Blood and Sand
I am the sun.I am the golden haze which scatters dawnlight
over the surface of a sea, still as glass.
I am a proposal.
A possibility.
I am a beginning.
I am an end.
I am blood spilled on sand
as warm as a body.
I am the eyes which turn away.
I am the wind
blown from the lungs of the heavens.
I am the goddess and the moon.
I am pride.
I am guilt.
I am the journey from which you may not return.
I am the blistered hands of 1,000 strokes
from 1,000 oars.
I am the sun-reddened skin rough and peeling.
I am the stinging salt.
I am the wife you left.
I am the dream from which you cannot wake.
I am the foreign shore which you claim as your own.
I am the fortress
which you cannot take.
I am walls built from a mother’s fear.
I am a warning from the goddess.
The vision of a priestess.
I am the deaf ears upon which their prophecy falls.
I am blood spilled on sand, as warm as a body.
I am the scheming lover.
A brother’s pride.
I am the point of a knife.
I am the wheels of a chariot
and the body it drags behind.
I am a funeral
and a birth.
I am a grave
and a green field.
I am a pyre
and the bodies that burn beneath.
I am 10 years and yet unchanged.
I am war.
I am everything you have ever achieved.
I am your hollow victory.
I am the silken robes which lay beneath your feet.
I am the thought you have not dared to think.
I am an echo in your halls.
The shadow which flits across your wall.
I am fragrant water.
I am a stain.
I am copper in your mouth.
Blood and Sound – Spoken word version by Chloe Victoria with original score by Andrew Bate. Art by Robert Frede Kenter.
Chloe Victoria (she/her) is a poet, writer, singer-songwriter and performer. Her work is inspired by mythology, dark romance, the gothic and reclaiming female power. Her poems have been published by the likes of Black Bough; Pvssy Magic; Analogies and Allegories; and Fevers of the Mind; as well as being displayed as part of an art exhibition in Cheltenham, UK, where she lives. Chloe also writes and performs for independent theatre company, Moth Sanctuary Productions, where her latest piece ‘The Fourth Bride’ achieved a record audience at Cheltenham Literature Festival 2023. Follow me on Instagram, Follow me on Twitter.
Listen to debut EP ‘Flowers on my Grave’ on Spotify
Andrew Bate is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and artistic director of award-winning independent theatre group, Moth Sanctuary Productions. He has produced scores for short films, theatre productions and his own original audiobook series. He also writes songs and performs with Chloe Gorman in their band, Saint Senara.
Banner Art: Field/Ritual/Desert, an environmental vispo by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2024 Twitter: @frede_kenter. IG: r.f.k.vispocityshuffle, icefloe22. Robert Frede Kenter is the EIC/publisher of Ice Floe Press & curator of Cassandra/CHORALE series. Books include: EDEN (2021). Work in Anthologies: InterPoem#1, Seeing in Tongues (Steel Incisors), The Book of Penteract (Penteract Press) and numerous other publications on-line and in-print.
IceFloe Press 