More Activist Materials: A Cheer, A Chant, Poetry and Song
Cheer
“Blood Cheer”
Let it go
Let your blood flow
Slow and low that is the tempo
<#>
I said . . . Let it go
Let your blood flow.
Slow and low that is the tempo
<#>
Hey ladies everywhere,
There’s something you should know
About those products that you use
To plug up your flow
<#>
Those bleached tampons that you buy
Are full of dioxins
Instead of leaving your cunt cleansed
They leave it full of toxins
<#>
I say, let it go, let your blood flow
Slow and low that is the tempo
I say, let it go, let your blood flow
Slow and low that is the tempo
<#>
Hey grrls, everywhere
When you start your first blood flow
Don’t be sad, instead be glad and let
That blood show
<#>
So smear it on your face
And rub it on your body
It’s time to start
A menstrual party
You know it, I said
It’s time to start a menstrual party
<#>
So let’s howl at the moon
Repeat—howl at the moon
Let’s get in tune (repeat)
To the cosmic rhythms (repeat)
Of our wombs (repeat)
So let’s howl at the moon
(everyone howls)
Credit: Brackin ”Firecracker“ Camp and StikiNiki, 1999, published in Femmenstruation Rites Rag: Stories of Wimmin’s Blood and Rites of Passage (self-published zine, n.d.)
Chant (to honor menarche)
“A New Woman Walks on the Earth”
Red Bud Blossoming
You are Opening
Bleeding is Flowering
A New Woman Walks on the Earth
Credit: ALisa Starkweather, Daughter of the Earth, 1997.
Poetry
“I Bleed”
I bleed
I bleed and I wonder
“Will this be the last time?”
I bleed, therefore I am
“What will it be like?
This cessation of menses?”
The unequivocal end of child-bearing.
And my womb, though childless,
Will it feel the end of possibility?
Perhaps.
And then the unforeseen strength,
Promised by gender and age, will come.
The sureness, the wisdom,
The spirit to sing my songs.
I know this as all women before me have known.
We know this as we smile at the moon
Credit: Margaret Bertulli, 2000
“Ax Tampax”
Ax Tampax
In spirit of challenging and collapsing
The insidious nature of the corporate monster
That gobbles and trashes and fucks us over . . .
In response to the dirty business . . .
We have made this recipe book.
As an act of resistance to the system
That tramples over the homegrown d.i.y. style
We are sick of how they co-opt our life
To spit out into franchises . . .
To over package our needs into taxed luxuries . . .
We are sick of that garbarators
That insists to dismember [sic] . . .
We are sick of how it insists to hide
And disguise our experiences
Fuck the mark up they make on their lies . . .
Down with the inventors of necessities!
To the uprising when we stop popping tampons
And the popping big business medicines . . .
We fuck the poisons
That kill our free remedies . . .
When we fuck the complacency
To build the uprising . . .
To bleed and use weeds
To stop feeding the corporate greed
When we ax tampax and what it embodies
Credit: adee (The Bloodsisters Project), 2002, published in Red Alert #3(self-published zine, n.d.)
“Feministo”
We are feminist terrorists
We are quiet moss bleeders
We are riot grrrl boy catchers
We are goddess thumpers
We are bloody Punk rockers
We are moon worshippers
We are terrible singers
We are dirty girl power
adee (The Bloodsisters Project), 1996
Song Lyrics
“Feminine Hygiene”
when i don’t practice feminine hygiene
a red Rorschach grows between my thighs
and you might see dirty pictures
but i see goddesses dancing in the sky
bloodclots like sunspots, like little pink soaps in the palms of their
hands
a psalm to the ladylike cleanliness of it all
perfurmed and shaven and padded and plugged
drugged with smooth shiny happy white pills
but they know what’s really in their hands
they stop the music, they stop the band, and demand to know
who the hell are you to define for me the meaning of femininity?
cuz all of my y-fronts from froot of the loom
are stained with the richness form the fruit of my womb
every month it pours out, and i’ve seen the commercials
makes my goddesses shout, “hey, this stuff isn’t blue”
why can’t piss be yellow? why can’t blood be red?
why is it unfeminine to have hair on your legs? or none on your
head
so it doesn’t get in the way while you’re making love or saving the
day
don’t tell me to imitate a little girl
curl my hair with spray
hide my wetness away in a purple plastic sanitary self-sealing bag
let me tell you my feminine needs
Cuz napkins can’t wipe up everything that i bleed
they don’t make a maxi with wings that can fly
or a super-absorbant to soak up the rain
or the pain from cramps
or break-ups, or shake-ups
only i can do that
finger-painting hot suns with the stuff of myself
let it drip down my legs like ice cream or wax
relax into reddish-brown spot-covered sheets
and dream of my goddesses
stinking of sex and tears and sweat
with hairy pits and muddy feet
the models of feminine, womanly clean
Credit: Arjuna Greist, 2003, Odd Numbers©
(from the song)“Tampons”
Women’s bodies are different,
what a perfect market,
tell them that they’re dirty,
we will make them smell like roses.
I’m gonna take care of myself—your fucking greed makes me choke. Aisles and aisles of pretty boxes
to make us odorless, hairless, tasteless,
make us just the way they want us,
but their products will fucking kill us.
Credit: The Haggard, 2000, A Bike City Called Greasy
