Poet Voice: Rei Tetsumachi AKA:光の怜 Rei of Light
Divine Feast
My God has only just been born
And already he’s gone to fat
My Goddess can scarce carry him
A wink before she needs a nap
But while she rests and shores her strength
A foul conspiracy unfolds
As demons stuff the baby’s face
With tasty treats to fluff his rolls
O how my Goddess now despairs
“‘Tis not yet spring and yet he weighs
As much as two full men compared
The consequences will be grave”
She thinks about the turning wheel
A year stuck fully in the mud
A God who cannot tend the fields
A Goddess who’ll bear no more sons
She seeks the counsel of the Fates
Who nodding take their measures stern
The demons had already paid
Them well for a blind eye’s return
“Naught’s wrong, there’s no need for alarm,”
The Fates say with fey grinning smirks
She drags my God home with numb arms
And hopeless weeps into the dirt
My Goddess wakes from restless sleep
And spots the shadows swirling ’round
No longer bothering to sneak
The demons confident and proud
Savor the pregnant moment’s pause
My Goddess and her infant son
Defenseless and so fully lost
Him full of fat for fangs to munch
They hold my Goddess down to see
Them tear apart my God to feed
While slurps and chewing mix with screams
The demons moan in ecstasy
Drinking up even the splatter
No fleck yet of my God remains
Satisfied, the demons scatter
Leaving my Goddess in a daze
My God is dead, he will not age
Nor will he be reborn again
To sate their appetites, exchanged
Gone so fast, our future with him
My Goddess doesn’t move or stir
Or blink or indicate a thought
She will sit still until the world
Has ceased and even then will not
Invest another speck or dot
Of energy to this dark plane
Where demons succeeded their plot
To devour her infant babe
Let all crops fail and weather sour
Let cancers spread and complicate
Not wrath but an indifference dour
Is all my Goddess has to trade
Three demons in a trenchcoat now
Pretend to be the one true god
Wiping the bloodstains off their mouths
Proclaiming a false doctrine flawed
But never will they get the taste
Of baby plump God from their minds
Obsessed and desperate, they will blame
Each other unable to find
Again that flavor sensation
For nothing will ever compare
They’ll go mad from the fixation
And kill each other in despair
– Rei Tetsumachi
AKA: 光の怜 Rei of Light 2025
In this interview, Rei Tetsumachi AKA: 光の怜 Rei of Light reflects on the themes and inspirations behind her poem, “Divine Feast.“
Gabrielle: Did you have a particular message or theme in mind when you wrote this poem? If so, what was it?
Rei: So when I wrote it, I was thinking about the Trump inauguration. The baby God having just been born was a reference to the time of the year, the end of January. Yule, the winter solstice, is traditionally the death and rebirth of the horned God of neopaganism.
And it being that time of year, so the God still being an infant, is where I started, rather than starting with the metaphor.
Gabrielle: So when you say “A God who cannot tend the fields” Is this because he is an infant or because of something else?
Rei: She’s imagining that even when he’s come of age he won’t be able to move well for being so overweight.
Gabrielle: Shifting to the goddess, the line “She seeks the counsel of the Fates” Who are the Fates? What kind of counsel is she seeking?
Rei: The Fates are figures of Greek mythology, among others, though off the top of my head I can only think of the Norse equivalent, the Norns. They’re a trio of Goddesses who spin, measure, and cut the threads of mortal’s lives to determine their fates. She goes to them to try to find out why the God is gaining so much weight, not knowing that they’ve been paid off by the demons.
Gabrielle: The “pregnant moment’s pause” before the demons attack is so tense. What were you hoping to capture in that moment of dread?
Rei: That sense of unreality you feel when you don’t want to believe something is actually happening.
Gabrielle: Which elements of the political landscape at that time did you intend to symbolize through their “blind eye’s return”?
Rei: Oh, that’s 100% the role money plays in the current national and global political process. It represents how campaign donations and other forms of legislative financing has become the goal in and of itself for today’s politicians, rather than fighting for policies that actually help people. Instead, they sell their allegiances to the highest bidder.
Gabrielle: The demons’ ultimate descent into madness after consuming the God, despite their initial victory, suggests a self-destructive nature to their actions. How does this reflect your perception of the long-term consequences of the political events you were referencing?
Rei: All right wing policies and beliefs are inherently selfish and short-sighted, motivated by spite and cravings, and will always lead to eventual collapse.
Gabrielle: This is a powerful poem! Is there anything else you want the reader to take from it?
Rei: Thank you, I really appreciate you saying so. I suppose I would just want to stress how little this poem is exaggerating. We are past the point of no return on climate change, and populations all around the world are ignoring scientists and empowering governments to sweep evidence under the rug and continue subsidizing companies which rape the Earth. The despair in this poem is very real, and I hope it is sobering for those who read it.
