april breath
of boyish red
the tongue crushes
strawberry dreams
hack away wound
and wound the fountain
and on the mouth
perspiration white
from someone's neck
a little tooth
has bit the finger
of the bride the
tabby yellow and sere
howls
the red boy
from the gable flies
an animal hearkens
in his white throat
his juice runs down
pigeon thighs
a pale sweet spike
still sticks
in woman white
lard
an april breath
of boyish red
Source: Poetry (November 2007).
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This poem originally appeared in the November 2007 issue of Poetry magazine
Recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature, Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian poet, playwright, and novelist. Born to a Catholic-Viennese mother and a Jewish-Czech father in Mürzzuschlag, Styria, Jelinek grew up in Vienna and lost many members of her family to the Holocaust.
Jelinek studied music intensively from an early age. She graduated from the Vienna Conservatory and studied theater and art history at the University of . . .
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Poems by Elfriede Jelinek