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Delaware Poetry Review
Jamie Brown

THE GOLDEN APPLE

Three women wait on different balconies this night --
the first upon the Aventine among
the purple, flowering vines woven
through the lattice of her porch
gazing at the darkening
chianti flavored sky
the next in the Testaccio
with hanging laundry
garlanding her vantage point
the third from her lover's flat
above the Via Veneto
considering idling traffic in
the evening rush-hour, the
clamor of pedestrians on
the sidewalk one floor below
arguing with spouses, debating
with co-workers, haggling with
flower-sellers
and each of the three gazing wistfully
out into the mottling gray and purpling sky
as if the answer to their questions
lay outside of themselves.




~

WARM RAIN

Some day or unexpected night
the shock will hit, he thinks,
awakening to truth
in all its heat and coldness,
its extremes
-- but it's a warm rain that falls.

The world will end
a billion years hence,
the world will end tomorrow;
imperatives drive us to the end
-- but it's a warm rain that falls.

Love is throttled in the night;
gunshots are expected in the city.
Where is mine, he who is I,
what earthquake can crack my foundation?
The winter winds chill
to transparency; osmotic
bodies swelter in the heat.

A driving summer storm,
bullets of ice-cold rain,
static raising the hair on wet skin,
yet not this night, yet not this night.
Lightning never comes
and our advance upon
gray hair continues
-- but it's a warm rain that falls
-- but it's a warm rain that falls instead.






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About the Poet

Jamie Brown is the Founder, Publisher and Editor of The Broadkill Review, a PDF Literary Journal, the Founder/Director of The John Milton Memorial Poetry Festival, and is Director/Coordinator of The Dogfish Head Poetry Prize.
His workshop, "Poetry: Form Function and You" was the first Creative Writing Workshop ever held at the Smithsonian Institution. His poetry has been published in American Literary, Delaware Beach Life, The Delmarva Quarterly, The Cafe Review, Connecticut River Review, Galley Sail Review, Gypsy Blood Review, Howling Dog, Midwest Poetry Review, Nebo, Negative Capability, Parnassus Poetry Journal, Phase and Cycle, Poet Lore, Poetry Motel, Potomac Review, The Review, San Fernando Poetry Journal, Spontaneous Combustion, Sulphur River Literary Review, Tekintet, Voices International, Winners, and Wordwrights Magazine