Bonfire Opera: Poems - Danusha Lameris

nPoems In Praise of the Impossible, Wild World and Its Beauty n Sometimes the most compelling landscapes are the ones where worlds collide: where a desert meets the sea, a civilization, no-man's land. Here in Bonfire Opera, grief and Eros grapple in the same domain. A bullet-hole through the heart, a house full of ripe persimmons, a ghost in a garden.

Coyotes cry out on the hill, and lovers find themselves kissing, bee-stung, drunk in the middle of road. Here, the dust is holy, as is the dark, unknown. These are poems that praise the impossible, wild world, finding beauty in its wake.

n nExcerpt from Bonfire Opera n n In those days, there was a woman in our circle n who was known, not only for her beauty, n but also for taking off all her clothes and singing opera. n And sure enough, as the night wore on and the stars n emerged to stare at their reflections on the sea, n and everyone had drunk a little wine, n she began to disrobe, loose her great bosom n and the tender belly, pale in the moonlight, n the Viking hips, and to let her torn raiment n fall to the sand as we looked up from the flames.n