigations, including tests in an archaeometry laboratory, it was discovered that layers of binding agent and a layer of dirt existed between the image of Cupid and the overpainting. The conservators concluded that several decades would have passed between the completion of one layer and the addition of the next and therefore concluded that Vermeer could not have painted…

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#ekphrastic #mental health #poetry #recovery #trauma #Vermeer

[aliceisak]

Cicada

[Throwback Thursday post, in honor of Brood X and in celebration of a major new happening in my own life. About which I feel giddier than a grade-schooler with a huge collection of cicada shells! Hope you enjoy . . .] “Between my eyes, my body first splits open. / Unzips down my back like a cocktail dress…”Cicada

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#tbt #family #poetry #recovery

[aliceisak]

When Oedipus Was a Woman

When Oedipus Was a Woman

Don’t tell me I’ve got my facts wrong.Or fall to the fallacy of Freud, imagining only sonscan crave a father’s throne, evoke a mother’s passion.I know a hero’s plotline when I’m born into one. The Sphinx first tipped me off.I had come with a riddle of my own: What is happeningto the babies? My princely brothers each disappearingas suddenly as he arrived, my mother’s arms emptyas her belly again…

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#family #gender #myth #poetry #relationships #violence

[aliceisak]

Shorn

There is no prince. Know that first.  The tower, you’ll recognize. The witch, too; an inevitability.  A curse of sorts, petty and grousing, with just enough malice to sour the milk from your neighbor’s cow or rot a field of daffodil bulbs before they blanket the spring in yellow. Not the showstopper enchantment needed to freeze a kingdom, of course, or put entire villages to sleep for a year. A…

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#fairy tales #family #girlhood #recovery #sexuality

[aliceisak]

Zeus Tries his Luck at Online Dating

Or: Even Ancient Deities Get the Blues

Will you save me the choicest bits of meat when you sacrifice a calf

Will you sacrifice your first born

Will you swear to remain a virgin

Or to become one

Do you speak in tongues when you speak in prophecies

Have you been a tree a bird a woman fleeing on foot

Have you turned into stone

If you had to choose a ravishing which would you choose

A swan a bull a…

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#myth #poetry #relationships #religion

[aliceisak]

The Gift

“Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?” — Ovid, Metamorphoses

Disregard what poets tell you.  They hear the thump of their own hearts and think they have discovered a universe. Or presume that my beloved, musician to the gods who never flubbed an entrance in his life, might in eagerness miscount the…

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#myth #poetry #relationships

[aliceisak]

A man registering voters at the rally told me he liked my impeachment hair.

A man registering voters at the rally told me he liked my impeachment hair.

So do I…

#ITMFA

#ImpeachAndRemove #PhillyRepresents

At a rally yourself tonight? Please, share your own stories and pictures in the comments — they give me life!

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#politics

[aliceisak]

Where will you be at 5:30 tonight?

Where will you be at 5:30 tonight?

Rallies are being held across the country, on this eave of the House’s impeachment vote, to call on Congress to uphold their oaths and to impeach and remove the narcissistic thug who has turned our political system into a multi-national criminal enterprise. Organized by MoveOn.org and local activists, these “Nobody Is Above the Law” events provide us all with an opportunity to take a public stand…

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[aliceisak]

Medea Before the Argonauts

Medea Before the Argonauts

Somewhere in a story, not yet knowing Jason’s name, Medea dreams of floating away across the wine-dark sea into adventure. Her brother’s dismemberment yet awaits her, and the scattering of his parts upon the ocean like torn bread tossed to ducks. Dragon-teeth remain unplanted, a father’s treasures unravished. Many years and many tales not-yet-told lay between her in this moment and the…

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#family #myth #women

[aliceisak]

Awe

Brief meditation on the current news and the nature of survival. (Heads up for topic of sexual assault/triggering/Epstein.)

♦ ♦ ♦

Yesterday, I read the charges filed against co-defendents Epstein AND Trump for their numerous violent sexual attacks on the same 13yo girl in 1994. It was awful, but I’m used to awful—and the almost-clinical tone of most legalese is generally easier to get through…

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#media #mental health #politics #recovery #sexual assault #violence #women

[aliceisak]

Poison Apple

"Wanna bite? the old woman asked..." An offering for #nationalpoetrymonth!

“Wanna bite?” the old woman asked, holding out her cherry-red confection polished and gleaming as a new Corvette or a little girl’s patent leather shoes on Sunday morning.

Should’ve tipped me to the truth, that glow alone. Nothing from nature shines straight from the tree, the earth, the ocean. Not before violence: the pearl deslimed of its oyster’s flesh, coal hewn from the depths and lit ablaze.

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#NationalPoetryMonth #fairy tales #gender #poetry

[aliceisak]

First Apple

First Apple #nationalpoetrymonth #apoemaday

The story that started it all is not about a woman’s disobedience, but about a woman’s hunger. Generations of daughters cursed because of what one woman put in her mouth, chewed, swallowed.

“Do you really want to eat that?” my mother asks.

Love does not put down a plate only to insist that you abstain.

Love does not hold out scent, flavor, the crisp bite you can already feel sweetening against…

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#bodies #myth #women

[aliceisak]

Done made me a Hero Wall for the entryway. Too on the nose, y'think, or nah? [Pictured L to R: Sarah Connor, Leeloo, Aughra, Samantha Caine/Charly Baltimore, Furiosa, Ellen Ripley] https://www.instagram.com/p/Br_EdrhHNpR/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=7kt9n7rzbtzu

[aliceisak]

What Child Is This

What Child Is This #christmasblogging #CaaBP

I need shelter. . .

. . . Let me in.

I need shelter and you have locked me out too long.

I need shelter and you pretend that I prefer to be homeless. I need shelter and you act as though I will dissolve if you simply ignore me.

If you determinedly ignore me.

You ignore me as the trap ignores the mouse, as the hook ignores the fish, as the bait ignores the prey. You ignore me as though I am not…

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[aliceisak]

Dear friends, my best holiday wish for you all: May someone someday love you enough that they start gifting you a collection of coffee mugs all themed around poison and murder! ❤️❤️❤️ (Context for current mug's quote linked to in comments, for them what's curious.) [Images: green-handled coffee mug with a drawing of the Frog Prince and a line of script reading "Nourishment or death, only the hostess knows."] https://www.instagram.com/p/Br0pKAnnzUj/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=521fyaxv1wx5

[aliceisak]

Not to rub it in, but I do believe I have the best friends in the entire world. omgods, Mats!!! 😂😂😂 #machetes https://www.instagram.com/p/BqqWNWen3VA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1n8ovrqrnd5je

#machetes

[aliceisak]

Bringing sexxy back. #FunctionalDemocracyReallyBringsOutMyEyes #365feministselfie https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp1xubanhAw/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=sjgav727cacx

#functionaldemocracyreallybringsoutmyeyes #365feministselfie