Kurt Brown founded the Aspen Writers' Conference and Writers' Conferences & Centers (a national association of directors). His poems have appeared in many literary periodicals, and he is the editor of several anthologies including Blues for Bill, for the late William Matthews (U of Akron P) and his newest (with Harold Schechter), Conversation Pieces: Poems that Talk to Other Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets Series). He is the author of six chapbooks and five full-length collections of poetry, including Return of the Prodigals, More Things in Heaven and Earth, Fables from the Ark, Future Ship, and a new collection, No Other Paradise, due out in 2010 from Red Hen Press. A collection of the poems of Flemish poet Herman de Coninck, The Plural of Happiness, which he and his wife, Laure-Anne Bosselaar translated, was released in the Field Translation Series in 2006.---------
Harlow
Hair hot-ironed to a waffled platinum,
corrugated mane that gave off light,
she'd strut her stuff, half girl-of-our-dreams,
half harlot, plump and khol-eyed
as an Egyptian queen. She out-vamped Dietrich,
and didn't care for niceties, screen
sophisticates gussied-up for a ball.
Most divas lounged in luxury, heavy
lidded sirens smoldering in style.
She beat them all, our beautiful frump
who could snarl like a gangster's moll,
an American twang we loved
that cut the crap and got directly to the point:
"I like to wake up each morning
feeling a new man." In certain lights
her face looked bruised, almost
lumpy, an aging boxer's boozed-up mug.
Slapped, she shot back "Do it again,
I like it!" And we liked it too,
all that spunk confronting a muscled goon.
Lizard-sleek in gold lamé, she slunk
across the set to pout, a petulance
made famous for the way she picked
at bon bons while the nation starved.
At twenty six she died on cue, first
of the bombshell beauties, as though her sassiness
were toxic and her sins unexcused.
But those sins were virtues to us,
a bunch of horny Adams ripe for a fall.
Her exit line? From Red Headed Woman:
"I don't need a guide," she sneered.
"And don't call me madame."