Two Poems

Bends for a Time as if Tame

Already begun

the slipping away,

the traveler poem comes

on the crest of a wave,

seeking two or three words, maybe four.

The flank-heaving poem

rests in our care,

bends, for a time,

as if tame.

Next the words and the writer

stand on the shore

thanking the poem

for the time,

watching the poem

roll away.

Counting on You

I wish my voice

would rumble the bones

in your ear

as it thunders in mine,

could speak the same truth

it whispers in mine,

could sing the same song

that I'm hearing.

Out of dashed hope

Vacant, pungent,

stained and sweaty,

flailed wish and purpose,

aimless winged days winging

away.

Hoping

something rich with vigor

survives the cleaning up.

Some thing green and growing,

hardier than the decomposing

dream long since bled

out to dry,

and to dust.

Too long and too slow,

shuffling fate retains

a pulse,

sightless, intransigent pulse,

bizarre oasis

on a featureless plain,

the beating heart

invents, again,

what the mind forgets

or never knew.

It would be something

fierce, resurgent,

damp and earthy,
the beautiful face,

another sweet roar coming.

Wake-up Call

On the move
spot to spot,
gone noon
or higher,

hearing the heaven
breathe in my ear,
bound for the quick path,
point to point,

but yellow heat smoking,
staining my eyes,
melting the way,

the red splash
rafting
through tunnels and branches,
bathing tissues and brain cells,

calling my name,
singing the praises
hot blood
does sing

Carried on the Wind

The wind never thinks

about rhythm,

just comes and blows

and hunts, maybe,

for a little wet

to wick away

The moist of it

wraps me in eddies

and sweet caresses

I pick through the folds

seeking surprises,

lightweight gifts

of quick chills,

the scent of mystery ahead,

the new world

blowing in

Who I Would

I believe that who I am is who I would
regardless of what others think of me
and when I wish to know
what it is I have to give 
for life and love
and who will
live beyond
this day
I am OK
that all I love
are who they are
and will be who they be

Always Jewish, Lately Palestinian

I wrote this poem more than 20 years ago and have revised it many times since. It is in my book Wild Once and Captured (available on-line). A video of me reciting this poem and two others can be found here.

I am Jewish because the love of others made me so.

I am Jewish because I grew up on the south side of Chicago where even my public school seemed Jewish.
I am Jewish because my grandfather was oh, so Jewish;
I felt it then, I feel it now.
I am Jewish because in my grandmother’s kitchen nothing would rise,
but of everything there was plenty.
I am Jewish because angry Irish boys felt my Jewish nose at the end of their Catholic fist.
I am Jewish because the South Shore Country Club would not let us in
(though Marx also warned us against joining clubs that would have us).
I am Jewish because my Dad once slugged a guy who cussed a Jewish pitcher for the White Sox.

I am Jewish because the Jewish god is not diminished by my disbelief.
I am Jewish because Emma Goldman and Hannah Arendt were Jewish,
and so was Karl Marx and so was Groucho and Jesus, too, for that matter.
I am Jewish because of the Maccabees and Masada and crusader violence
and Spanish inquisitors and Cossack pogroms
and the ghetto and the death camps
and because I also planted trees in Israel.
I am Jewish because Jewish workers fight in labor struggles and because Jewish people resist racism and because, like all the world’s poor, poor Jews endure.
I am Jewish because we are commanded to remember when we were slaves in Egypt,
and I do.
I am Jewish because being Jewish means never using violence against another
except when life, itself, is directly threatened;
that principle must never be compromised.

I am Jewish because I am a child of Abraham;
Palestinians, therefore, are my brothers and sisters.
We are all children of Abraham.
I am Palestinian because Jews, too, have been homeless.
I am Palestinian because we have a future together or none, at all.
I am Palestinian because Palestinian yearning is so like Jewish yearning.
I am Palestinian because Jews have been uplifted by the love of Palestinians.
I am Palestinian because peace in Arabic and in Hebrew bestows the same gift.
Although Sarah and Hagar are our separate birth mothers,
I am Palestinian because we all live in the embrace of one mother,
and will return to her.

If you summon one of us for cruel judgment, there will be no telling us apart.

The Sneaking Suspicion

In an earlier post, I explained a bit about why I call this blog "Outdoor Poetry Season." It is so named, in part, because a lot of my first lines, sometimes whole drafts, develop outside. That is how this one happened.

Overcast and warm and drizzly, almost no one else around. Jetta, usually solidly opposed to getting rained on, didn't mind the drizzle. She was off leash for a lot of the walk, too, but keeping companionably close. I imagine the warm, moist air was redolent with good stuff, lavishing scents and contentment on Jet.

Freed of the responsibility to supervise, of the worry that Jetta might joyfully accost and unintentionally terrorize passersby, I savored the peace of the Franciscan monastery's pastoral garden and mini-Via Dolorosa with its ritual contemplation of death and resurrection.

Walking slowly uphill, I wrote a poem about life after death and one aspect, at least, of the shadow of doubt. Raindrops splattered irregularly on my paper, spotting the page, rendering my pencil somewhat less reliable than usual. But like I said, it was warm and pleasant and peaceful and the poem got written during outdoor poetry season. A good thing, I say.

The Sneaking Suspicion

If you believe
in life following death,
then the sneaking suspicion,
trailing behind

like a holy phantom,
like Smeagol,
the reflection
of all our sins,

could well be the thought
that you
are already
dead.

Never Can Tell

My sister, Teri, is going to read this one at the Heartland Cafe on April 6th. 

She wakes and feels this past

lurking beside her,

the ghost that will not fall behind,

pummeling, insistent.

She wakes and prays,

whoever is there to hear,

get me through this day,

I’ll not ask for more.

She wakes and dresses

her bits of scattered self,

hauling scarred pieces to

proper places, endlessly preparing.

At the door, she checks for menace

in hallways, scanning streets

for fleshy threats and phantoms,

seeking her whom she always meant to be.

Out the door,

she strides ahead

as if fearless,

limitless and ready.

She arrives feeling

unreckoned power, feeling this day

pregnant with difference, this day

ready, perhaps, for what yesterday was not.