Shattered Head

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

A life hauls itself uphill

through hoar-mist steaming

the sun’s tongue licking

leaf upon leaf into stricken liquid

When? When? cry the soothseekers

but time is a bloodshot eye

seeing its last of beauty its own

foreclosure

a bloodshot mind

finding itself unspeakable

What is the last thought?

Now I will let you know?

or, Now I know?

(porridge of skull-splinters, brain tissue

mouth and throat membrane, cranial fluid)

Shattered head on the breast

of a wooded hill

Laid down there endlessly so

tendrils soaked into matted compose

became a root

torqued over the faint springhead

groin whence illegible

matter leaches: worm-borings, spurts of silt

volumes of sporic changes

hair long blown into far follicles

blasted into a chosen place

Revenge on the head (genitals, breast, untouched)

revenge on the mouth

packed with its inarticulate confessions

revenge on the eyes

green-gray and restless

revenge on the big and searching lips

the tender tongue

revenge on the sensual, on the nose the

carrier of history

revenge on the life devoured

in another incineration

You can walk by such a place, the earth is

made of them

where the stretched tissue of a field or woods

is humid

with beloved matter

the soothseekers have withdrawn

you feel no ghost, only a sporic chorus

when that place utters its worn sigh

let us have peace

And the shattered head answers back

And I believed I was loved, I believed I loved

Who did this to us?

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Poems in English 

• Olney Hymn 50: The Christian by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 5: Jehovah-Shalom: The Lord Send Peace by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 48: Joy And Peace In Believing by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 47: The Hidden Life by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 45: The Happy Change by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 43: Prayer For Patience by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 40: Peace After A Storm by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 4: Jehovah-Nissi: The Lord My Banner by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 39: The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 38: Looking Upwards In A Storm by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 36: Afflictions Sanctified By The Word by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 34: The Waiting Soul by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 33: Seeking The Beloved by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 32: The Shining Light by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 31: On The Death Of A Minister by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 30: The Light And Glory Of The Word by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 3: Jehovah-Rophi: I Am the Lord That Healeth Thee by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 29: Exhortation To Prayer by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 28: Jesus Hasting To Suffer by William Cowper by William Cowper
• Olney Hymn 27: Welcome To The Table by William Cowper by William Cowper

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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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