Exiles
by Marilyn Hacker
Her brown falcon perches above the sink
as steaming water forks over my hands.
Below the wrists they shrivel and turn pink.
I am in exile in my own land.
Her half-grown cats scuffle across the floor
trailing a slime of blood from where they fed.
I lock the door. They claw under the door.
I am an exile in my own bed.
Her spotted mongrel, bristling with red mange,
sleeps on the threshold of the Third Street bar
where I drink brandy as the couples change.
I am in exile where my neighbors are.
On the pavement, cans of ashes burn.
Her green lizard scuttles from the light
around torn cardboard charred to glowing fern.
I am in exile in my own sight.
Her blond child sits on the stoop when I come
back at night. Cold hands, blue lids; we both
need sleep. She tells me she is going to die.
I am in exile in my own youth.
Lady of distances, this fire, this water,
this earth makes sanctuary where I stand.
Call of your animals and your blond daughter,
I am in exile in my own hands.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Владимир Высоцкий – И душа, и голова, кажись, болит
- Effrontery by Satish Verma
- The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) poem – Alexander Pope
- A Man Young And Old: I. First Love by William Butler Yeats
- Robert Burns Country: In The Character Of A Ruined Farmer:
- The Hon. Sec. poem – John Betjeman poems
- from The Cave of Making by W H Auden
- Олег Григорьев – Григорьев Олег ел тыкв
- The Child and the Mariner by William Henry Davies
- The Companionable Ills by Sylvia Plath
- Give me a doctor by W H Auden
- A Woman Unconscious by Ted Hughes
- Day’s Rain Is Done poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Алексей Плещеев – Песня
- The Stones by Sylvia Plath
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
