Middle Earth: Poems

Time was plunging forward,
like dolphins scissoring open water or like me,
following Jenny's flippers down to see the coral reef,
where the color of sand, sea and sky merged,
and it was as if that was all God wanted:
not a wife, a house or a position,
but a self, like a needle, pushing in a vein.
-from "Olympia"

In his fifth collection of verse, Henri Cole's melodious lines are written in an open style that is both erotic and visionary. Few poets so thrillingly portray the physical world, or man's ...