Except for One Obscene Brushstroke

Dzvinia Orlowsky

Dzvinia Orlowsky's poems are likely to leave you needing to wipe your brow every once in a while. They straddle (no pun intended, of course) the line between erotic and brazen, and you're not usually sure which side of that line you're on; when you are sure, you've definitely crossed over into the latter.

It's pretty hard not to be intrigued by a book of poetry that's been blurbed by, of all people, "now" mystery novelist Dennis Lehane, who says in part "...images from several of the poems would stop me in parking lots, give me pause in the supermarket." Indeed. Not that most of them can be put into an Amazon review for fear of catching the automated review censor.

"The judges scrapped the bathing suit part,
scrapped the talent show,
most of us had none.
(Why embarrass the county?)
Intelligence, however,
would have to speak for itself,
excited by the mike. In the background,
cowboys played donkey basketball,
and a hot car prepared
to go up in smoke."
(--"Into the Keys")

Blatantly sexy, though sometimes in a tell-don't-show kind of way, but thoroughly satisfying for all that.