Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOURISTS AT ENSENADA, by THOMAS MCGRATH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOURISTS AT ENSENADA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The sunlight, like rouault, draws a line
Last Line: With cries as real and shadowy as foreign fear
Subject(s): Art & Artists; Clowns; Colors; Mexico; Prostitution; Resorts; Tourists; Harlots; Whores; Brothels


The sunlight, like Rouault, draws a line
At everything, but shadow seems as real
As its object -- stricter, even, to its form
Than the wasted color of the worn stone.

The sea fringes a desert. Travellers come
Where the wave repeats itself in endless promise.
On the uplands are the shabby goats, lean pigs,
And the poor in their doorways, watching the roads

Where the tourists flash past. The peasant is eclipsed
By the solar procession of the rich and bored
Who find the poor fearsome, but the blackening jail
And American motels enclosed in white walls

Romantic. Disturbing, though, that black-and-white
Life. The cripple who rasps along the street
Like nails on a slate lines all the tourist ear
With cries as real and shadowy as foreign fear.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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