| excerpts from
Coastal Nights and Inland Afternoons Poems 2001-2006 by Al Young Al Young's recent poetry is collected in Coastal Nights and Inland Afternoons – where you'll find these, and more. He is California's Poet Laureate. Notes on the Future of Love Meanwhile over in yet another time zone, somewhere between Iraq and another place hard hit, the most toxic of gumbos thickens. To the poisoned Kool-Aid taste of homemade sin, answers-in-progress stack but don't add up. With every putrid breath you take, hope dissolves into streaming re-runs of hell and high water. In Chinese, in Czech, in Arabic or Albanian, in Japanese or German, does the Sermon on the Mount still count? And does it say still: Thou shall not kill? In your cozy time zone, sandwiched now somehow between Iraq and another place hard hit, where do you come down on the future of love? The Elvis I Knew Well Was Spiritual The Elvis I knew well was spiritual. The books he'd read on mystics, yoga, Jung and Jesus, Buddha – long before your digital technology kicked in and Mao Tse-Tung became an icon you could click – he tried to buy enlightenment. He thought a check might do the trick: big bucks, love-tendered, wide and blank. No deal. No Ouija board, no deck of tarot cards could trump his fate. His star beamed underneath (or far beyond) the God he knew as blackness, gospel, blues. As far as light-years went, Elvis could ride and nod. He couldn't get high on glory, glamour, fame. Blissless, he drugged you with his moves, his name. Enjoy these poems? Why not buy the book already! |
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