[New-Poetry] The glass of fat, the blue flame

[Anny Ballardini]

and he is one of my favs, opps I am one of his fans, ...

From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 5:22 PM


> This is probably the first time Philip Levine was mistaken for a young
> woman!
>
>
> On 9/19/06 8:45 AM, "Anny Ballardini" <anny.ballardini at tin.it> wrote:
>
>> I read almost all the poem until I reached the name of the author, 
>> thinking
>> it was written by a young woman.
>>
>> From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 2:57 PM
>>
>>
>>> Uncle
>>>
>>> I remember the forehead born
>>> before Abraham
>>> and flecked with white paint,
>>> the two hands kneading
>>> each other at the sink.
>>> In the basement on Grand
>>> he showed me
>>> his radio,
>>> Manila, Atlantis,
>>> the cities of the burning plains,
>>> the coupons
>>> in comic books, the ads of the air.
>>> Prophet of burned cars
>>> and broken fans, he taught
>>> the toilet the eternal,
>>> argued the Talmud
>>> under his nails. The long boats
>>> with the names of winds
>>> set sail
>>> in the sea of his blind eye.
>>>
>>> How could he come
>>> humpbacked
>>> in his crisp undershirt
>>> on the front porch in black Detroit
>>> bringing in the milk,
>>> the newspaper, the bills
>>> long past noon? His truck howls
>>> all night to Benton Harbor, Saginaw,
>>> Dog of the Prairie.
>>> In the high work camps
>>> the men break toward dawn.
>>> He sleeps under a mountain.
>>> Uncle, I call you again Uncle,
>>> I come too late
>>> with a bottle of milk
>>> and a chipped cup of Schnapps
>>> to loosen your fever, undo
>>> your arms and legs
>>> so you can rise
>>> above Belle Isle and the Straits,
>>> your clear eye
>>> rid of our rooms forever,
>>> the glass of fat, the blue flame.
>>>
>>> --Philip Levine. 1933. Atheneum, 1974.
>>>
>
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
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> ====================================================