Daniela Gioseffi

MONARCH

Phosphorescent of sun, you flutter into view, nervous beauty. Wings of stained glass radiant as florescent light, plashless in flight! Leap of silk, voiceless might, free of nouns, you sip nectar without speech from your cushion of petals. Your laborious flutter is for flowers, too rooted in their dance, to pollinate and procreate their loveliness. Helper of the wind in your brief life, you slowly burgeon and sprout from your chrysalis to die too soon, sweet trace of nectar on your lips, like all of us, gone to soon, reigning too briefly to understand our power, our scepter stilled, pen silenced, just as we're fully bloomed. Daniela Gioseffi won the American Book Award for WOMEN ON WAR: International Voices (Simon & Schuster/TOUCHSTONE. 1990) soon to be published in a new edition by The Feminist Press, NY, 2002. She's won a World Peace Award for ON PREJUDICE: A Global Perspective, (Doubleday/ANCHOR, 1993)-- a compendium of world literature on issues of xenophobia, sexism and racism. Her newest book of poetry is an e-book titled SYMBIOSIS, Rattapallax Press, 2001. Prior books of poetry are WORD WOUNDS & WATER FLOWERS, and GOING ON (VIA/Bordighera Press @ Purdue Universtiy: West Lafayette; IN, 1995 and 2001 respectively.) Her premier collection of poetry was EGGS IN THE LAKE (Boa Editions, Ltd. Rochester: NY, 1979.) Gioseffi's first novel, was THE GREAT AMERICAN BELLY, (Doubleday/Dell: NY and New English Library: London, 1979) It was made into a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Michael Christofer. Her latest collection of fiction is IN BED WITH THE EXOTIC ENEMY, stories & novella (Avisson Press, Greensboro NC,1997.) Daniela edits www.poetsUSA.com

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