A Song of Captain Joan
Barbara Mor
and for her burning
they dressed her body
in a maiden's gown,
the brave jeanne d'arc --
stripped of armor
without sword or banner
she entered the fire
of the world alone
and for her death
in her 19th year
she had a paper
hat to wear
she placed a cross
between her breasts
and burst into flames
of innocence
for the burning of the world
when our time is due
they will lead us out
like virgins true
they will crown our heads
and strip our dress
they will light a torch
at our nakedness
and her fire they built
with green branches
and her body was green
slow-burning wood
she cried to the Son
in the glare of noon
a sapling tied
to the stake of god
and they parted the flame
to show her sex
charred and tamed
in the fires of Christ
and the hungry crowd
ate up the feast
of pain triumphant
in beaten flesh
we are young green trees
in the fire we turn
the greener you are
the slower you burn
we are true green trees
alive in the flame
the truer the heart
the keener the pain
and into ash
sank flesh and bone
except her heart
which would not burn
and a dove flew out
of the smoldering pyre
with wings untouched
by death and fire
and jeanne d'arc rode
on a great white horse
up through night
to the towers of God
and naked before
his gate she stood
and raised on high
her burning sword
and we when we rise
from fire all new
our swords naked
our bodies true
will climb to heaven
beseige the dark
and take paradise
for brave jeanne d'arc
working notes
Note on the genesis and subsequent history of “A Song of Captain Joan,” excerpted from an e-mail sent by Barbara Mor to Harriet Ellenberger, 13 December 2006:
“Speaking of Joan of Arc, one of my first feminist poems was about her – was reading Vita Sackville-West’s biography at the same time I was writing for my first-ever poetry reading (with a group of San Diego women). Sackville-West’s book had trial transcript notes in the original French, so I extracted some of their details; & the English soldier who captured her called her ‘a very brave captain,’ so I was inspired by all this into a sort of ballad, which I sent to Aphra, one of the first feminist poetry/writing journals (this was 1969-70) and they sent it back with the notation ‘Too agit-prop!’”
about the author
Barbara Mor, author of The Great Cosmic Mother, has published poetry, essays & experimental fiction in Sulfur, BullHead, Orpheus Grid, Studia Mystica; Brit journals Intimacy & Ecorche; The New MS & Trivia: a Journal of Ideas (1900-94). Online, “24/7 & Yr Dreams,” an essay-interview with Adam Engel, appeared in www.dissidentvoice.org June 14, 2004; “the secret pornographies of Republicans,” “What’s Left,” & “Preferably Knot” appeared in www.triviavoices.net, Feb 2005. Experimental fiction, “Oasis,” “Here,” & “Sea of Hunger” are online at www.ctheory.net, “A Thousand Days of Theory,” Aug 4, 05; Dec 12, 05; & April 12, 06 respectively.
