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Dorothea Grossman has two books of Poetry published, Cuttings , published by Tango Books in 1988, and Poems from Cave 17 , published by the author in 1996.


CUTTINGS, Selected Poems 1978-1988


    Today I bought
    the first pumpkin
    of my season.
    The sun was
    hitting the water
    in tiny explosions;
    the grass was as pure
    as a revival meeting.
    I thought of your smile
    on my long walk home
    with the leaves
    dropping aimlessly
    and the sound
    of roller skates.
    When the door opened
    you burst upon me
    like a diamond.

 Walking past the mental hospital
I smell coffee brewing,
and picture the muttering madmen
measuring and pouring,
preparing for
another perfect landing.

      This poem is part cartoon
      and part injection:
      I hope it has
      the clarity of wind-chimes
      or the bloody sparkle
      of broken glass.
      All day,
      waiting for the rain to end
      I have been thinking
      of the rain in San Francisco
      erasing the folds of clothing
      from the statues,
      forming beads on the waxy
      face of Chinatown,
      hounding the poets
      out of their safe alleys.

      At night,
      while the harbor dissolves,
      assassins wait knowingly
      in the sinister hills.
      If all of Asia were flooded,
      this is how it would smell.





 Poems From Cave 17