Purdah

[Knot]

Compared to the original, this is anodyne (well written, sure, but...);
there's no immediacy, no rage, no energy. Tthe first was visceral, this is virtually abstract.
Though 'lowered lashes' and 'clipped coin and vagabond dreams' both read well.

Best, Knot.

[vagabond]

hi leanne! this concerns the original version which i prefer to the edit.
apart from the last stanza the edit seems almost like a different poem to me, which might be a sign that my interpretation has strayed too far from intended meaning : ) .

Oh baby fuck me harder                                comma after baby?
til the blood comes out my mouth
for I am meat                            you could leave out "for" i think and maybe contract the two lines or add some adjective to "meat"
for your exalted hands
to shape into amphora ash                       
 
Don't wait to ask, I                           line break after "I" makes it seem as if the subject really wants to say something instead of staying mute and giving a signal of subservience
invited you in with downcast eyes
and you heard me beg
through lips swollen shut with                 i think you could put "with" in the next line
truth-coloured candy stitches
 
Door open means kick down the house                
let in the flood
with bloated corpses rowing paper ferries                 
past Charon's middle finger extended
seven times circling Elysium                        
 
Drive out the me, possessed of                       i´d like the line break after "possessed". you might write "exorcise my self, possessed..."
clipped pennies and vagrant dreams
and transfuse essence of god
in whose image the sins of man
spiral endlessly to Samarkand


 "purdah" ..  that title got me to start reading with the question if this is all about women´s rights in religions.. but then it seemed to be like women were a metaphor for any group of people inferior in matters of power.

 "lips swollen shut" could refer to the beating received before..i like that line immensely

 the "truth colored candy stitches" seem attempting to distract from that reason for swollen lips.
i take candy as a metaphor for religion or any other construct that channels people´s beliefs into pre-formed ways.
if something is painted blue, then blue might not be its original color. if something is colored true it is most probably not.
candy also reminded me of a roman saying : "give  candy bread and  the whip to the people"  as a principle of exerting power.

"let in the flood" almost seems like "let the apocalypse come".. and the "paper ferries" would be the promised afterlife (though it´s made clear what that promise is worth by the corpses).

charon´s middle finger extended seven times.. like the menora. for me that line is an image how politics does not care at all for the religious idealisms they use as propaganda.

"drive out my materialism and hedonism"  is what i get in the beginning of the last stanza though it seems used ironically, like this "essence of god" that should replace it.

reading about elysion i found that this utopia (restricted to the "chosen ones") was imagined to be in the underworld by ancient greek writers..  and this is well where the pursuit of elysium might lead.
i´m still puzzling about samarkand though.

thank you for this read