ISSN 1758-6488
|
Wires Poetry |
print view |
Lyric 2
If I spoke to you directly ---not like this,
crushed into lines and rhymes ----
but from my whole heart , even Racine
or Shakespeare could not cope with it !
‘Everyone wept, with poison in their blood.
They wept to see a snake among the roses.’
But Phaedra had only one Hyppolitus,
and Ariadne only wept for Theseus---
while in losing you, I have lost
everything I love, I am adrift,
there is no shore, no boundary to pain---
everyone whoever lived is forfeit.
What can I hope for now? The very air
I breathe is so accustomed to you.
My own bones have grown into a prison,
lonely as Naxos --- my blood is the Styx.
Vanity ! In me—and everywhere!
To close my eyes against it has no meaning
----since there is no daylight--- and besides
the date on the calendar is lying…
and when you--- break off like this---
I am no Ariadne , no Phaedra.
Only loss !
Over which seas, in what cities
shall I look for you ? ( A blind
search for the invisible). I must
rely on wires, and weep at every pole.
18 March 1923
2
