by
Michael Waters
American
Poets Continuum Series
Darling
Vulgarity showcases Michael Waters'
long-standing aesthetic talent - the vivid and sensual poem.
Like Whitman, Waters challenges us to embrace humanity's imperfections
while, at the same time, urging us toward new spiritual realities.
Riding the confluence of idea and metaphor, these poems maintain
their psychological intensity as they evoke sharp memories and
the dynamics of emotional aftermath. Floyd Collins writes in
The Gettysburg Review, "[Waters'] language is uncompromisingly
sensual. Few poets of his generation pursue with such unstinting
ardor a conflation of narrative and lyric techniques."
Darling Vulgarity has been selected as a finalist for the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Poetry Category.
Balthus
When
the angel arrived, bare-breasted, androgynous,
its
lower half sheathed in tulle
bluer
than the plums in ceramic bowls propped on stools,
the
vetch in the studio
revived;
colors assumed blunt authority; even
yellow
became heavy. Bells
tolled
from tinny speakers: Mozart striking precise notes
with
an almost disarming
simplicity,
their grace and gravity suggesting
the
long marriage of pleasure
and
sorrow. Cosi fan tutte. I named the angel
Katia,
thus assigning
gender.
Now each brushstroke resonates with tumescence.
Black
mirror, red table, moth,
white
skirt. Nude in Front of a Mantel. Girl on Her Knees.
Sprawled
on a chair, Katia
pretends
to read a volume of sonnets by Rilke.
I
pencil in my journal:
To
assume God's face, to ponder what He incarnates:
landscape,
young girls' flesh, newly
ripe
spring fruits, trees full of sap, the sweetness of sleeping
children.
I know that this work--
a
painter's required labor-- always means redemption.
When
I look up, the angel
has
fallen asleep, but the plums, those black plums bursting
flecked
skins, have been devoured.
Copyright © 2006 BOA Editions
Available
editions:
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Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-929918-85-0
Price: $15.50
Publishing Date: September 2006
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