Glory to resplendent she who roused the blissful Lord; to fearless he who soothed her savage fury.

Your divine love resounds as my mind embraces my body, my flesh pullsplayfully at my consciousness; Matter and Spirit unite in us, our lives are your love-play!

Yet how you dancebeyond solitude, leap-out into lovers to beckonback: Alyssa!— shall I deny the Goddess breathes through your beauty, that God looks-out through your eyes?

Love Divine: the world treads on us while (selfabsorbed) we scorn her; forgive us! may we live by your example, express this love that is our being.

Great Goddess, be pleased by these poems, accept these words you wove with me.

Three-Eyed Lord! outsprawled on the battlefield of the world, why do you sleep? Do you not see your allslaying wife dancing amok?

Savage Goddess! do your openwide eyes not see your own dear husband beneath your feet—your mighty helpmate who guides and adorns you? Will you trample him too, drink his blood?

Why do you sit unmoving, Consciousness, high in your mountainretreat? The world reels in your absence! She scatters loveliest flowers on your bare cavefloor, but you rebuff her, Lord! lost in your own innerbliss. Please, take her as your spouse: send a Son to save us.

Does God neglect your prayers, Sweet Goddess? Win him with what he loves: your wisdom, will and awareness— how he will long for you, would have you bear his child.

Goddess and God, behold each other and awake to your allcreative love!

Fearful and fascinating Infinite Threat-and-Promise: you paralyse us at your appearance!

Depthsofchaos from which all order is drawn: your dripping swordblades flash- forth glimpses of your beauty! You test your suitors severely, let only sincerest lover unite-with you to bringforth new creation.

Yet what riches you yield when we bravely face you! What insidious oldevils you slay, what amazingnew goods you give birth to, if only we have the strength to seduce you.

Beloved! is your red tongue thrust in anger or lust? will your whitefanged teeth feed on us? I see how they bar all escape: if we turn from your aweful sight your darkness will grow vast and devour us. ‘You must die, or be reborn!’ your wisewords sing.

One way forward, then: I will taste your flesh not as a suckling baby, but a mighty lover!

Goddess! whose nudeform dances radiant before us, how may I attain you?

You beckon through beauty, the world your body: these valleys and hills the curves of you, all this lush foliage your darktangled hair, zestful birdsong your own sweet laughter, your smile the scarletsteaked dawn.

Our bodies are embeautied by you; what wonders you reveal when you rise in us as desire! What depths you unveil when (enraptured) we behold our lover’s eyes! We grow in the light of their gaze, and love allthemore as we grow.

Lured by your mystery minds strive to embrace you, all science and philosophy yearns to know you; vital power of beauty, erotic Reality: you draw us to evernew heights.

Beloved-of-all, by your silent attraction you raise these adoring words out of me.

Mother, your allconsuming love cannot bear our separation, would retomb what you once wombed; have mercy on us!

Through raving winds, convulsing earth, skysprawling waves, flame- spewing peaks—through dry famined fields, ill-blighted bodies and predators red in teeth—through all of these you love us, Scourge of Life, to death!

We are not your merevictims however: we exult with you to devour! What rawrush pleasure we taste with you: to fight, to kill, to dominate.

Devourer of human meaning, entropic deathdive of the universe, wheel of time grinding all things to dust: spare us, I pray! Instead slay all the evil, overold and false in us.

Let us love you in a different way: your husband, not your helpless child.

You are near to us, Goddess: my body, my life. Nearest! more-me than I: how could I evade you?

How is it you beat my blood, digest my food, pulse my nerves, divide and thrive my myriad cells, unfill and fill my lungs? You work this body wonderfully, Wise One!

My mind, too, is enmattered in you: all deepbrain drives (hunger, anger, thirst, fear) form but the fierce protective grasp of your many maternal arms; you are the instinctive lovingcare of all mothers for their children, and you rose as lust to ensure our conception.

Motherwithinme, how you shock me with myself! Your violent grip is often misguided. Life, why wield those deadly weapons, whose are those hackedheads?

‘You are not merelife!’ you howl, wide-eyed and bloody; I bow to your dreadful glory.

I find you far from us, Goddess, abiding behind all we encounter: Farthest! why hide like this?

Pardon our pride, Mothermatter, when we claim to have conquered you—to have roaded and citied you, to have built on you wondrous machines: never ‘on’ you but ‘out of’ you—we only work with your ways, draw from your inner-order.

Whatever we make, we make of you; and our minds also make of you many things: you have shaped us to see you in certain ways, while we in our infantcleverness (our science, our art) strain for further hints.

Unbounded Potential, substance and surplus of all objects, whose dancing dark limbs flash through the gaps in our conceptions: how may I ever know you?

‘Attend to and love my world’, you reply: ‘Every little thing brims forth my being!’

You have not forsaken your children, Dark Goddess: we rest on your vast body, feed at your abundant breast.

All foodgrowth (plant, fruit or flesh) flows from you to nourish us; your rivers spring forth to refresh us; that great jewel (the Sun) around your neck glows warmlight down on us; while cool windwhispers soothe us, from your lips.

This milk and honey that flows from you is tasted by everyone, evil and good; a Mother’s love knows no favourites, lavishes all her mostdear children.

Earth! you hold us everclose to you; Universe! you embrace all being, cradle both the quasar and the quark; Your four arms are the fundamental forces of physics, upholding all things.

Gratitude rushes up from me, Mother, to meet your everdescending grace.

Goddess! whose nightflesh gleamed black before eyes ever opened, how may I ever know you?

Dirtdark Nature, who once wombed us deepwithin, who birthed us, who raised us to the light: can I turn these two day-eyes back to your beforedawn glory?

Were we formed from dust by some divine hand? No—you made us as a Mother does: knit our inmost parts together in your depths: flesh of your own flesh, blood of your own blood.

Spaceblack Mother, stillmore ancient than our world: the universe itself is your child— it embyros-out (lightfast) from the primordial orgasm of union with your Lord.

Why wield that fearsome blade, Mother: will you use it to sever our umbilicalcord?

There are many ways of approaching the Divine, many different forms They may take. These poems explore Their feminine aspect, which tends to be downplayed by the great world religions. An exception lies in the Shakta traditions of Hinduism, which regard the Goddess as Supreme. Other traditions hold the God and Goddess to be co-equal manifestations of the same ineffable One.

Although I utilise Hindu myth and the imagery of the dark Goddess Kali, these are not Hindu poems. They draw on both Eastern and Western understandings, as well as my own experience with the Goddess. I hope they will resonate with all people, regardless of religious belief. They can be read either as prayers or poetic reflections on reality.

Each poem has a companion piece of prose elaborating the ideas within it. They can be found here:

http://thinkingthru.tumblr.com/tagged/kaliprayers