On the other side of the pagewhere the last days go,where the lost poems go,where the forgotten dreamsbreaking up like morning foggogogoI am preparing myself for death.I am teaching myself emptiness:the gambler’s hunger for love,the nun’s hunger for God,the child’s hunger for chocolatein the brown hoursof the dark.I am teaching myself love:the lean love of…
our solidarity,looked left, & sawMarx among the angels,singing the blues.The students march,I (spectator)follow.Here (as everywhere)the Polizeiare clean, are clean.In Frankfurt,the whores lean outtheir windows, screaming:‘Get a job – you dirtyhippies!’ Or words(auf Deutsch) to that effect.I’m also waitingfor the Revolution,friends.Surely, my poemswill get better.Surely, I’ll no longerfear my dreams.Surely I won’t murdermy capitalist fathereach nightjust…
snowed in their white lives,white lies,to write bookswith that fine frenzywhich commends geniusto posterity,yet estranges itfrom its closestfriends.Women were friends to all,& being too friendlythey could not commandthe unfriendly prerogativesof genius,though some weregeniuses still,destroyingonly themselveswith the tormentof the unfriendly ghosttrapped in a friendlyform.Oh the women who dieddissembling friendshipfor the world!Oh the women who turnedthe dagger…
over Babi Yarwith its multitude of bones,with battalions of screamsfrozen in a concrete glacier,with pillows of earthand comforters of green grasscovering all that dead flesh.Dead flesh shall live again-a dream in god’s endless night-rise green out of the earthas grass, as trees, as tomato stalksbearing a bright red fruitand the feuds of man-and womankindshall be…
in the white snow,the wind singing,the blizzard of timegoing past your eyes,it is a littlelike being snowed inin the Connecticut houseon a day when the worldgoes awayand only the white dogfollows you outto make fresh tracksin the long blue shadowof the mountain.We are all halfway there,preferring notto think about it.You went down the mountainfirst,in a…
afternoons when you cameback to me,your arms aching for me,though they smelledof other womenand your sweet head bowedfor me to ruband your heart burstingwith things to tell me,and your hairand your eyeswild.We would embraceon the carpetand leavethe imprint of our bodieson the floor.My back is still sorewhere you pressed meinto the rug,a sweet soreness I…
because in your face it says:love me, nurture me;because in your teeth it says:sugar flows to us;because in your tongue it says:drive in the spike.You can be hurtbecause you care too muchbecause your ribs swing out like shutters& your heartglows like a night light.You can be hurtbecause you need too muchbecause your skin comes off…
on the plume of smoke that risesin the air,riffling the pages of my lifeas if it were a book of poems,flipping throughpast & future.If I go back, back, back,riding the plume of smoke,I find I diedin childbirth in another life,died by fire in the life before that,died by water twice, or more.I pick out days&…
The beast in the jungle was what he saw–Edith Wharton’s obfuscating older brother. . .He fled the demonsof Manhattanfor fear they would devourhis inner ones(the ones who wrote the books)& silence the stifled screamsof his protagonists.To Europelike a wandering Jew–WASP that he was–but with the Jew’soutsider’s hunger. . .face pressed upto the glass of sexrefusing…
the primeval sack of oceanbroke,& I gave birth to youlittle woman,little carrot top,little turned-up nose,pushing you out of myselfas my motherpushedme out of herself,as her mother did,& her mother’s mother before her,all of us bornof woman.I am the second daughterof a second daughterof a second daughter,but you shall be the first.You shall see the phrase‘second…
