Three Poems by Lyn Lifshin

Parma Dream of Violets

of sky the color of lilacs,
mauve liquid in an antique
mirrored cabinet, grappa,
honey, sugar and the
essence of violets.
Slopes of Parma violets.
Purple haze.  The same
violets Napoleon kept on
his desk that grew on
his wife's grave.  Its smell
on her fingers, skin.
Color his lover wore,
painted on plates, engraved
on calling cards, picture
frames, vases, fans
so the smell would always
be with him as the smell
of vanilla or hyacinth
keeps my ghosts



Barbaro's Dreams, Mid-August

lying half asleep
in timothy grass

grapes brightening.
Forgetting pain,

forgetting breaking.
Forks of light

past the ICU.  Does
he dream of the

push of promise,
the flaring wound in

black eyed susan
wind.  Painted daisies.

This dream of leaping
still wild as a

deer thru jade fields,
escaping.



Another Barbaro Dream Mid-August


his body remembering
speed, longing to give

up pain, the shattered
fragments and become a

flaming arrow of fire
flung over the track

The wind, a horse whisperer
beckoning, moaning

hurry and darling

Lyn Lifshin has published over 130 books and chapbooks including 3 from Black Sparrow Press:  Cold Comfort, Before It's Light and  Another Woman Who Looks Like Me.  Before Secretariat:  The Red Freak, the Mircacle, Lifshin published her prize winning bookd about the short lived beautiful race horse Ruffian, The Licorice Daughter:  My Year With Ruffian and Barbara:  Beyond Brokenness.  Recent books include Ballroom, All the Poets Who Have Touched Me, Living and Dead, All True, Especially The Lies, Light At The End:  The Jesus Poems, Katrina, Mirrors, Persephone, Lost In The Fog, Knife Edge & Absinthe:  The Tango Poems.  NYQ books published A Girl Goes into the Woods.  Also just out:  For the Roses poems after Joni Mitchell and Hitchcock Hotel from Danse Macabre, Secretariat:  The Red Freak, The Miracle and Tangled as the Alphabet--The Istanbul Poems from Night Ballet Press.  Just released as well Malala, the dvd of Lyn Lifshin:  Not Made of Glass.  The Marilyn Poems was just released from Rubber Boots Press.  An update to her Gale Research Autobiography is out:  Lips, Blues, Blue Lace:  On the Outside.  Also just out is Femme Eterna and Moving Through Stained Glass:  the Maple Poems.  Also out from Sick Fly Tangerin Press is Paintings and Poems.  Forthcoming Degas Little Dancer and The Silk Road.  Her web: www.lynlifshin.com