Adrienne Rich - Reading the Iliad (As If) For the First Time lyrics
[Adrienne Rich - Reading the Iliad As If For the First Time lyrics]
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
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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