A month from now, on March 7, CavanKerry Press will publish a new book of my poems, The History Hotel. I will put up one poem from the book on Substack over the course of the next four Tuesdays. For me, over decades, poetry has been a means of piercing the veil of suffering and bringing me face-to-face with a welter of spiritual, political, historical, and earthy concerns, of making real how tragicomic life is to me. Here is the first of the four poems from The History Hotel:
Selfie
After taking a picture of herself
Nude, standing up, to send
To her boyfriend, she started crying—
Pleasure and pride dissolving
In the instant glow, the pang of me/not me
Exploding, grief for what lay inside,
Unphotographed yet leading
Its own stark life that wanted to be seen—
Her soul-sense—but never would
Or could, her revealed beauty blocking
A deep, unuttered magnificence—
Perhaps what he adored even
More than the breasts and thatch of hair
And winsome, sixteen-year-old smile,
All that stood within her given name
And that a year later would entice
Random World Wide Web comers,
This body blazing forth the call
Of one love, the many betrayals.
Looking forward to the book!!
Heartbreak Hotel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT7gcUEX_Dc