Tzama*

digitally derived from artwork by W.H. Bartlett

Tzama

by Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld

Beneath the Holy Land,

where even water wars are fought,

the troubled springs run deep.

And water, which has properties

to wear on stone, has split the rock.

                                    Lord . . .

                                                my shepherd.  

           

About suffering, Stefan Grass said,

“Suffering is like salt, bitter in a glass.

Become a lake instead—then sip the water. 

You’ll see how sweet it tastes,

with hardly any hint of bitterness.”

(The Jaffa oranges are sweet

and bigger than grenades. 

We’ve moved our fences farther in.

Our neighbors claim the land we left,

then ours.)

                                     Beside the still waters. . .

Sbarro Pizza,

where a young man opens up his coat,

says to the girl behind the counter,

Know what this is?

so like the exhibitionist

who bares his misused, misplaced

instrument of love

explosively.

                                    He maketh me to lie down . . .

                                    In green pastures

tents of Palestinians

are buffeted by angry winds,

their throats are parched.

The houses of the Palestinians collapse. 

                                     In the house of the Lord,

another scene:  From one side

comes a swarthy man and from the other,

one more swarthy man—

sons of the same father.

They face off, raise their instruments,

and aim.  Which will give ground?

Which strike the other first?

Raging thirst propels them.

Nearby the only lake

that’s fresh and clear

is Lake Tiberius,

called the Sea of Galilee.

It, too, is troubled water.

Further south, the sea is dead 

and full of salt.  How many 

Abrahamic sons must fall?

(Bombs bloom. 

The wolves that used to roam

the Russian Steppes

are here.)

                       Through the valley of the shadow,

a great tree arches over the River Jordan.

It is the tree of the Jewish people.

It is the tree of the Palestinian people.

Its leaves shudder in the wind,

on every leaf a name.

~ first published in MidEastWeb

* Tzama is Hebrew for "thirst"

Another Time, Maybe

artwork: ralph murre

Another Time, Maybe

by Ralph Murre

Wasn’t there a time when it all seemed o.k.?

Mantel clocks faithfully wound, maternity wards

thriving, Montgomery Wards thriving,

a Ford in the garage? An occasional world war

or mob lynching, the atomic removal

of a couple of cities far away,

a case of Schlitz in the cellar?

Wasn’t there this background music,

a bearded man conducting a thousand strings

and Dinah Shore and a summer of cicadas

in a Hollywood Bowl of Cherries?

Wasn’t it just swell? And didn’t you get

that orange box of Wheaties with Eddie Matthews

when your dad got the job at the gas station

after striking for a couple of years at Kohler?

Didn’t you shine your little shoes and put on

your little suit and snap your bow-tie

on the white collar and look up

the skirt of the angel costume on the stepladder?

And how hard was it to swipe a pack of Luckies?

Wasn’t there a time when feeling-up the Schmidt

girl in her pointy little bra was pretty good?

And wasn’t it great to go to art school

and draw nude models and swipe packs

of Gauloises at the Knickerbocker? And

wasn’t it great when your brother

let you come along to a park and build

a fort with his buddies and then

that old guy drove up and was real nice

and wanted to see your . . .

touch your . . . Oh, that’s right,

you can’t remember that, can you?

And wasn’t it fun the time you and Billy

put sand in the fuel tank of that bulldozer

and busted the windows out of that cabin?

And wasn’t it cool when you didn’t get drafted

and got to mess around with chicks

who burnt their pointy little bras?

And wasn’t it nice when Ike, in his gray suit,

and Mamie, in her navy blue dress

with the little white dots looked up from golf

and told us everything would be o.k.?

Wasn’t that nice?

And weren’t her gloves just so white?

~ first published in the Peninsula Pulse

Lune Morte

photoart: ralph murre

Lune Morte

by Virginie Colline

The dead moon stares at us

In the garden of nettles

Behind the wall

A derelict church

Hides its secret dust

~ first appeared in Oberon's Law

Mona Lisa

artwork: william marr

Mona Lisa

by William Marr

There must be some d-e--e---p

secret

Staring at her smile

a man tilts his head left and right

Beside him a painted woman

wears a wide grin

~ previously published in Between Heaven and Earth

   (PublishAmerica)

Bait

artwork: ralph murre

Bait

by Karen Stromberg

We catch poems

the way fishermen catch fish:

by sitting alone for hours

in the little boat of ourselves,

nothing much going on,

just a finger

on the filament

that leads

to the anguished worm

~ first published in The Ever Dancing Muse (1999)

Berlin Sky

artwork: ralph murre

Berlin Sky

by Thomas J. Erickson

When daybreak surprised us that morning

in your hotel room, the Berlin sky was

the color of a healing bruise.

In my pocket were the chips of mortar I had

scratched out of the remnants of the Gestapo

headquarters.  The mortar was turning

to sand by the hour--free at last

to disintegrate for all time.

I asked you to think of all the people

who had looked into that sky awaiting

the knock of the Gestapo or the Stasi,

the concussions of the Allied bombs,

or the signal to escape from East to West.

We were too drunk and happy, though,

to confront the city and its past--safely

distanced, as we were, from divorce 

or the second thoughts of the newly married.

It was easy to look at the sky and write

our histories on the window pane

before passing into our Lethean sleep.

~ first published Mad Poets Review

GHOSTS OF HAWORTH

photo - patricia williams

GHOSTS OF HAWORTH

by Patricia Williams

 

Vivid autumn courses, bringing unwelcome news

of unknown but compelling forces

shrouded in time and season,

a world where myth and reason collide,

the magnetic pull of frost and fog,

bleak landscapes where gothic heroes speak.

A timeworn house and desolate downs, set amid

the rushing and moaning of the wind, 

hear tortured souls howling from parchment pages.

November bites, draws in the chill of winter,

overnight frost and snow settle and fall,

thoughts and feelings call and clash along the way.

Those most encumbered ones of Haworth,

all slumbered before their thirty-eighth summer,

unconventional, unwell, grave and quiet,

living in a limbo close to hell, clinging to one other,

happiness not brought about by change

on the bleak moors of Yorkshire.

Walk in the wilderness, the featureless and solitary

that haunts with hints of the extraordinary.

Pictures frozen in time, every twist having a turn,

each hillock of heather with scent sublime,

like elusive thoughts during sleep.

Those coldest pine for Haworth’s beloved heath.

~ first published in Middlebrow Magazine