Ray Greenblatt | Mediterranean Poetry

Ray Greenblatt has lived in New England, the West Indies, and along the Eastern Shore. He has written short stories, essays, and poetry which have been published across the U.S. in periodicals as diverse as America, English Journal, and Joseph Conrad Today.

He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and won the Anthony Byrne Prize. He was also the editor of the magazine General Eclectic. A teacher for many years Ray Greenblatt has taught writing in the Philadelphia Writers Conference as well as spoken at the John Steinbeck Festival in Salinas, California.

FOLLOWING THE GUIDEBOOK

I amble down a street
with Pliny and Strabo,
kicking fractured plinths and
marble shards to the side
resembling rubbish.
A drunk lies like Bacchus
curled up on a doorstep,
two lovely nymphs prance in
a second floor window.
In a mirror I’m no Caesar
my ankles turning gray
as if stone overtook me
in this modern city.

LEMNOS: WOMAN IN THE DUNES

In mesh bikini
a tall tanned woman
with long golden hair
stands upright, arms raised
as if to coax, to praise the sun.
Then as rare rain starts to fall
the bronze starts to run
in rivulets to the ground
till she stands alabaster,
hair turning copper green
snagged strands of seaweed,
staring sapphire eyes fixed
in an ancient statue
shifting sands have revealed.

END OF THE MED

Olive leaves rain down like shrapnel
grapes like drops of blood,
ruts of fields sown
with glass and metal
foreign elements
that should not be here;
except for rare weddings
or births or holy days
the points of our mouths
now genetically turned down;
here at our end of the Med
why is it we can’t get along,
the sun not a blessing
but a penance.

For other contributions by Ray Greenblatt, please follow the links below: