Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SEMITE, by GEORGE OPPEN


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SEMITE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: What art and anti-art to lead us by the sharpness
Subject(s): Jews; Mysticism - Judaism; Judaism


what art and anti-art to lead us by the sharpness

of its definitions connected
to all other things this is the bond

sung to all distances

my distances neither Roman

nor barbarian the sky the low sky

of poems precise
as the low sky

that women have sung from the windows
of cities sun's light

on the sills a poetry

of the narrow
end of the funnel proximity's salt gales in the narrow

end of the funnel the proofs

are the images the images
overwhelming earth

rises up

in its light nostalgia
of the mud guilts

of the foxhole what is a word a name at the limits

of devotion
to life the terrible knowledge

of deception

a lie told my loves tragically
pitifully had deceived

themselves had been betrayed

demeaned thrown away shamed
degraded

stripped naked Think

think also of the children
the guards laughing

the one pride the pride
of the warrior laughing so the hangman
comes to all dinners Aim

we tell each other the children cannot be alone whereupon murder

comes to our dinners poem born

of a planet the size

of a table top
garden forest an awning

fluttering four-lane

highway the instant

in the open the moving
edge and one
is I


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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