This is a poem from poem book called Austerities.
It's called My Weariness of Epic Proportions.
Anyway, what can I say about the poem?
Nothing.
I'll just read it.
I like it when Achilles gets killed and even
his buddy, Patroclus, and that hard head, Hector.
And the whole Greek and Trojan jeunesse dorée
is more or less expertly slaughtered.
So there is finally peace and quiet,
the gods having momentarily shut up.
One can hear a bird sing.
And a daughter asks her mother whether she can go to the well
and of course she can, by that lovely little path that winds
through the olive orchard.
The reason I laughed while I was reading I
remembered that someone once after reading, obviously,
I have a terrible pessimist telling me,
of course you get scraped in the eyeballs.
[LAUGHTER]
And I pushed him away.
I thought this is so dark, I didn't
want to be near this vision, this idea.