7/27/22, 7:47 PM Carol 

Ann Duffy – Medusa | Genius

Medusa
Release Date View All
1993 Credits  
Carol Ann Duffy
Track 15 on The World’s Wife  

The World’s Wife

The collection
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of poems by Promote
Carol Your Music
Ann Duffy Sign Up Search lyrics & more

entitled The World’s Wife was

first published in 1999 and
presents stories, myths, fairy tales
and characters in… Read More   1 275.9K 56 11

Medusa Lyrics

A suspicion, a doubt,
a jealousy

grew in my mind,

which turned the

hairs on my head to
filthy snakes

as though my
thoughts

hissed and spat on

my scalp.

My bride’s breath
soured, stank

in the grey bags of

my lungs.
I’m foul mouthed
now, foul tongued,

yellow fanged.

There are bullet tears

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7/27/22, 7:47 PM Carol Ann Duffy – Medusa | Genius

in my eyes.

Are you terrified?

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Be terrified.

It’s you I love,

perfect man, Greek

God, my own;

but I know you’ll go,

betray me, stray

from home.

So better be for me
if you were stone.

I glanced at a
buzzing bee,

a dull grey pebble

fell

to the ground.

I glanced at a singing
bird,

a handful of dusty
gravel

spattered down.

I looked at a ginger
cat,

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7/27/22, 7:47 PM Carol Ann Duffy – Medusa | Genius

a housebrick

shattered a bowl of
milk.

I looked at a
snuffling pig,

a boulder rolled

in a heap of shit.

I stared in the mirror.

Love gone bad

showed me a
Gorgon.

I stared at a dragon.

Fire spewed

from the mouth of a

mountain.

And here you come

with a shield for a

heart

and a sword for a

tongue

and your girls, your

girls.

Wasn’t I beautiful

Wasn’t I fragrant and

young?

Look at me now
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7/27/22, 7:47 PM Carol Ann Duffy – Medusa | Genius
Look at me now.

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The World’s Wife

The collection of poems by

Carol Ann Duffy entitled
The World’s Wife was first
published in 1999 and
presents stories, myths,
fairy tales and characters in
Western culture from the
point of view of women,
very often giving voice to
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The World’s
Wife (1999)
Carol Ann Duffy

1. Little Red 16. The

Cap Devil’s
Wife
2. Thetis
17. Circe
3. Queen
Herod 18. Mrs.
Lazarus
4. Mrs
Midas 19. Pygmalion’s
Bride
5. From Mrs
Tiresias 20. Mrs Rip
Van
6. Pilate’s Winkle
Wife
21. Mrs
7. Mrs Icarus
Aesop
22. Frau
8. Mrs Freud
Darwin
23. Salome
9. Mrs
Sisyphus 24. Eurydice

10. Mrs 25. The

Faust Kray
Sisters
11. Delilah
26. Elvis’s
12. Anne Twin
Hathaway Sister

13. Queen 27. Pope

Kong Joan

14. Mrs 28. Penelope

Quasimodo
29. Mrs
15. Medusa Beast

30. Demeter

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7/27/22, 7:47 PM Carol Ann Duffy – Medusa | Genius

Credits
Written By Release Date
Carol Ann 1993
Duffy

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Non-Music

Greek Mythology

Literature

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