WEBVTT

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So I'm going to share with
you a couple of new poems

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before I leave you.

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And this is part of a collection
that I really have just begun

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working on the last few months.

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They're pretty new, and the
collection is tentatively

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titled Medium, and what
I want to do is explore--

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so give what voice
I can to the voices

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of a variety of different
historical women

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who have been mediums, or have
been sort of in touch with--

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and I conceive of this
in different ways,

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either spiritual,
or intellectual,

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or biological
aspects of experience

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that either they or the
sociopolitical moment

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of their time deems beyond them.

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So this first poem I'm
going to share with you is--

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take this medium
title rather literally

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and it's called
"The Sybil Speaks."

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They come.

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For centuries they've come.

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And for what?

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A voice is an
opening, nothing more.

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A hesitation between breath
and word, idea and form.

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A hesitation that
seizes, that takes

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hold as the flickering of the
flame, a sudden gust of wind,

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or a brief embrace.

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Yes, for centuries.

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In the name of peace, of war, of
love, and of bitterest revenge,

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I've been entreated.

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For centuries, heated and
ignored, flattered and defiled,

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scolded and praised.

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I've been approached at
every hour, from every angle,

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and by every manner of man,
of whom I will say only this,

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there has been
very little shame.

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And yet still, they
come slowly, or careful

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not to look me in the eye.

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Know enough to whisper when
they beg for directions

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to the entrance of hell,
and yet still, they

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need a door, a mad woman, a
way of marking the distance

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between my voice and theirs.

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Between language that speaks,
and the sound that wind

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makes as it whistles through
the cracks and hollow stone.

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Between what exists, what
is, and what war, fierce war,

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I say.

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I see the Tiber, the Euphrates,
the Yangtze, the Nile.

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I see the Mekong, the Volga, the
Gila, and the Mississippi River

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all flooded with blood.

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Go ahead.

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Call it something.

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Give it a name.

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That which glides like a
wave that never breaks,

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or a horizon that
can never be drawn,

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that which has no point of view
cannot therefore be entered,

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let alone exited from, let
alone measured or claimed.

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And yet still, they
feed me on bulls

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from the field, raised
corn and the blood

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of their own daughters and sons.

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Still, they need a door.

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An entrance and permission to
enter, an exit and the idea

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of return.

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They need a finger to
point with, and rage.

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They need a body, and
a hole in that body.

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They need to hear the wind
whip through my open jaw.

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Look, you here, lingering at the
chipped rock of the open door.

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Afraid like all the others.

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Listen to the wind,
and to the voices

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outside, to animals in
heat, gulls in flight,

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children laughing or being born.

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Smell the stench of meat on
the altar of wood burning,

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of the dampness of
grass after heavy rain.

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Feel the pang of hunger and
the first tremors of love.

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Taste salt and bread, fear
and longing, water, wine

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and the bitterness
of another's tears.

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I cannot reveal anymore.

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I can only address you.

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You, who have come, like
all the others have come.

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