................................. Swear the Burning Vow
Praise ..............................................................................................................

“How fine to have Marilyn Krysl’s best poems gathered in one place: they reveal a lifetime of bearing witness to love and war – to the world as it is – with wry wit, clear sight, and abiding devotion to the harmonies and disharmonies of words.”

—Dan Bellm


“The entire collection is a gem, a wonderful retrospective of Krysl's work and a generous helping of new poems. While many of her poems address serious issues, many others are playful and mischievous. Krysl often experiments with sestinas, a form that braids six repeating words into six six-lined stanzas, ending with a three-lined stanza, a grand finale. This structure flows beautifully, defying its elaborate scaffolding, a mastery of craft. Krysl's poems are irresistible, her images indelible.more...

—Boulder Daily Camera

Excerpt ...........................................................................................................

SACRAMENT: CENTRAL BUS STATION

It’s all about the coming and going of hearts, souls and tongues—
two home boys pass, jostling their saunter and slouch,
and the girl in that skirt slit up the side of her thigh,
nervous about her body but determined to show it off,

the Prof with three dozen red roses for his wife’s soprano birthday,
and the Mex day-laborer slouched beside the Sluggers’ star pitcher,
both long limbed, both sweaty, both beat and kicking back,
both longing to be received so they can lay their aching down,

and now a mailman and mailwoman come in for a drink of water,
a
nd Yogi, the station master, shooting the breeze with a driver,
throws a fake punch which lands just a hair from the jaw,
and both go on talking as though nothing almost happened—

we come, we strut, we warble, we offer ourselves and go,
coffee brewing, birds chirping, baby mouthing a banana,
and a driver sees me and says I know where you live now,
yesterday I saw you shake your blanket over the balcony,

so come into the cathedral, line up, open your mouth,
receive from the day’s fingers Christ’s body the wafer,
each of us is another and another and another,
little kid’s mom dozing, leaning into her lover,

look at us, how widely we display our variousness,
that transvestite wearing a sari and Sumi wrestler swagger,
and the old man with age spots and a cane is like no other.
He eyeballs the rolling stroll of smoldering Chicanos

whose voices loose into my ears Neruda’s erotic cadences,
que me canto crecia con el agua, my song grows with the water,
and if I could take those words in my mouth like they do
I’d sing in that tongue our green being, our swaying sea.

Krysl's books
can be purchased via the following links, or through
your local
independent bookstore.

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