"On Finding Bloodstains in My Notebook After a Bad Party"

Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Robert Pinsky read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.

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The bloodstains on this page
are islands made asleep
by strangers. Not of my knife
or knowing, they appear
as Thule did to mariners
lost in the monstered maps
of medieval cartography.
So, however here, be here,
as proof or fiction that
a secret brother dreams
while I'm awake
and wakes up while I sleep,
as mapper, sea-self, twin,
who navigates a course for me
from here to the Bloodlust Isles
so I can wake up as a liar,
not knowing where I've been.

……………..........…….—Alan Dugan (1923-2003)
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Published by permission of the Judith Shahn estate.

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