Litany (for Kathy Acker) by Diane di Prima our lady of maggots our lady of killing fields our lady of Auschwitz our lady of Philadelphia our lady of Paterson our lady of junkies our lady of second-story men our lady of car thieves our lady of casinos our lady of the Federal Reserve our lady of the World Bank our lady of the IMF our lady of paupers our lady of pimps our lady of smugglers our lady of yellowjackets our lady of termites our lady of bankruptcy our lady of ergot our lady of labyrinths our lady of ayahuasca our lady of prisons our lady of wardens our lady of hellholes our lady of stillbirths our lady of hydrocephalus our lady of child [ ] fever our lady of seeds our lady of cystic fibrosis our lady of lupus our gentle lady of pain our lady of torturers our lady, the Inquisition our lady of the smug our lady of the homeless our homeless lady our lady of broken pots our lady, frayed hems our blue lady of the Night of Time our lady of the dirge our lady of the flamenco our lady, the duende our lady of the dancehall our lady of reggae our lady of disco our lady of hustlers our lady of johns our lady of whores our lady of filthy rivers our lady of trash in the harbor our lady of stilettos our lady of the nuclear dump our lady of bars our lady of shackles our lady of iron beds our lady of death row our most legal and judicious lady lady of jurors and judges lady of burning slums lady of those who pray lady of those who weep lady of those who wait lady of those who organize lady of covert action lady of assassination lady of bloody churches lady of crossroads our lady of the lost our lady of the the drowned our lady of zombies our lady of unburied corpses our lady of whispers our lady of mysterious deaths our lady of the rainforest our lady of the macaques our lady of the great apes our lady of orangs our lady of three-horned lizards our lady of lost epics our lady of trance our lady of the possessed our possessed lady our lady the writer our lady the written our lady, oy-yah! our lady [ ] our lady of genetic engineering our lady of biological warfare our lady of the drug lords our lady of child prostitutes our lady of day traders our lady of furriers our lady of poachers our lady of hot blood our lady of pederasts our smiling lady with fangs our lady of the robots our necrophiliac lady our lady of black wine our lady of the buffer zone our lady of lost cities our lady of buried towers our lady of burned mosques our lady of toxic swamps our lady of the deadly oceans our lady of East Timor our lady of the wasted Taiga our lady of Kosovo and Chechnya our lady of Tashkent our lady who never sleeps our lady of Compton our lady of Cleveland our lady of Watts our lady of Oakland our lady of Harlem our lady of Detroit our lady of Chicago our lady of Rio and Caracas and Lima our lady of paralysis our lady of starvation our lady of slave camps our silent lady of millions of nameless children our lady of the pure waters of Sumeria our lady of the deadly waters of Iraq our Shiite lady our lady of the P.L.O. our Sunese lady our lady of the Inuit Inanna, our lady lady of the ghost dance lady who never sleeps our lady of the mosh pit our lady of heavy metal our lady of Satanists our lady of Christians our lady of Pelican Bay our lady of the noose our lady of the guillotine our lady of electric chairs our lady of lethal injections our lady of appeals last hope, Executioner Lady lady of final meals lady of last cigarettes our lady the sacredness of all death oh, lady, bury your [ ] our lady the gatekeeper who stands in the ten directions our lady of banners our lady of slogans lady with many eyes lady with whips and lassos lady of great charm our lady of rags our lady of lost ritual our lady the coven our lady of cults and sex our lady of Fiji our lady of Tahiti our lady of Samoa our lady the Orkneys our lady of megaliths our lady of hidden graves our lady of barrows our lady of winter light our lady the threshold our lady the hinge our lady the funeral march that circles the globe lady of rough trade lady of transvestite truck drivers our butch lady, drinking bourbon in Spokane our lady, hitchhiking from Billings to Bozeman in a blizzard our lady of Belize our lady of the Mardi Gras our lady of crepe de chine hairdresser lady our lady of artifice our Gibson Girl lady [ ] lady our lady of the Charleston our lady of the Twist our lady of Jamaican grass our lady of skag our lady of mushrooms our lady of black mold our lady of soma lysergic acid lady our lady of slim sharp crystals our lady of mescaline our crystal lady lady of crystal meth our lady of the ecstatic rush our lady of instant death our lady of hair-trigger taste our lady of the burst blood vessel our lady the whirlwind in the brain our lady of rat soup our lady of dog stew our lady of fried locusts crusted with salt our lady of the feast our lady the feast our lady of the secret ways of the red ant our lady of the secret gnosis of the gopher our lady of arsenic our lady of strychnine our lady the death moth our lady of the death grin rigor mortis our lady of mass graves our lady Sekhmet, who [ ] the night our lady [ ], who is the open door our lady of sirens our lady of ambulances our lady of geiger counters our lady of plutonium our lady of uranium tailings, whose death never leaves us our lady the black widow our lady the brown recluse our lady Fatima our lady who was boss of Mohammed and later, his wife lady of lost Iraqi children lady of broken cuneiform tablets lady of prayers crushed to powder lady of ancient tomb oh lady of largest heart our lady of black [ ] our lady of lost tribes reggae lady disco lady goth lady of purple hair and silver crosses our lady the [ ] our lady the [ ] our lady the [ ] our lady of the brotherhood of the free spirit our lady who blazes in gold in the barren thorn tree Hell’s Angels lady gunslinger lady bull rider lady lady of large buttocks lady of loud voice our lady the Beguine our lady of Andorra our lady the [ ] our lady the friable earth our lady the foliated whiteness our lady the breached garden our lady the broken wall our lady of battlements our lady in armor our lady the red stone, like clear dark menstrual blood our lady the red tree in the crucible our lady who hurled the rock from the walls of Toulouse our lady who sank the treasure in a stream our lady of [ ] our lady of [ ] our lady of Venice and Damascus our lady of the hidden cup our lady on the [ ] our lady Billie our lady Bessie our lady Janis, Etta, Coco our lady of oratorios our lady of secret syllables our lady of ahhhhhhh