Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


NATIVITY by KATHLEEN JESSIE RAINE

Poet Analysis

First Line: FIENDS TEAR ME TO BLOOD
Last Line: AS THE LACK OF LOVE.
Subject(s): CHRISTMAS; DEATH; LOVE; NATIVITY, THE; DEAD, THE;

Fiends tear me to blood
And slivers of torment
In my marrow they grind
My lungs they heave,
My wrists they nail,
In my head they beat,
My head they beat
Against the world.

Sorrow slides and stirs
Under my breast,
Sucks at my heart
With mouth of hell.

I have conceived a stone
That weighs me down,
That falls through me
Slimed with hot blood
My stone is born,
The wood, the bone,
The dumb, the hard,
The heavy, the dead
Has rent the womb.

Through the hole in my body
I bleed away
Through a void as vast
As the lack of love.



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