The Phenomenology of Anger by Adrienne Rich Lyrics
1. The freedom of the wholly mad
to smear & play with her madness
write with her fingers dipped in it
the length of a room
which is not, of course, the freedom
you have, walking on Broadway
to stop & turn back or go on
10 blocks; 20 blocks
but feels enviable maybe
to the compromised
curled in the placenta of the real
which was to feed & which is strangling her.
2. Trying to light a log that’s lain in the damp
as long as this house has stood:
even with dry sticks I can’t get started
even with thorns.
I twist last year into a knot of old headlines
—this rose won’t bloom.
How does a pile of rags the machinist wiped his hands on
feel in its cupboard, hour upon hour?
Each day during the heat-wave
they took the temperature of the haymow.
I huddled fugitive
in the warm sweet simmer of the hay
muttering: Come.
3. Flat heartland of winter.
The moonmen come back from the moon
the firemen come out of the fire.
Time without a taste: time without decisions.
Self-hatred, a monotone in the mind.
The shallowness of a life lived in exile
even in the hot countries.
Cleaver, staring into a window full of knives.
4. White light splits the room.
Table. Window. Lampshade. You.
My hands, stick in a new way.
Menstrual blood
seeming to leak from your side.
Will the judges try to tell me
which was the blood of whom?
4. Madness. Suicide. Murder.
Is there no way out but these?
The enemy, always just out of sight
snowshoeing the next forest, shrouded
in a snowy blur, abominable snowman
—at once the most destructive
and the most elusive being
gunning down the babies at My Lai
vanishing in the face of confrontation.
The prince of air and darkness
computing body counts, masturbating
in the factory
of facts.
6. Fantasies of murder: not enough:
to kill is to cut off from pain
but the killer goes on hurting
Not enough. When I dream of meeting
the enemy, this is my dream:
white acetylene
ripples from my body
effortlessly released
perfectly trained
on the true enemy
raking his body down to the thread
of existence
burning away his lie
leaving him in a new
world; a changed
man
7. I suddenly see the world
as no longer viable:
you are out there burning the crops
with some new sublimate
This morning you left the bed
we still share
and went out to spread impotence
upon the world
I hate you.
I hate the mask you wear, your eyes
assuming a depth
they do not possess, drawing me
into the grotto of your skull
the landscape of bone
I hate your words
they make me think of fake
revolutionary bills
crisp imitation parchment
they sell at battlefields.
Last night, in this room, weeping
I asked you: what are you feeling?
do you feel anything?
Now in the torsion of your body
as you defoliate the fields we lived from
I have your answer.
8. Dogeared earth. Wormeaten moon.
A pale cross-hatching of silver
lies like a wire screen on the black
water. Al these phenomena
are temporary.
I would have loved to live in a world
of women and men gaily
in a collusion with green leaves, stalks,
building mineral cities, transparent domes,
little huts of woven grass
each with its own pattern—
a conspiracy to coexist
with the Crab Nebula, the exploding
universe, the Mind—
9. The only real love I have ever felt
was for children and other women.
Everything else was lust, pity,
self-hatred, pity, lust.
This is a woman’s confession.
Now, look again at the face
of Boticelli’s Venus, Kali,
the Judith of Chartres
with her so-called smile.
10. how we are burning up our lives
testimony:
the subway
hurtling to Brooklyn
her head on her knees
asleep or drugged
la vía del tren subterráneo
es peligrosa
many sleep
the whole way
others sit
staring holes of fire into the air
others plan rebellion:
night after night
awake in prison, my mind
licked at the mattress like a flame
till the cellblock went up roaring
Thoreau setting fire to the woods
Every act of becoming conscious
(it says here in this book)
is an unnatural act
to smear & play with her madness
write with her fingers dipped in it
the length of a room
which is not, of course, the freedom
you have, walking on Broadway
to stop & turn back or go on
10 blocks; 20 blocks
but feels enviable maybe
to the compromised
curled in the placenta of the real
which was to feed & which is strangling her.
2. Trying to light a log that’s lain in the damp
as long as this house has stood:
even with dry sticks I can’t get started
even with thorns.
I twist last year into a knot of old headlines
—this rose won’t bloom.
How does a pile of rags the machinist wiped his hands on
feel in its cupboard, hour upon hour?
Each day during the heat-wave
they took the temperature of the haymow.
I huddled fugitive
in the warm sweet simmer of the hay
muttering: Come.
3. Flat heartland of winter.
The moonmen come back from the moon
the firemen come out of the fire.
Time without a taste: time without decisions.
Self-hatred, a monotone in the mind.
The shallowness of a life lived in exile
even in the hot countries.
Cleaver, staring into a window full of knives.
4. White light splits the room.
Table. Window. Lampshade. You.
My hands, stick in a new way.
Menstrual blood
seeming to leak from your side.
Will the judges try to tell me
which was the blood of whom?
4. Madness. Suicide. Murder.
Is there no way out but these?
The enemy, always just out of sight
snowshoeing the next forest, shrouded
in a snowy blur, abominable snowman
—at once the most destructive
and the most elusive being
gunning down the babies at My Lai
vanishing in the face of confrontation.
The prince of air and darkness
computing body counts, masturbating
in the factory
of facts.
6. Fantasies of murder: not enough:
to kill is to cut off from pain
but the killer goes on hurting
Not enough. When I dream of meeting
the enemy, this is my dream:
white acetylene
ripples from my body
effortlessly released
perfectly trained
on the true enemy
raking his body down to the thread
of existence
burning away his lie
leaving him in a new
world; a changed
man
7. I suddenly see the world
as no longer viable:
you are out there burning the crops
with some new sublimate
This morning you left the bed
we still share
and went out to spread impotence
upon the world
I hate you.
I hate the mask you wear, your eyes
assuming a depth
they do not possess, drawing me
into the grotto of your skull
the landscape of bone
I hate your words
they make me think of fake
revolutionary bills
crisp imitation parchment
they sell at battlefields.
Last night, in this room, weeping
I asked you: what are you feeling?
do you feel anything?
Now in the torsion of your body
as you defoliate the fields we lived from
I have your answer.
8. Dogeared earth. Wormeaten moon.
A pale cross-hatching of silver
lies like a wire screen on the black
water. Al these phenomena
are temporary.
I would have loved to live in a world
of women and men gaily
in a collusion with green leaves, stalks,
building mineral cities, transparent domes,
little huts of woven grass
each with its own pattern—
a conspiracy to coexist
with the Crab Nebula, the exploding
universe, the Mind—
9. The only real love I have ever felt
was for children and other women.
Everything else was lust, pity,
self-hatred, pity, lust.
This is a woman’s confession.
Now, look again at the face
of Boticelli’s Venus, Kali,
the Judith of Chartres
with her so-called smile.
10. how we are burning up our lives
testimony:
the subway
hurtling to Brooklyn
her head on her knees
asleep or drugged
la vía del tren subterráneo
es peligrosa
many sleep
the whole way
others sit
staring holes of fire into the air
others plan rebellion:
night after night
awake in prison, my mind
licked at the mattress like a flame
till the cellblock went up roaring
Thoreau setting fire to the woods
Every act of becoming conscious
(it says here in this book)
is an unnatural act