Reading the Iliad (As If) For the First Time
Adrienne Rich * Track #1 On Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010
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Reading the Iliad (As If) For the First Time by Adrienne Rich
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Lurid, garish, gash
rended creature struggles to rise, to
run with dripping belly
Blood making everything more real
pounds in the spearthruster’s arm as in
the gunman’s neck the offhand
moment--Now!--before he
takes the bastards out
Splendor in black and ochre on a grecian urn
Beauty as truth
The sea as background
stricken with black long-oared ships
on shore chariots shields greaved muscled legs
horses rearing Beauty! flesh before gangrene
Mind-shifting gods rush back and forth Delusion
a daughter seized by the hair swung out to bewilder men
Everything here is conflictual and is called man’s fate
Ugly glory: open-eyed wounds
feed enormous flies
Hoofs slicken on bloodglaze
Horses turn away their heads
weeping equine tears
Beauty?
a wall with names of the fallen
from both sides passionate objectivity.
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Reading the Iliad (As If) For the First Time was written by Adrienne Rich.