Perhaps You Could Breathe for Me

By Martina Reisz Newberry

The poems in Perhaps You Could Breathe For Me resemble almost too closely our own lives. On these pages are rare insights into relationships--the cruel, the complicated, the simple, the joyful, the sexy, the fearful, the painful, the intense. Newberry writes about what can go wrong, what does go wrong, about growing up, about the terrors and wonder of aging. She writes about sexuality, where it begins, and whether or not it ends.
These poems are extraordinary as they journey through compassion, anger, strength, and universality.

The cadences of ordinary speech make this work accessible, and, still, suggest that something rare and exciting is about to happen.

Throughout and finally, Newberrys poems resonate with a search for spiritualityfor a God, she says we pray to, but do not know how to love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 16, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462816682

Martina Reisz Newberry

Martina Reisz Newberry lives in Hollywood, California with her husband, Brian, a gifted graphic/web designer and their cat and dictator, Gato. An only child, she has kept herself company by writing since she was 7 years old. She is both a poet and a novelist. Ms. Newberry has been widely published in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. Two of her books, The Banyan and the Alder and Not Untrue and Not Unkind were published by Arabesques Press in Algeria and will be included in Algeria’s first National Library. Her most recent books are HUNGER and AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE.

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Copyright © 2009 by Martina Reisz Newberry.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover graphic and back cover photograph

by Brian Newberry

http://brian.rollwiththechanges.org/

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

59964

Contents

RECALL

1.   PERHAPS YOU COULD BREATHE FOR ME

2.   REQUESTS

3.   ONE HUNDRED TWENTY COLORS

4.   THE LADIES’ ROOM

5.   RED CAT

6.   STUDY OF TREES

7.   THE POEM THAT SHRUGGED ITS SHOULDERS

8.   THE UGLY BUILDING ON A HOT DAY

9.   IN THE DARK NEAR A WINDOW

10.   AND BACK AGAIN

FOR THE TIME BEING

11.   BEAUTIFUL

12.   PRAISE

13.   MEMORARE

14.   JESUS IS DEAD, MARX IS DEAD, ELVIS IS DEAD, AND I’M NOT FEELING TOO GOOD MYSELF.

15.   SAFFRON

16.   IN THE KITCHEN

17.   ANNIVERSARY

18.   A NAP

19.   THE COMPLICATED MATRIX (FRAME AND FLESH) THAT IS YOUR BODY

20.   BOULEVARD

21.   PHILOSOPHY

22.   PLAYGROUND

23.   60-SOMETHING FEMALE POET WRITING TO HER COUNTRY IN THE FIRST DECADE OF A NEW MILLENNIUM

24.   WHAT I’VE LEARNED ABOUT WOMEN AND POETRY

25.   LANGUAGE

26.   POSTURES

27.   4 P.M.

28.   ENTOMOLOGY

29.   YOUR LIPS WERE MADE FOR SONG

30.   BAD MANNERS

31.   YAMA

32.   PRETTY GIRLS IN PRETTY DRESSES

33.   THE SIGNIFICANT LETTER

34.   THE HANG OF HAPPINESS

35.   SURVIVING SUNDOWN

36.   TRAINING FOR THE MARATHON

PROPHECY

37.   FOR REAL

38.   SLEEPING GODDESS

39.   THAT MOMENT OF CHANGE

40.   THE LOOMING WHATEVER

41.   PAINTING OF HIGH TEA WITH ONGOING MELANCHOLY

42.   OTOÑIO (AUTUMN)

43.   THE DAY SHE LEFT

44.   ASHES

45.   GHOSTS

46.   ACCEPTANCE

47.   YOUR HAND ON THE MIRROR

48.   WITH A GUN BARREL BETWEEN YOUR TEETH YOU SPEAK ONLY IN VOWELS

49.   FEAR

50.   RAPTURE AGAIN

51.   AT THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN POET

52.   IN THE LAST DAYS

53.   HUE AND CRY

NOTES

A rhythmic process of expansion and contraction,

breathing is one example of the consistent polarity we

see in nature such as night and day, wake and sleep,

seasonal growth and decay and ultimately life and death

D. Rakel, WB. Saunders

Integrative Medicine

Breathe on me, Breath of God,

So shall I never die…

Edwin Hatch (1835-1889)

Traditional Christian hymn

RECALL

1.   PERHAPS YOU COULD BREATHE FOR ME

Here I make a record of the world I was born into.

I let you enter my mind to see. How far back shall we go?

First there was polio then radioactive warfare then

losses and sorrows and more warfare treated like a Fire Sale

in a sporting goods store. Then we scanned the dark skies for

spy planes. (I sat in my father’s lap on the roof of the school

and counted the blue and green lines of his flannel plaid shirt).

There were tranquilizers for the mothers and whiskey for the

fathers and a Loyalty Oath going ’round to be taken

with an aperitif at 5 pm. Somewhere, I blanked out and,

when I came to, there was wild music (for God so loved the world, he gave it Jefferson Airplane). There was free love and

the world slave trade, MacDonald’s and political savvy. There was a surplus of bright speech and the sound of bone on bone. There were assassinations and there was