The imagery painted with poetry can be some of the most powerful and magickal. An artist who wields the written word like a delicate brush will expose an emotional underbelly with just a phrase or two, and will bring us face to face with both gods and demons.

Today, we talk to poet and musician Mucro Pondera Divinus, also known simply as Frater M.P.D., about poetry, art and the Divine Feminine. All poetry featured in this post is written by Frater M.P.D. and appears on his Hello Poetry page.

Ego is a condom Self wears to penetrate

into the scaldingly honeysweet flesh

of the Beloved, begging, breathless,

to stop and take the condom off.

Sweeping me swiftly into Her undertow,

lush hips in undulation as waves in the sea,

’til the potent dram of our mingled kalas

fills the golden chalice of my lady Babalon.

Flesh to flesh, ache to breathless ache;

I pour out my blood into Her grail,

to drink and be sweetly drunken

on the wine of Her fornications.

Mystery harlot, where ends thy thigh

and begins the back of the Beast?

Where does thy breast border mine

when our flesh has become One?

When did you begin writing poetry?

I’ve been writing for over twenty years, but periodically I realize all my work up to a certain point is garbage, and holy shit, have I ever been a poet? (Laughs) My work seems objectively better the less consciously involved I am in its creation; it took many years to get out of the way. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve found my voice.

As a ceremonial magician and Thelemite, how do your art and your magick influence each other?

They dovetail often – ritual work, sacraments, and initiation all facilitate interesting work. For example, as a IIº I produced a series of automatic writings, and developed a servitor to assist me with musical projects. Throughout the Man of Earth triad, my poetry was symbolic masturbation. And leading up to my performance of Liber Yod for Winter Solstice 2016, it was difficult to create anything at all! – I was dry as a leaf.

Vagina means “sheath”.

Oh, how tiresomely sexist,

this utility.

“Cunt” is a sharp word,

but it will only prick you

if you so insist.

And “prostitute” means

“to stand in for the Goddess” —

both Mother and Whore.

Fertility cults

of Babylon hailed Ishtar,

the young Sophia.

In Sumerian times

they did call Her Inanna,

who shed Her jewels.

Solomon the Wise

did wed Her in his temple,

and wrote Her a Song.

At Her temple gates

await the harlots, smiling:

yours for but a coin.

Sacred silver thrown,

a rite of passage. Some wait.

Some wait longer still.

Wisdom works through them.

The hierodules of Heaven

beckon, honeysweet.

“Come to the temple,

let us dance the timeless dance,

my Lord Dumuzi!”

Rosy cheeks and lips,

shamelessness in Her power.

Passion at its peak.

Too sexy for words.

Men feared Her and wrought cages,

misdirected blame.

Mary, the chaste one,

is an abomination.

Half, and the lesser.

A neutered Mother

with a vagina for swords,

a scabbard for men.

The Grail was stolen

from between Her holy thighs.

Paul was such a dick.

A dick who feared Her,

Mystery of Death and Blood.

Much more than a sheath.

On the Hello Poetry website, you have a wonderful collection called “In Nomine Babalon.” Following your poem [above] entitled “Sheath,” you say “Cunt is a power word. Take it back!” As a male magician, what is your take on the masculine expression of the Divine Feminine in art and magick?

You might say I have strong feelings about it but they’re difficult to put into words. My poem “Woman as a Literary Device” [see below] puts a bead on it. Research indicates that men and women alike perceive a woman as a grouping of sexual objects rather than a complete person. Maybe it’s conditioning, maybe an innate evolutionary program, maybe both. Georges Bataille’s Erotism: Death and Sensuality describes the objectification of the Beloved as destructive, paving the way for the fusion of Self and Beloved (see Liber AL Ch I, v29). This plays into our oldest taboos – sex and death – which belong to the violent “natural world”, so-called, and are contrary to man’s world of work and order.

In “The Thunder, Perfect Mind” we find these lines: “For what is inside of you is what is outside of you, and the one who fashions you on the outside is the one who shaped the inside of you. And what you see outside of you, you see inside of you; it is visible and it is your garment.”

My mind sprawls uselessly in light of these ideas. Any point of view about the Divine Feminine seems absurd, the point of view being essentially its antithesis. How do we conceive of what the mind fails to perceive as whole? Perhaps these are the breadcrumbs that lead us into Her service. Perhaps She is too vast for the words of men, hence “let them speak not of thee at all…”

Sometimes it seems that we miss the mark in hypersexualized portrayals of the Divine Feminine. Sexuality easily becomes a flat aesthetic instead of a symbol of power. I imagine it’s not easy to simultaneously capture the sacred and the profane.

She’s a rainbow

— that rainbow in every

rock song about nothing,

a hidden hook that snares

a sucker’s wallet

I’m so hot for her, I’m so hot for her

She

is the philosopher’s stone transmuting

garbage lines into shiny trinkets

in desirous minds

When you’re old, nobody will know

that you was a beauty

What would pop culture be

without woman to exploit?

She’s a gooooooood girl

crazy ’bout Elvis

Obscured, behind

the Micks and Pettys

the Kellys and Ushers

the Pauls wailing MAMAAAAA

the free spirit groupie cliché

is Woman fictionalized

by peacocking pimps

deceptive plumage splayed

is Woman

sung about

talked at

reduced to an abstraction

dispensed with

forgotten

and sold

and the men

get rich.

⊕ ⊕ ⊕

In part two of this interview, Frater M.P.D. shares his musickal vision and his work in Thelemic multimedia.