Adrienne Rich — Reading the Iliad As If For the First Time

Lurid, garish, gash rended creature struggles to rise, to run with dripping belly Blood making everything more real pounds in the spearthruster’s arm as in the gunman’s neck the offhand moment--Now!--before he takes the bastards out Splendor in black and ochre on a grecian urn Beauty as truth The sea as background stricken with black long-oared ships on shore chariots shields greaved muscled legs horses rearing Beauty! flesh before gangrene Mind-shifting gods rush back and forth Delusion a daughter seized by the hair swung out to bewilder men Everything here is conflictual and is called man’s fate Ugly glory: open-eyed wounds feed enormous flies Hoofs slicken on bloodglaze Horses turn away their heads weeping equine tears Beauty? a wall with names of the fallen from both sides passionate objectivity.