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Kernels

There is a kernel of pain within

that I dare not  touch,

but dodge and slip by.

If confronted,

it may spill open,

releasing  Abbadon and Sama-el,

Archdemons of anger and sadness,

to trample my soul.

So the kernel remains,

and it smolders,

kindling implacable rage

and it rumbles,

dissonating the rhythm of my soul.

And it sends out its strands

to sheath my heart

in shrouds of inconsolability

Note: A poem about my reticence from catharsis,
The pain is destructive enough smothered, what will be if released?

Longing

God said to Abraham “Know thee,

you descendants shall be strangers in a strange land.”

I, like my forefathers, have lived in places I had no part of,

apart, but wanting to belong.

So I know that the God’s promise is also a curse.

In Auschwitz I had hoped to rid myself of this estrangement,

to find within my past, a sense of belonging.

But in the sweltering barracks

and along the lines of latrines

I found nothing of belonging, of inclusion.

Only of a place empty of home, replete with longings,

longings of elsewheres, longings of aways.

longings so great as to corrode,

longing so great that they suffused the soul,

belonging forgotten,

only longings remained

Note: Another poem about the disappointment from
the cartharsis. Expressing the pain alone is
not healing.

Pharaoh’s Cow

I am part of a war unfinished,

a war that will not be finished,

its dead unburied, unmourned.

I am part of lives concealed,

a syllable in a secret unwhispered,

sealed in a chamber of pain.

I am part of a chasm of need,

its hungers unsated,

Like the cow in Pharaoh’s dream,

devouring fatted heifers,

gaunt with dissatisfaction.

Note: I never felt that I quite lived up to the expectations,
and even now despite my accomplishments I am gaunt with dissatisfaction
like the emaciated cows who eat the fatted ones and yet stay just as thin.

Rootlessness

My father aged 12,

arrived  in America 6 years after his family,

having been left with his grandmother in Europe .

Upon his arrival he refused to kiss the unfamiliar woman

who met him at the pier,

it was his mother.

I imagine that until he got readjusted to his new home,

he felt between families, rootless.

His eyes would lose their focus every once in a while

(like they did as a six- year old

trying to remember his mother’s smile).

until he forced himself to grow up quickly

and not need a mother at all.

I think about my father’s legacy

wandering alone about Tel Aviv on my days off

or when walking home from the shuk Friday afternoons,

laden with fruits.

I stop on the benches to rest and read the paper

away from my responsibilities.

When I get home my wife yells from bathroom where she is bathing our daughter:

Marty is that you where did you disappear to it's almost Sabbath I’m so frustrated couldn’t you have shopped last night did you hear me why don’t you answer.

I nod my head from the kitchen where I am putting away the cucumbers,

And like a swinger of birches I ease myself to the ground.

Note: I insulate myself the way my father did. The swinger of birches refers of course to the Robert Frost poem. I feel that half the time I am launching myself away from reality and then landing back on earth.

Seed Coat

There is a crossword clue

“Seed coat” four letters

Starts with an A,

that I have never solved.

Perhaps if I had, then maybe I would know the secret

of sprouting,

Of seed coats cracking in the winter cold,

to be moistened by the late winter rains,

of tiny pale seedlings reaching in the spring

beyond the earth.

I have never felt that spring sun,

or August winds that swirl tiny dust devils around one’s stalk,

like they have.

But I know the warmth of the soil

and its gritty pleasure as you stay, season after season,

never to wilt.

Note: Terrified of failure, I have nor dared enough in this lifetime.

Shattered Dreams

Dreams were the enemy

because they looked for ends and beginnings

In a world where middleness survived.

In a world where time needed to meld into

daysmonthsyears

dreams lengthened the minutes

and drew the notch ever tighter

 

And all the dreams Auschwitz hadn’t allowed

were bequeathed to us.

So I became a child of expectation,

presaged and impendent,

Who ran from the dreams surrounded.

But dreams return, on wings of hope,

to shatter ever stronger.