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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
RETURN TO YESENIN, by JAMES HARRISON Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: I forgot to say that at the moment of death yesenin stood Last Line: Woods and field, well short of the mouth of your hell. Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim Subject(s): Martyrs | |||
For only in praising is my heart still mine, so violently do I know the world - RAINER MARIA RILKE, The Sonnets to Orpheus I forgot to say that at the moment of death Yesenin stood there like a misty-eyed pioneer woman trying to figure out what happened. Were the children still in the burning barn with the bawling cows? He was too sensitive for words, and the idea of a rope was a wound he couldn't stop picking at. To step back from this swinging man twisting clockwise is to see how we mine ourselves too deeply, that way down there we can break through the soul's rock into a black underground river that sweeps us away. To be frank, I'd rather live to feed my dogs, knowing the world says no in ten thousand ways and yes in only a few. The dogs don't need another weeping Jesus on the cross of Art, strumming the scars to keep them alive, tending them in a private garden as if our night-blooming tumors were fruit. I let you go for twenty years and am now only checking if you're really dead. There was an urge to put a few bullets through Nixon's coffin or a big, sharp wooden stake, and a girl told me she just saw Jimi Hendrix at an AIDS benefit in Santa Monica. How could I disbelieve her when her nipples were rosebuds, though you had to avoid the snakes in her hair. If you had hung yourself in Argentina you would have twisted counterclockwise. We can't ask if it was worth it, can we? Anymore than we can ask a whale its mother's name. Too bad we couldn't go to Mexico together and croak a few small gods back to life. I've entered my third act and am still following my songs on that thin line between woods and field, well short of the mouth of your hell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE READER OF THE SENTENCES by NORMAN DUBIE TO THE MARTYRED by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON HE GOADS HIMSELF by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE BOOK OF MARTYRS by EMILY DICKINSON THE LITANY: 10. THE MARTYRS by JOHN DONNE SONNET: 18. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT by JOHN MILTON THE HYMNARY: 403. MARTYRS by ADAM OF SAINT VICTOR EPISTLES ON THE CHARACTER AND CONDITION OF WOMEN: 3 by LUCY AIKEN IN EMULATION OF MR. COWLEYS POEM CALL'D THE MOTTO by MARY ASTELL THE IDEA OF BALANCE IS TO BE FOUND IN HERONS AND LOONS by JAMES HARRISON |
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