The Nymphet Sequence
A trilogy of sonnets/double sonnets in the Miscellaneous section of Something Solid, meant to convey a sense of mystery around beauty, the body, and innocence.
A trilogy of sonnets/double sonnets in the Miscellaneous section of Something Solid, meant to convey a sense of mystery around beauty, the body, and innocence.
Nymphet
How
far can she take it, her body, her looks,
how
steep will the dare be? I watch the nymphet,
idling
behind her mother in the supermarket
line,
and wonder, do an appraisal, just as she
must
be doing a self-appraisal of her own. My
mind
moves out, runs into the brain of Yeats,
hovering
somewhere in distant space. The sage
answer
he gives is simple: it depends, in any
context
or situation to befall her, whether she
means
it or not; whether she is in earnest. What
beauty
buys is nothing if not hitched to a set heart
and
brain. She looks to me, here, as though
she
means it, alright; tying her shirt in a knot to
reveal
her midriff, caressing herself restlessly
her
body & face but her life; what it means, where
it
may go. I have to look away, but when I look
back
she’s gone. She’s left an imprint on my
imagination
about youth, possibility, eternity
(even),
worlds while they are in the process of
opening
up, which the soul can see “forever” in.
May
outside, first heat, & the revelation of what
ricochets,
here, into the ethereal. She is, I’m sure,
in
the car by now, weighed down by groceries,
mind
already past her solitary passion. My own
solitary
passion, as I walk down Butler Pike, is
merely
to register having seen something someone
else
saw (Yeats), the heaven and the hell of it, & in earnest, myself.
Monday Journal #1
Thanks again to Vlad Pogorelov and the rest of the Monday Journal crew, for all the hard work they've put into Monday Journal #2. In the interest of literary completism, here is Monday Journal #1 (2019) on Amazon.
Sacramento Poetry Center reading
My reading tonight for Sacramento Poetry Center and Monday Journal is taped,
from Plymouth Meeting.
Sacramento Poetry Center: full reading, including my segment (1(hour):33) on a video file.
Monday Journal on Amazon
The second full issue of Rocklin, California's Monday Journal, edited by Vlad Pogorelov (among others) and featuring two poems from Something Solid (Trooper, Undulant), is now available in print on Amazon. Many thanks to Vlad and the rest. Cover image presented here: Pretending to Dance Ballet, by Ed Bowers.
And the lead-up...
In the lead-up to English 271, Laura Goldstein discovered Opera Bufa at myopic books in Wicker Park, Chicago, as is explained here.
