They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people
On a movie-screen. They
Are unreal, we say:
It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we
Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round
Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice
Under the meanest table.
It was during the long hunger-battle
They found their talent to persevere
In thinness, to come, later,
Into our bad dreams, their menace
Not guns, not abuses,
But a thin silence.
Wrapped in flea-ridded donkey skins,
Empty of complaint, forever
Drinking vinegar from tin cups: they wore
The insufferable nimbus of the lot-drawn
Scapegoat. But so thin,
So weedy a race could not remain in dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victims
In the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could
Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it
Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared
The moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterate
Themselves as the dawn
Grayness blues, reddens, and the outline
Of the world comes clear and fills with color.
They persist in the sunlit room: the wallpaper
Frieze of cabbage-roses and cornflowers pales
Under their thin-lipped smiles,
Their withering kingship.
How they prop each other up!
We own no wilderness rich and deep enough
For stronghold against their stiff
Battalions. See, how the tree boles flatten
And lose their good browns
If the thin people simply stand in the forest,
Making the world go thin as a wasp's nest
And grayer; not even moving their bones.
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1 - 8 of 8
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SUCH good imagery here. xxxx
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I have this on CD, her reading it. The first time I heard her voice it was like hearing a friend speak...but different. someone who knew all my secrets yet I had never met them. It is strange to explain it.
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to me
it's about talking war itself and how society
can be cold & ruthless within a pale vision
those thin lips with a grey dimension.
Interesting read!
Bill -
I agree with Tina. Melody
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She has got to be one of my favorite poets...I have never read this one--But I have seen it in a couple books, if I remember corectly. It's scary how true this piece is...
I enjoyed reading this--Most of her work makes me sit and think about the message and meaning for awhile...
!~YS4e~!
Scarlett -
Have to agree with Tina.
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I'm going to look thta way in about five years..ok! lol
~CWM~ -
We are all mere victims. Small and gray smiling through thin lips.
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