Joan Rivers
The new issue, No. 14, Fall 2015, of the periodical Trinacria, edited by Joseph Salemi, is just out with my poem titled, “The Old Comedienne” and, as a bonus, a review by the editor of The Hero Enkidu: An Epic by Lewis Turco, New York: Bordighera Press (www.BordigheraPress.org ), VIA Folios 107, 2015, 101 pp. ISBN 978-1-59954-098-6, trade paperback. Here is the last paragraph:
“Taken as a whole, The Hero Enkidu is an amazing and admirable accomplishment by a poet whose record of achievement is indisputable, and which is now capped by this vigorous modern re-imagination of an ancient myth. It is exactly the kind of tour de force that we would expect from a master craftsman such as Lewis Turco.” – Joseph Salemi.
And here is the poem, a rondeau listen to Lewis Turco read it: The Old Comedienne --
THE OLD COMEDIENNE
(With profound apologies to Paul Laurence Dunbar)
She wore the mask that grinned and lied:
It hid her wrinkles, the hair she dyed.
This debt she paid to hone each wile
Merely to get a crowd to smile
If not to laugh through jaws spread wide --
No mots were bon, her cracks were wise,
Mostly smothered under flies.
We watched her work for decades while
She wore her mask.
We smiled sometimes, but her ghost flies
To entertain fans in the skies.
We sigh because her clay is vile
Beneath our feet. She's out of style
Although some may wish otherwise.
She wore her mask!
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