Tonight No Poetry Will Serve

Author:Adrienne Rich
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780393075281
Publisher: W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

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Ballade of the Poverties

There’s the poverty of the cockroach kingdom and the

rusted toilet bowl

The poverty of to steal food for the first time

The poverty of to mouth a penis for a paycheck

The poverty of sweet charity ladling

Soup for the poor who must always be there for that

There’s poverty of theory poverty of swollen belly shamed

Poverty of the diploma or ballot that goes nowhere

Princes of predation let me tell you

There are poverties and there are poverties

There’s the poverty of cheap luggage bursted open at

immigration

Poverty of the turned head averted eye

The poverty of bored sex of tormented sex

The poverty of the bounced check poverty of the dumpster

dive

The poverty of the pawned horn of the smashed reading

glasses

The poverty pushing the sheeted gurney the poverty

cleaning up the puke

The poverty of the pavement artist the poverty passed out on

pavement

Princes of finance you who have not lain there

There are poverties and there are poverties

There is the poverty of hand-to-mouth and door-to-door

And the poverty of stories patched up to sell there

There’s the poverty of the child thumbing the Interstate

And the poverty of the bride enlisting for war

There is the poverty of stones fisted in pocket

And the poverty of the village bulldozed to rubble

There’s the poverty of coming home not as you left it

And the poverty of how would you ever end it

Princes of weaponry who have not ever tasted war

There are poverties and there are poverties

There’s the poverty of wages wired for the funeral you

Can’t get to the poverty of bodies lying unburied

There’s the poverty of labor offered silently on the curb

The poverty of the no-contact prison visit

There’s the poverty of yard-sale scrapings spread

And rejected the poverty of eviction, wedding bed out on street

Prince let me tell you who will never learn through words

There are poverties and there are poverties

You who travel by private jet like a housefly

Buzzing with the other flies of plundered poverties

Princes and courtiers who will never learn through words

Here’s a mirror you can look into: take it: it’s yours.

for James and Arlene Scully

2009

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