For This

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

If I’ve reached for your lines (I have)

like letters from the dead that stir the nerves

dowsed you for a springhead

to water my thirst

dug into my compost skeletons and petals

you surely meant to catch the light:

-at work in my wormeaten wormwood-raftered

stateless underground

have I a plea?

If I’ve touched your finger

with a ravenous tongue

licked from your palm a rift of salt

if I’ve dreamt or thought you

a pack of blood fresh-drawn

hanging darkred from a hook

higher than my heart

(you who understand transfusion)

where else should I appeal?

A pilot light lies low

while the gas jets sleep

(a cat getting toed from stove

into nocturnal ice)

language uncommon and agile as truth

melts down the most intractable silence

A lighthouse keeper’s ethics:

you tend for all or none

for this you might set your furniture on fire

A this we have blundered over

as if the lamp could be shut off at will

rescue denied for some

and still a lighthouse be

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• discovery.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• day_dream.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• cocoon_for_a_skeleton.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• cinema_screen.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• chaplin.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• Cats by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• black_on_black.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• black_morning_lovesong.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• birch_tree.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• betrayal.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• bells_pool_and_sleep.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• attack_on_the_ad_man.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• any_man_speaks.html by Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
• woken_up_by_beautiful_dreams.html by Poetry In English
• was_then.html by Poetry In English
• vestiges.html by Poetry In English
• un-chien-andalou-an-andalusian-dog.html by Poetry In English
• the_poet_angels_who_came_to_dinner.html by Poetry In English
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Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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