|
When
I try to look into my soul
something always interrupts
like a stone dropped into a well
What
is this foolish fear in my stomach
turning like a wheel
Is it that mother will be angry
that
the universe will forget me
that the soul will be empty
an old pants pocket with a hole
what
is it
*****
answers to riddles
mother
will be angry
eternity goes forward and backward
before your birth and after your death
what
do you think you are
what do you think the soul is
what is it
*****
when
the mother is dancing
and everybody is worshiping her
then she doesn't punish
*****
hard
traveling
one thing at a time
one foot in front of the other
where are you
God
it's a damn long journey
*****
God
been gone so long
why don't you call
*****
Can't
remember why we separated
was it you who wanted freedom
was it me
Alicia
Ostriker's most recent book of poems, The Little Space: Poems
Selected and New, 1968-1998, was a finalist for both the National
Book Award and the Lenore Marshall Award of the Academy of
American Poets. Her most recent prose volume is Dancing at
the Devils Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics, and the Erotic.
Ostriker lives in Princeton, NJ, and teaches english and Creative
Writing at Rutgers University.
|
