Short & stout,
her hair unable to fly loose
from her head,
my blind date marches across
the dance floor,
arms jerking, her
whole body banging
into others.
With each impact, she salutes
& shouts up into the music.
This is the last time, I tell myself,
the last time.
But in minutes, she has everyone in the bar
marching in rows, everyone ordering Chianti.
Bodies barge and ram, people scream
& kick their legs out in time to the beat.
I can’t understand a word of the shouting,
the gutteral, grunting phrases.
My date winks at me across the length of the floor
& then starts this way, dancing like Mussolini.
& God knows I’m sick:
I dance back.
isbn 1-59661-105-7
60 pages/$15
“David James, over the course of his long, distinguished career, has never lost his sense of wonder in the face of the mad, beautiful world, and has never lost the ability to laugh at both the absurdities of life, and at himself. Behind the humor in these poems lies a genuine humility and generosity of spirit that is rare in contemporary poetry. The humor hurts a little too—laughter with a little pain in it—because what’s often behind these poems is death, looming over us, crowding us a little, hanging out while we make fools of ourselves on our individual journeys to meet him. These poems are like the manic prayers of a poker-playing stand-up comedian. Read ‘em, but don’t weep.”
“The wit and whimsy, and the imagination from which they spring, have characterized the signature voice in David James’ work from the start (and I have read his poetry going back to his days as an undergrad). That lightness and grace is much in evidence in She Dances Like Mussolini. Also in evidence, in a way that only the scope of a book can reveal, is the personal evolution in James’ poetry from a delightfully entertaining wise guy to a poet whose recurrent subject is aging, and who has become a wise guy gone wise.”
—Stuart Dybek
author of I Sailed with Magellan
“David James is on my list of poets-I-can’t-believe-aren’t-more-famous. Right opposite my larger list of poets-I-can’t-believe-ARE-famous.”
—Timothy Green,
Editor, RATTLE
“David James is a hardass with a big ole heavy heart. If he writes it, you better believe it. He means it. And he means it with the subjects he explores and with the artistry he brings to bear on every poem.”
—Jack Ridl, author of Broken Symmetry
“I’ve been a fan of David James’ and his excellent work for over two decades and can say—without hesitation—that here is a true original. Whether in prose or poetry…the results are always striking, sometimes scary, often hilarious, and well worth the read.”
—Judith Minty, author of Walking with the Bear
“These wise and humorous prose poems stun us with their illuminations of family, love, marriage, loneliness, sex, and creativity. James is a master of metamorphosis, literalizing his metaphors to recover the wondrous in the quotidian. Read this original book.”
—Peter Stine, former editor of Witness magazine
David James has published a book of poems, A Heart Out of This World (Carnegie Mellon University), and three chapbooks, Do Not Give Dogs What Is Holy, I Dance Back, and I Will Peel This Mask Off (March Street Press). His one-act plays have been produced off-Broadway, in Massachusetts and Michigan. He teaches at Oakland Community College.