Inspirational Quotes Pictures: Poem-A-Day: A Greek Island by Edward Hirsch

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Poem-A-Day: A Greek Island by Edward Hirsch

at Thursday, April 25, 2013 with 0 comments

A Greek Island

by Edward Hirsch

Traveling over your body I found

The failing olive and the cajoling flute,

Where I knelt down, as if in prayer,

And sucked a moist pit

From the marl

Of the earth in a sacred cove.

You gave yourself to the god who comes,

The liberator of the loud shout,

While I fell into a trance,

Blood on my lips,

And stumbled into a temple on top

Of a hill at the bottom of the sky.

About this Poem:

"The poem takes a phrase ('C'est l'olive pâmée, et la flûte câline') from an obscene parody of Albert Mérat by Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine ('Sonnet du trou du cul') and develops it into an erotic poem. Now the body of the body becomes a sacred site, a Greek island."

Edward Hirsch

Poetry by Hirsch

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Poem-A-Day launched in 2006 and features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.

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April 25, 2013