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 

• Book Fifth-Books by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Book Eleventh: France [concluded] by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Book Eighth: Retrospect–Love Of Nature Leading To Love Of Man by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• “Behold Vale! I Said, When I Shall Con” by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Beggars by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• “Avaunt All Specious Pliancy Of Mind” by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• At Applewaite, Near Keswick 1804 by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• ” As faith thus sanctified the warrior’s crest” by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Artegal And Elidure by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Anticipation, October 1803 by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Animal Tranquility And Decay by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Anecdote For Fathers by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Andrew Jones by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• “And Is It Among Rude Untutored Dales” by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• An Evening Walk by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Among All Lovely Things My Love Had Been by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Alice Fell, Or Poverty by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• After-Thought by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• “Advance – Come Forth From Thy Tyrolean Ground” by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Admonition by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth

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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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