Lubbock Electric by Annie Elezabeth Pluto

Annie Elezabeth Pluto

Lubbock Electric

by Annie Elezabeth Pluto

Copyright © 2017 Annie Elezabeth Pluto

Nixes Mate Books

Allston, MA

ISBN  978-0-9993971-7-6

Softbound, 47  pages, $9.95

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

When I used to think of Lubbock I thought of Buddy Holly  of “Peggy Sue,” “Oh Boy,” “Rave On,”  fame and so many other hits. I remembered the plane crash which took his life along with the lives of Richie Valens and The Big Bopper.  I recalled the Class D movie of his life.

But now my thoughts are focused on Annie Elezabeth Pluto’s Lubbock Electric  that is filled with images that make everyone wish the poems were written especially for them.  Pluto’s true love is unnamed, but her love poems assure readers there is an object of desire,

Texas Love Poem #2

Big is your heart

and grave to your making

I will set myself to your love

a thunder to the landscape

rain and flood and wild horses

in your father’s corral

I am standing opposite your desire

slender and humid to be opened

kissed and make more than content

you are the very heart of Texas

never subdued but all ways

singing to your self – soul to the tempo

soul of the story

soul of the earth

soul to my soul

heart of weeks and roses

play and sing

and dance me to the end.

Lubbock Electric

Indiscriminate and irretrievable

the past splinter before us

like broken glass

there are times

when I am afraid to

move as if I will break

and break again your hands bind min

against all that we have lost

lone – together – and found

by chance

by luck

in the name of god

at a time when all roads

led to the middle west – we we

each other without searching

I treasure even the minute

the clocks that do not work

unwound – left fallow to gather

up the splendid dust of hours spent

alone – together – the sound

of your heart against mine

the lights of Lubbock electric

all alight with midnight

Aside from her love poems, Pluto is an astute observer of things around her:

King’s Chapel Burial Ground

The dead are pressed together

In the charnel house, an abundance

of ossuary riches, forgotten for centuries

turned to ditches, the crypts are sealed

off, each portal no longer has a door

but grass recedes to form a floor

in the cold spring evening, the electric hum

of skyscrapers distinguish us from the dead.

Putney Bridge Station

You are the ghost that keeps on coming

up the stairs from the tube –

walking ahead of me on Putney Bridge

your hair reaches the edge of your collar

and I know that you have nowhere to go

destination unknown – the grass in the brick

overgrown – each footprint as quick as air

evaporating in front of me – a torrid column

smoke stack – burnt paper – another way

to always say goodbye.

This is a book of evocative recollections and keen observations. It is an enthralling compilation of poetry by Pluto who is a Professor of Literature and Theatre at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.

****  Pluto is  also the founder of Commonthought Magazine, and the artistic director and one of the original members of the Oxford Street Players.

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Author, The Lynching of Leo Frank, Editor, Muddy River Poetry Review