Adrienne Rich - Waking in the Dark lyrics

1. The thing that arrests me is how we are composed of molecules (he showed me the figure in the paving stones) arranged without our knowledge and consent like the wirephoto composed of millions of dots in which the man from Bangladesh walks starving on the front page knowing nothing about it which is his presence for the world 2. We were standing in line outside of something two by two, or alone in pairs, or simply alone, looking into windows full of scissors, windows full of shoes. The street was closing, the city was closing, would we be the lucky ones to make it? They were showing in a gla** case, the Man Without A Country. We held up our pa**ports in his face, we wept for him. They are dumping animal blood into the sea to bring up the sharks. Sometimes every aperture of my body leaks blood. I don't know whether to pretend that this is natural. Is there a law about this, a law of nature? You worship the blood you call it hysterical bleeding you want to drink it like milk you dip your finger into into it and write you faint at the smell of it you dream of dumping me into the sea. 3. The tragedy of s** lies around us, a woodlot the axes are sharpened for. The old shelters and huts stare through the clearing with a certain resolution —the hermit's cabin, the hunters' shack— scenes of masturbationand dirty jokes. A man's world. But finished. They themselves have sold it to the machines. I walk the unconscious forest, a woman dressed in old army fatigues that have shrunk to fit her, I am lost at moments, I feel dazed by the sun pawing between the trees, cold in the bog and lichen of the thicket. Nothing will save this. I am alone, kicking the last rotting logs with their strange smell of life, not d**h, wondering what on earth it all might have become. 4. Clarity,spray blinding and purging spears of sun striking the water the bodies riding the air like gliders the bodies in slow motion falling into the pool at the Berlin Olympics control; loss of control the bodies rising arching back to the tower time reeling backward clarity of open air before the dark chambers with the shower-heads the bodies falling again freelyfaster than light the water opening like air like realization A woman made this film against the law of gravity 5. All night dreaming of a body space weighs on differently from mine We are making love in the street the traffic flows off from us pouring back like a sheet the asphalt stirs with tenderness there is no dismay we move together like underwater plants Over and over, starting to wake I dive back to discover you still whispering, touch me, we go on streaming through the slow city light forest ocean stirring our body hair But this is the saying of a dream on waking I wish there were somewhere actual we could stand handing the power-gla**es back and forth looking at the earth, the wildwood where the split began