LET`S TRAMP through Yeats`s "foul ragandbone shop ofthe heart" with two astonishing books of poetry: Riffs by Dennis Lee andLove As It Is byMarilyn Bowering. Riffs zooms through the "clobber and slop" of a wondrous, adulterouslove affair in 88 short poems. From the very first lines - "When I lurchedlike a turnout of want through the networks of plenty, / a me-shaped pang onthe lam" -Lee resurrects the music of Dylan Thomas, the wordplay of e.e. cummings, the zany delight of his own Alligator Pie. Towrite about this book using ordinary language seems dull. I want to whoop andwhistle with the narrator, who in mid-life finds the love he was born for: How hooked I honey how hooked & horny;hooked and happy-go honking-hey, how hooked on your honey-sweet honey I am. A tornado follows, word pairings as crazyand wonderful as the lovers themselves: "babel and urspeak,""crocked and goners," "the blahs the yays the blues the yackyack-yack." "Hot for tremendum," Leeexposes all his vulnerabilities. When the affair ends, his anger reachesspectacular heights: "May you rot in Buffalo," he hurls out,"You butted me out / Now I get to lick the ashtray." Yet the narratornever loses moral consciousness. He acknowledges "the tie of her-hus band-doesn`t- have -s soul,so-it`sokay,"and faced with reality remembers that"if I / deny the slaughterhouse world - / ... something goes numb at thecore." During this unflinching dialogue with himself and his soul he findsthe strength to forgive: "Take that," I`d say, and hand youwhat has happened since you left but I would take it back awhile, lie down andbreathing slow beside you hope to ease your eyelid stress and coming home. Riffs is true jazz, unpredictable, fluid, and a once-only experience. It`s alsoLee`s first book for adults in 13 years. "How come I been away solong?" Lee asks. Yeah, how come? Love As It Is, Bowering`s10th book of poetry, is, bycontrast, a work of cool and austere beauty where the "foul shop" isentered carefully and with restraint. These poems are filled with regret, withparalysed longing: I would have cried our love aloud, but theybroke us like pottery or glass, anything else that doesn`t last. Bowering`s imagery is strikingly simpleand effective; the answers she seeks maddeningly concealed in a powerful weaveof elemental symbols that holds the five sections of the book together. Thusrings are twisted on and off the narrator`s fingers, stones are circled, andprayers offered in her quest to find a reason for the numb disappointmentportrayed in the first section, for a heart that aches to feel, "to claspthe cutting bees / around my wrists for bracelets." In the second section, fragments of lifein a small town lead to surprising conclusions: "My father would laugh ifhe saw me like this, / then whip me." The third section powerfully evokesthe way time passes for the dying and those around them, "uselessly weeping."Working in her dying friend`s garden, the narrator remembers- "She saidhere, plant the roses here, they wilt not fail." Yet the narrator muststand by, frozen, as her friend is "tapping her way, eyes closed, intoanother landscape." This sense of toss and futility brings usinto the final two linked sections. Using fragments from the letters of GeorgeSand and Fryderyk Chopin, Bowering uses stark imageryand relentless syntax to bring a paralysed love affair to painful life. "Listen to the voice that singslove," declares Sand, "and not to the voice that explains it."And so begins a strange dialogue. On the left-hand pages, the attempts of therational mind to explain: "One must put one`s own happiness last." Onthe right, the raw voice of the heart: "the little black sticks stirred -/ there was nothing there / for you." Marriage is impossible, she states,but the Lord still wants her to "Give, give, give." And in the midstof noble sentiments and fine words, her anger finally surfaces: I put my knife on the table. I opened my mouth.The table drowned in blood. He said, No. Chopin`s heart is full of the same agonies of loneliness and withheldlove: "My heart aches to be opened. / My spirit reaches, and fallsback." Incapacitated by illness, he prays for the absence of disappointedlongings, yet "The door fell / on my chest, and shut." Love As It Is is asad, difficult book that is finely wrought and, in its restraint, a powerfulargument for love itself