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......... The Poetry Of.
.................. Richard Brooks
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............. Pulling It All Together
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............. There must be a way of blending
............. the unblendable, take
............. words for instance, I was at this moment
............. struck by the melancholy movement of Algonquin
............. which has nothing at all to do with fleur de lis
............. and yet, I want their flooding one into the other like
............. a hybrid thing, a daisy chain of fluid vowels
............. and consonants that in some perfect
............. time and place,
............. it just makes sense:
............. Benchley, bending over his tomato bisque
............. his tie, a field of threatened fleur de lis
............. dangled over soup
............. at the Algonquin. You were there
............. of course, decked out in
............. black-strapped heels of hell-bent Dorothy Parker
............. in a cumulative, blent moment
............. showing Einstein knew that time bends into curving
............. synchonicity, when all hearts hear the music all at once
............. and there is nothing odd about we are, we were
............. will be- when even a lily like you
............. could grow in such Algonquin clod: the balding,
............. bespectacled
............. Benchley brusque of me.
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.............. Spanish Moss
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.............. Lazy stretch of dusty roads that
.............. baked in unmitigated heat, the August
.............. that I traveled with the Christian Players
.............. through a ribbon of the south. I was a prop man
.............. not an actor, not a lothario
.............. like Danny Devereaux, who followed Cassie Baker
.............. like the hound that he was, and I think she may have
.............. petted him somewhere on a languid Louisiana
.............. weekend we were free to see the
.............. local color, but so buried in the boonies that the color of her
.............. underwear
.............. is what he saw I'll bet; that
.............. son of a bitch, I hate him
.............. to this day. Old dogs die hard.
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.............. Glimpses
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.............. I like the phrase: 'nice turn of ankle'
.............. -ladylike, and quaint. It conjures petticoats and parasols
.............. afternoons with sailboats on a bluewhite lake
.............. but most of what I see is what we ain't; it makes me
.............. homesick for a time I never knew but in my heart, I am
.............. Seurat. I understand a thirst known only in it's feint
.............. -how things gone blurry or half seen
.............. are what we see with most fidelity: a clip of moon
.............. through cloud, a woman's ankle
.............. for the woman not allowed.
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