of Rainer Maria Rilke's "The Dwarf's Song"
My soul itself may be straight and good;
ah, but my heart, my bent-over blood,
all the distortions that hurt me inside---
it buckles under these things.
It has no garden, it has no sun,
it hangs on my twisted skeleton
and, terrified, flaps its wings.
Nor are my hands of much use. Look here:
see how shrunken and shapeless they are:
clumsily hopping, clammy and fat,
like toads after the rain.
And everything else about me is torn,
sad and weather-beaten and worn;
why did God ever hesitate
to flush it all down the drain?
Is it because he's angry at me
for my face with its moping lips?
It was so often ready to be
light and clear in its depths;
but nothing came so close to it
as big dogs did.
And dogs don't have what I need.
My Improv':
The Pretty Woman's Song
My heart itself may be charred and wicked.
It has no desires for flowers or love letters, no
lyrics or lines written in a metaphor for her
name--a lie. Why did God ever hesitate
to make Eve from a bone of man, when he,
who foresees all things, knew she would be the one
to destroy a man with grace, with a feigned
shyness of eye. Her body is like a garden, an affair
of innocence--but she sleeps naked, coiled, flicks
her serpent tongue.
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