The Flagrant Dead

Book excerpt: In prize-winning poetry that explores the timelessness of everyday life, Stephen Bluestone's The Flagrant Dead examines the spiritual connections between past and present. The lived moment endures. The agony of Jesus in the garden, the fantastic stage performances of Harry Houdini, the surreal comedy of Harpo Marx, and the loving artistry of the last of the traditional village rug makers all continue to happen. As late-summer shadows fall, Jackie Robinson still dances off first base, changing us forever. The past is permanent and universal. The same light recorded nearly two centuries ago in the earliest photographic erotica still enters our eyes today. The automobile may change time and space, but it has not changed us. As Walt Whitman in ?Crossing Brooklyn Ferry? traveled from the past to the future, so in ?The Crossing, ? a central poem of this volume, do we continue that journey. The poems in The Flagrant Dead connect the individual with mankind. Sadness and joy are endless.