[New-Poetry] R.I.P. Paul Newman

[Anny Ballardini]

a great poem, thanks.

On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 6:36 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> * *
> *This Is Not an Elegy*
>
> At sixteen, I was illegal and brilliant,
> my fingernails chewed to half-moons.
> I took off my clothes in a late March
> field. I had secret car wrecks,
> secret hysteria. I opened my mouth
> to swallow stars. In backseats
> I learned the alchemy of guilt, lust,
> and distance. I was unformed and total.
> I swore like a sailor. But slowly the cops
> stopped coming around. The heat lifted
> its palms. The radio lost some teeth.
>
> Now I see the landscape behind me
> as through a Claude glass—
> tinted deeper, framed just so, bits
> of gilt edging the best parts.
> I see my unlined face, a thousand
> film stars behind the eyes. I was
> every murderess, every whip-
> thin alcoholic, every heroine
> with the silver tongue. Always young
> Paul Newman's best girl. Always
> a lightning sky behind each kiss.
>
> Some days I watch myself
> in the third person, speak to her
> in the second. I say: I will
> meet you in sleep. I will know you
> by your stillness and your shaking.
> By your second-hand gown.
> By your bruises left by mouths
> since forgotten. This is not
> an elegy because I cannot bear
> for it to be. It is only a tree branch
> against the window. It is only a cherry
> tomato slowly reddening in the garden.
> I will put it in my mouth. It will
> be sweet, and you will swallow.
>
> --Catherine Pierce.  *Blackbird* 5.1 (Spring 2006).
> http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v5n1/poetry/pierce_c/elegy_print.htm
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
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>
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-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
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