This is a perfect development for the New 52 rebooting of the Superman universe--Lois Lane had been an imperiled paper doll for decades who was busy having her haplass presence rescued by Superman. She was an interesting character, used more as device to impede Superman's ongoing mission to fight for truth, justice and ...Now that she's free of Superman, DC writers can develop her character in ways they couldn't before. And since the new version of Superman emphasises his "otherness", his feeling of feeling apart from the human race he has sworn to protect, it is more realistic and dramatically compelling the he find attraction to some one likewise super-powered and sharing Superman;s alienation. It makes sense as well that he should have a partner who wouldn't be destroyed in the act of love making.
The iguana is still under the rock.
Blossoms unfurl scents over coiled snakes.
Saguaros arm their shadows
With the long legs of daylight.
And whose limbs got buried where
The grand inquisitor unearths deeply.
So it goes in the Sonoran desert.
Sky shows its teeth with cacti.
The mouth of civilization spits out sand.
Who are we, who are we?The heart of the blue-throated hummingbird beats
Up to twelve hundred times a minute.
There is the lingering feeling that you're waiting for something to emerge, for some dramatic event to take over this scorching endurance contest and provide a relief to both the heat and the tedium. Yet it remains, ruthlessly itself and defying the metaphors a literate poet might want to transform the surroundings with. Altmann is skillful in his use of straight-forward language and in the spare, delicate construction of appropriate metaphors that work in a tight, sense-filling manner with closely observed images: the sight of blossoms unfurling their scents over coiled snakes is doubly suggestive, sensuous and deadly , and works perfectly well without a literary trick to make them more compelling-- this reveals an subtle Imagist influence that considered extensive use of metaphor and simile wrong and even injurious to poetry's ability to offer a new way of viewing what is actually in the world about us.
Altmann is wise enough to realize the two things he has joined in a sentence are extraordinary on their own terms. When he does offer a metaphor, it is quick, neat, fast as the eye that perceives the image and the mind that is its witness, " Sky show its teeth with cacti". Not a profound image, that is, nothing that ransacks author and reader memories of vaguely recollected disquisitions on metaphysics, but it has the mark of elegant simplicity. It is apt, it is direct, it enhances a perfect expression.