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I am not lyric any more I will not play the harp for your pleasure I will not make a joyful noise to you, neither will I lament for I know you drink lamentation, too, like wine so I dully repeat you hurt me I hate you I pull my eyes away from the hills I will not kill for you I will never love you again unless you ask me
Copyright © 2001 by Alicia Suskin Ostriker. Reprinted by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press. All rights reserved.
when love floods a person
it cuts
a canyon
that deepens year after year
carrying silt
away leaving
the essential person
revealed
letting everyone see
There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling
—Robert Graves, “To Juan at the Winter Solstice”
That one story worth your telling
Is the ancient tale of the encounter
With the goddess
Declares the poet Robert Graves
It is all about speed and flexibility, about speed
and flexibility and teamwork and accuracy. We move
like neurons charging in your head, man,
choreography from the ground up,
meanwhile smelling the hot asphalt and exhaust,
the chainlink fence around the playground spinning