old fruit tree
propped on a crutch
like a legless veteran
drunk
in a doorway
on the temple grounds
line of stone buddhas
expressions
weathered out
I try
to not just be
a tourist—-offer coins
in the box
but pass the beggar
anyway
I can’t tell
if I had the childhood
of a good person
or a less good one
but please
don’t trouble yourself
too much
after all
I’ve come this far
on my own
already.
A NEW SIGHT
Tell me your secrets
darkness, open
your guarded gates
and let me glimpse
behind the towering fears
and boogeymen
who haunt my daydreams,
cloud my vision
so that I might watch
my life through a lens
freed of rainbows
or the glittering sun
on a summer pond,
instead, show me how black
is the perfect
backdrop to reflect
the stars mirrored in the retina
of our souls.
Ya’el Chaikind
4.12.18
Omer Day 13:
Yesod Shebe Gevurah
Foundation within Strength, Boundaries, and Discernment
Just published in https://sheilanagigblog.com/volume-2-3-spring-2018-the-poets/miriam-sagan/
Click to read more!
Sex Trade and a Very Small Earthquake
at 1am it woke me
more the house moving
than the earth itself
loud noise
screens rattling
on the way to the grocery store
my son-in-law and I
saw a long line of silent men
looking like a queue for bread
standing outside a tiny door
advertising women
and the price
this is just
a few feet from
from the fish stall,
more than sixty years and half a world
away
from my cautious worried
life as a woman
where one wrong turn
leads to dangerous DANGER
slippage
now old
I’m sleeping
beneath my drying clothes
pink sweater
which is another body
fluttering at the window shade
and swaying
like a gull
that looks down
on islands
and sees the ocean floor
tremble
Joan Logghe wrote this yesterday in a high school class I was teaching. She came to intro me and stayed to write. Enjoy!
First World Worst Case Scenarios
Back on antidepressants in the first world
I sing “Placido Domingo” in my sleep
Last night I dreamed an apocalyptic triptych
All my dreams somehow sing opera
I sing “Placido Domingo” in my sleep
I advise chopping jalapenos
In all my dreams somebody is singing opera
Various cases of worst case scenarios
I am still chopping jalapenos
This is not a Jewish thing to do
rather various verses of worst case scenarios
I remain optimistic with high cholesterol
That is not a Jewish thing to do.
I drink a green drink, eat egg salad
I remain optimistic despite high cholesterol
Growing old is not a drag yet
I drink a green drink, eat eggs scrambled
It couldn’t get any sweeter that you
Getting old is not a drag yet
even though the Rolling Stones think so
It couldn’t get any sweeter than this
Last night I dreamed an apocalyptic triptych
Especially the Rolling Stones look weathered
Back on antidepressants in the first world
Finally On Our Own
river roll
under James Wright
bridges
freight train
crossing
in a dead language
I couldn’t begin
to claim kinship
confluence
of this
and something else
remnant
column
of a deteriorated
neo-classicism
an invisible
watershed, or wellspring
mid-western manners
what you wanted
was simply an insert
in an industrial scape
praise or curse
so far from the deserts
of my
awakening
wind, lead
coverlet, shroud
not everyone
lying down
was dead
some were
in the bathtub
some were dreaming
on the dotted line
a nameless bird
flew
from here to there
unaware
of the horizon.
I wrote this during a visit to New Orleans, about five years after Katrina. I’m posting it here, for the Gulf in general. Also, in the strange synergy that poems sometimes have, Rosh Hashana is approaching. And my Beit Midrash group is starting up for fall–soon to be discussing Jacob wrestling.
What The Water Took: 7 Torahs And A Piano
torah of morning
of noon
of dusk
of midnight
of moonrise
of daytime gibbous moon
flood water
torah of terror
of anarchy
of forgiveness
fire in the water
a dog
a child
bent street signs
torah which unrolls
the story of Noah
an ark
a dove
a raven
streets as rivers
leviathan
a house
your house
a house
caught in a tree
the army corps of engineers
a pumping station
a levee
torah of glass bottles
dangling blue glass hands
a message
SOS
hope
despair
a twisted menorah
torah of brass bands
coronets and horns
twisted shofar
blowing not air
but water
clarinet set with rubies now mute
torah of the broken flute
torah of Jacob
wrestling with the angel
who cheats to win
God’s lie, the rainbow sign
(no more water
the fire next time)
words float away
and the piano of glass
of sand, strings plucked
by fish
how the water took even
our idea of land
and in drowned sleep
spirit moved on the face of this deep.
I must go to the Creek again.
Again, I will ask only for silence
to hear the riffs
drifting by. Vagrant
and wanderer, the Creek is
captive and conveyor of storm,
its story and futurestory
the tree that falls
into it from its
eroding banks. How many
years to tumbledrum a grain
of sand a mile along its bed?
Alone responsible,
and not, the Creek brings
song to all it can,
Chickaree’s scold
of my innocence
(this a trespass),
eddies in the round rejoining
beginning, voice born into it.
And must I pray? I ask
how to give words to a time
stopped, the Creek creeking.
