Dusty Angel

The winner of the 1999 Isabella Gardner Award for Poetry, Dusty Angel is the work of a poet who has been called one of the most talented of his generation. Blumenthal's themes of love, lust, longing and loss resonate throughout this collection in poems that are as remarkable for their keen social and personal observations as for their beautifully crafted language. His subject matter ranges from the fairly sensual "Having My Way With You" to the somber, heartfelt "The Real," written for a friend mourning the loss of his wife. With perfect pitch, Blumenthal can sing in any key.  

The Mouth

What can the mouth do that nothing else can do?
Birds frolic and sing in the trees.
Snakes hiss in the grass.
If a man's mouth is not blessed,
he will never learn to sing, he will never
chant in a perfect breeze, in summer,
with someone with whom love is impossible
and, therefore, beautiful and tender.
What can the mouth do? What can it say?
Acrobatic in the afternoons, it grows speechless
and terrible, and doesn't know its own home:
What shall we say of the mouth?
It travels brightly over the parks,
it dances and frets, it covers
the faces of those we might have loved
on wet, lustful afternoons, it sings
the happy-sad song of the tongue
and why shouldn't it? Kisses, too,
fly from the mouth. Mine
have flown, eagerly, to you.
What can the mouth do? you ask
Let me tell you: the mouth
can deliver a kiss,
the mouth can learn to say good-bye.