Backbone > Poetica

Eited by Phil Levine

Sadly, local poets Enid Dame and Dan Propper passed away in late 2003. They will be missed.
Enid Dame was a poet, writer, and teacher. Her poetry was widely published and Dame’s work often dealt with her Jewish background, which she explored and celebrated from the perspective of a radical, but gentle, feminist. Along with her partner of 25 years, poet Donald Lev, she edited and published Home Planet News, a literary tabloid. A memorial poetry reading for Enid Dame will take place Saturday, February 14, at Woodstock Town Hall at 2pm.
Dan Propper was a poet and a translator. Propper had been an elder statesman of Woodstock’s lively poetry scene since the early 1990s. A memorial poetry reading for Dan Propper is scheduled for Saturday, April 10, at Woodstock Town Hall at 2pm.
—Phil Levine

...

Benediction

Let us raise the green banner
with the white dove; let us
nail it to the mast
and sail off in every direction,
leaving Bismarck, and platinum,
and Bacchus, and Pan, and
the murder of Rosa Luxemburg
behind; let us issue stamps
with red birds and green beetles on them,
in commemoration of nothing but themselves;
stamps with yellow flowers and ships
under sail; stamps with impalas,
mushrooms, butterflies, and fishermen.
Let us carry the lamps through the wheat field.

—Dan Propper
Reprinted by permission, Hunger Magazine

...

Shiva

They have rent all my garments.
They make me sit upon the hard wet ground.
They have sent their children away from me.
They have crushed my mirrors.
And they command me to mourn.
I ought to rejoice in the commandment.
And I do. I do.
I have always loved you, my buried bride.
As now I am commanded to do.
I will always love you my beautiful one.
As I am and am not commanded to do.

—Donald Lev (12/03)

...

Retablo

In its ultimate development...the Shekhina...stood for an independent, feminine divine entity prompted by her compassionate nature to argue with God in defense of man. —Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess

This is the highway that almost killed us.
This is the snow that turned brown.
This is the landscape that vanished
in a swirl a skid a thud
another driver’s oncoming eyes.
This is the place where the light failed.

If we were Mexicans, we could paint a retablo.
carefully re-constructing the scene:
the van’s long slide in the dirty snow,
semi-circling the wrong direction;
the third car falling from the sky,
its crumpled front like a cardboard box in a blaze;
the rational state trooper the reassuring fireman
the ambulance we refused;

our van with its tough skin and city heart
now mortally shattered a skeleton
shedding pieces of itself as they towed it away;

the bus that limped in to Manhattan
with us and our refugee shopping bags on board,
shaken but still intact.

If we lived in another religion, we would gratefully
add the calm blue-clad mother smiling from her blue cubicle
cloud-wrapped serene the reason for our deliverance.
Or perhaps we’d sketch in some other redeemer:
her gifted son? a saint whose name we shared?

But since we are Jews, this avenue is closed to us.
Our God cannot be given life in a painting.
For better or worse,
we are people of words.
So, Shekhina, here are a few
that took root in my mind
(the least I can do):

Shekhina, I thank you for mushroom soup
for shitakes criminis celery onion blender.
For food to prepare for someone to eat it with
for the bowls smooth as shells under my dishrag
for the chance to stand one more morning
in a sun-splotched kitchen
scraping fried egg white off a plastic spatula
for the cat on the table
the light coming in both windows.

Shekhina, you are the soup
and the eggs. You are dinner and breakfast,
evening and morning.
You are the reason for preparing meals,
the reason we eat together.
You are the bowl and the spoon.
You are the light.

—Enid Dame

...

Beauty

From my room down the hall,
I can hear the mathematics
professor getting emotional
about an equation, and I ask
myself how someone can get
so worked up about what isn’t real,
an abstraction, nothing but
signs and symbols. A scribble.

Oh, I say to myself. To him
it is a poem, a formal one,
every word in place, every rhyme
perfect, every stanza exact. Poor man.
He, too, must pound the beauty in
with his fist. Every time. Every time.

—J.R. Solonche

...

Your Hands Are The
Subject Of This Poem

your hands are the subject of this poem. and i reach for them across a
barbwire fence, across a foxhole, across a millennium of humiliation,
awaiting the bull’s eye of a bullet. your hands are the noun. verb. adjective.
and be all. even when they’re cold, ornery, combative. your hands slapping
me when i’m silly. rendering me an example. pointing me out in the
schoolyard. your hands collaring me when i play hookey from
responsibilities. running from our kids. ignoring them when they ask
questions about my disappearances from the dinner table. your hands tapping
me on the shoulder. asking for solace. asking for loving. but i run from those
hands. because they corner me. they ask me to own up to my sins. i veer from
any demonstrations of affection. i take comfort in church on sunday. on my
knees before the altar. before the statue of the holy mother. before the priest
pressing closer to hear my confession. like a car skidding away from a hit and
run accident. avoiding owning up to the persecution of your hands. your
beautiful hands. your beautiful beautiful hands.

—Bruce Weber

...

hit here

you just heard me call you a sweaty pig
and i’m leaning over, my eyes are slit and
my lips are partly open, so you can see
a bit of my front tooth and a drop of saliva
your brain contracts beneath your skull
and you see black for a moment
you want to bite out my eyebrow hairs with your teeth
but you’re paralyzed and no part of you moves
except maybe your pupils as they let in more light,
so you can finally see again and there i am
smiling at you sweetly and you wonder if
you’ve just imagined the whole thing.

—Giovanna Coppola

...

untitled

wake up with word
salvation in my head

had intense dream about
something I do not remember now

pissing always feels good

another bill from the telephone
say I owe more money than I do

put on hold when I call
nice eventual man on other end

is annoyed with me

as I don’t understand I don’t
owe 62 dollars but only 93 cents

woman fixes problem

nothing to eat for breakfast
so I have orange juice coffee

no work today and feel
like man let out of jail

about to commit crime

sit on couch
as day takes shape around me

—Chris Heffernan