ENJOYING A GLASS

OF ZINFANDEL

These hips

of wine

are Californian.

Each crystal

thigh

muscular,

dark.

CARDINALS

A female cardinal

works the wire fence

more beautifully

than Blondin ever did.

Her orange mask,

black-veiled sunlight.

Arriving,

out of nowhere,

a young male,

no crest

but red

pulsating

each feather.

Two cheeps

from mother

to young son

before they vaporize

across the green yard.

OLD BLACK LAB

An old black lab

trails

the overweight

marshmallow

couple

along our uneven

sidewalk.

The sounds

of the ocean,

mercury

tires

on a nearby road.

Somewhere

Italian perfume

exhales

the pale breast

of a Manhattan escort

impaling a small square of ivory cheese

at the end

of her decorative toothpick.

The moon is a black pearl

submerged in dusk.

Her waves

are acid

across the bones

of adolescence.

The old black lab

pauses

at every streetlamp,

every bush.

DRACULA

When Dracula

suckled

his first

immortal teat,

railroads

were barely fresh veins

across our young

country.

Angels by torchlight,

their wings

heavy

with the

soot

of death.

A HUNDRED DEGREES

Two catbirds

ask me

for water.

A rufus-tailed

hummingbird

abandons

his diminutive perch

inside my brain.

Maple leaves

hiss

at a hundred degrees.

The sky,

a blue

enamel robin’s egg.

On a cloud

sits

Wagner,

near stone violins,

devouring

soft oblong

crocodile eggs.

With a tentative

hind foot

barely reaching,

a large, grey dog

gently rocks

his woolly head.

Maple leaves

hiss

in a hundred degrees.

© Alan Britt

ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) will broadcast a straight read, plus live stream on their Web site of Alan Britt’s poem, "After Spending All Day at the National Museum of Art," as part of their Poets on Painters series.  ABC to credit New Letters as original publisher…..The Poetry Library (www.poetrymagazines.org.uk) providing a free access digital library of 20^th & 21^st century English poetry magazines with the aim of reaching new audiences and preserving the magazines for the future to include Alan Britt’s work published in Fire in their project. The Poetry Project’s sole patronage by Her Majesty The Queen, Elizabeth II…..PCA/ACA Conference 2007 (Boston) Panel Chair for Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry… PCA/ACA Conference 2008 (San Francisco) Panel Chair for Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry.

Alan teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University. His recent books are Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). Essays recently in Clay Palm Review and Arson. Interviews and poetry (selected) recently featured in Steaua (Romania), Latino Stuff Review and Poet’s Market 2000. Other poems (selected) in Agni, The Bitter Oleander, Christian Science Monitor, Cider Press Review, Cold Mountain Review, Confrontation, English Journal, Epoch, Fire (UK), Flint Hills Review, Fox Cry Review, Gradiva (Italy), Kansas Quarterly, The Kerf, Magyar Naplo (Hungary), Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Midwest Quarterly, New Letters, Pacific Review, Pedrada Zurda (Ecuador), Puerto del Sol, Queen’s Quarterly (Canada), Revista Solar (Mexico), Rosebud, Second Aeon (Wales), Sou’wester, Square Lake, Writers’ Journal, plus the anthologies, Fathers: Poems About Fathers (St. Martin’s Press: 1998), Weavings 2000: The Maryland Millennial Anthology (Forest Woods Media Productions, Inc., St. Mary’s College, MD), and La Adelfa Amarga: Seis Poetas Norteamericanos de Hoy (Ediciones El Santo Oficio, Peru, 2003). Recent readings: SUNY at Albany, NY, 2006; Hendrick Hudson Free Library, Montrose, NY, 2006; Towson University, Towson, MD, 2006; PCA/ACA Conference, Boston, 2007.

Alan received his Masters Degree from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. He performs poetry workshops for the Maryland State Arts Council and occasionally publishes the international literary journal, Black Moon, from Reisterstown, Maryland, where he lives with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, and two formerly feral cats.