Prison Song

A poem by Alan Dugan

The skin ripples over my body like moon-wooed water,

rearing to escape me. Where could it find another

animal as naked as the one it hates to cover?

Once it told me what was happening outside,

who was attacking, who caressing, and what the air

was doing to feed or freeze me. Now I wake up

dark at night, in a textureless ocean of ignorance,

or fruit bites back and water bruises like a stone.

It’s jealousy, because I look for other tools to know

with, and other armor, better girded to my wish.

So let it lie, turn off the clues or try to leave:

sewn on me seamless like those painful shirts

the body-hating saints wore, the sheath of hell

is pierced to my darkness nonetheless: what traitors

labor in my face, what hints they smuggle through

its arching guard! But even in the night it jails,

with nothing but its lies and silences to feed upon,

the jail itself can make a scenery, sing prison songs,

and set off fireworks to praise a homemade day.

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Poems in English 

• The Tree Of Knowledge by Abraham Cowley
• The Thraldom by Abraham Cowley
• The Thief by Abraham Cowley
• The Spring by Abraham Cowley
• The Request by Abraham Cowley
• The Praise Of Pindar In Imitation Of Horace His Second Ode Book 4 by Abraham Cowley
• The Parting by Abraham Cowley
• The Motto by Abraham Cowley
• The Innocent Ill by Abraham Cowley
• The Heart Breaking by Abraham Cowley
• The Grasshopper by Abraham Cowley
• The Given Love by Abraham Cowley
• The Given Heart by Abraham Cowley
• The Epicure by Abraham Cowley
• The Despair by Abraham Cowley
• The Chronicle by Abraham Cowley
• The Change by Abraham Cowley
• Sport by Abraham Cowley
• Resolved To Be Loved by Abraham Cowley
• Resolved Be Loved by Abraham Cowley

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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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