The Drunken Sweetheart at My Door

This is a book of surrealistic, metaphysical poems about love; poems of invitation, engagement, ordeal, passion and devotion. Meisel's poems evoke the sentinels of love through the wise voices of angels, swerving swallows, talking orchids, erotic roses, healing chocolates, delirious guitars, oil covered murres and saffron finches flying into sunbeams. In this book violins sing. Napoleon, Bach, Schumann express love to their wives, and lovers risk everything to stretch into love's healing powers of solace, challenge, forgiveness, empathy and joy. Leaping deer become violins, a wedding ceremony is held inside a fish, and angels-longing to be born into flesh-contemplate the definitions of beauty. Meisel's book celebrates the unconquerable power of the female voice-a voice of lyrical wisdom, honesty, beauty, fervor and grace-that dares the reader to believe that devotion is the aerobics of love.