Victory

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

 

Something spreading underground won’t speak to us

under skin won’t declare itself

not all life-forms want dialogue with the

machine-gods in their drama hogging down

the deep bush clear-cutting refugees

from ancient or transient villages into

our opportunistic fervor to search

crazily for a host a lifeboat

 

Suddenly instead of art we’re eyeing

organisms traced and stained on cathedral transparencies

cruel blues embroidered purples succinct yellows

a beautiful tumor

 

•

 

I guess you’re not alone I fear you’re alone

There’s, of course, poetry:

awful bridge rising over naked air: I first

took it as just a continuation of the road:

“a masterpiece of engineering

praised, etc.” then on the radio:

“incline too steep for ease of, etc.”

Drove it nonetheless because I had to

this being how— So this is how

I find you: alive and more

 

•

 

As if (how many conditionals must we suffer?)

I’m driving to your side

—an intimate collusion—

packed in the trunk my bag of foils for fencing with pain

glasses of varying spectrum for sun or fog or sun-struck

rain or bitterest night my sack of hidden

poetries, old glue shredding from their spines

 

my time exposure of the Leonids

over Joshua Tree

 

As if we’re going to win this O because

 

•

 

If you have a sister I am not she

nor your mother nor you my daughter

nor are we lovers or any kind of couple

except in the intensive care

of poetry and

death’s master plan architecture-in-progress

draft elevations of a black-and-white mosaic dome

the master left on your doorstep

with a white card in black calligraphy:

Make what you will of this

As if leaving purple roses

 

•

 

If (how many conditionals must we suffer?)

I tell you a letter from the master

is lying on my own doorstep

glued there with leaves and rain

and I haven’t bent to it yet

if I tell you I surmise

he writes differently to me:

 

Do as you will, you have had your life

many have not

 

signing it in his olden script:

 

Meister aus Deutschland

 

•

 

In coldest Europe end of that war

frozen domes iron railings frozen stoves lit in the

streets

memory banks of cold

 

the Nike of Samothrace

on a staircase wings in blazing

backdraft said to me

: : to everyone she met

Displaced, amputated never discount me

 

Victory

indented in disaster striding

at the head of stairs

 

for Tory Dent

 

 

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Poems in English

 

• In Commendation Of Musick by William Strode by William Strode
• Her Epitaph by William Strode by William Strode
• For A Gentleman, Who, Kissinge His Friend At His Departure Left A Signe Of Blood On Her by William Strode by William Strode
• Epitaph On Mr. Bridgeman by William Strode by William Strode
• Consolatorium, Ad Parentes by William Strode by William Strode
• Chloris in the Snow by William Strode by William Strode
• Anthem For Good Fryday by William Strode by William Strode
• An Epitaph On Sr John Walter, Lord Cheife Baron by William Strode by William Strode
• An Epitaph On Mr. Fishborne The Great London Benefactor, And His Executor by William Strode by William Strode
• An Eare-Stringe by William Strode by William Strode
• An Antheme by William Strode by William Strode
• A Watch-String by William Strode by William Strode
• A Watch Sent Home To Mrs. Eliz: King, Wrapt In Theis Verses by William Strode by William Strode
• A Translation Of The Nightingale Out Of Strada by William Strode by William Strode
• A Superscription On Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, Sent For A Token by William Strode by William Strode
• A Strange Gentlewoman Passing By His Window by William Strode by William Strode
• A Song On The Baths by William Strode by William Strode
• A Song On A Sigh by William Strode by William Strode
• A Riddle: On A Kiss by William Strode by William Strode
• A Purse-String by William Strode by William Strode

 

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Dealing Monster

 

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