Off The Page~ a multimedia exploration of painting, poetry, storytelling and music
Leda’s Voice, Under Sky, Over Water by Maj Ragain, 2017
Read by Lindsay Bottos
I lie in the wreckage of my longing
which called him down to me.
I remember myself before Zeus settled
over me, in the guise of a swan,
downy chest against my nipples.
That world is gone.
I have been opened, my thighs spread
by wings beating all around me,
churning my blood into fever.
I am slathered with his god seed,
planted on this tortoise shell bed,
pinned down by clawed feet on bare skin.
His wings, spread across the sky,
eclipse the sun beneath which
all things are his domain.
I was mine. Now, I am his.
I will scissor my hair to the scalp
so he will not desire me if he returns.
Hera, his wife, has found us.
He rises in anger at her meddling.
I am sore.
The milky way swims in my belly.
Wherever you go, my empty eye follows.
Maj Ragain. Clouds Pile Up in the North: New & Selected Poem Press 53, LLC, Winston-Salem, NC, 2017 p.4
Damen, Jessica & Ragain, Maj, Home To Sargasso Sea-A Long Journey of Loving Collaboration, exhibition catalog, June 1-July 14, 2018, KSU Downtown Gallery, Kent OH, Kent State University School of Art Collection and Galleries and the Wick Poetry Center with support from the Ohio Arts Council. pp 32-33
When Leda and the Angry Swan was painted in 2003, Roe vs Wade was believed to be the law of the land. It seemed then that women's bodily autonomy was at last, secured. But myths do not die easily; men who think they are gods and kings believe they have the right to rape women and girls. This painting insists the viewer see Leda. Her gaze follows you wherever you stand. She will not relent. Just as today's survivors of the Epstein class abuse insist to be seen and heard.