The Spell of Letters
after Gary William Hinsche’s portfolio, The Essence of a Font
Alphabet hangs in the heavens, 26 vessels
to carry light and the sound you make
before you make a sound. Each stroke
a lid lifter, spirit rolling through you.
shards lined up on the parchment
of humankind, chain of contagious fancy.
Agile tent mirrored with scarlet tongues
Behavior of a garden snail
Clacking like a flock of castanets
Diligent baskets rocking the future
Echoes of a torn mind
Fleeting layers of a town that was
Garment that clings to the wet heat of sorrow
Hypnotic messages that distract us
It’s in the breath in between
Jaws that notch ours
Kettle of fish in cynical tailspin
Laugh track for metaphors that scrape us
Measure for measure on a zebra’s weary back
Now dig your heels into your heels
Open to every nothing-that’s-simple
Pedals that whinnie up to your nostrils
Questions in quick-witted do-si-do
Rally your bones in their sockets
Sinews that string hope’s harp
Tilt-a-Whirl fills with soulbirds
Under deep waters a signal to draw you out
Vines shoot forth like courageous arrows
Wings with sturdy legs to mark the new moon
X-rayed text that reads you as you read it
Yellow dislodged from its landing
Zealot with bottomless reservoir to loop the loop
The space around these allies—the white letters,
the black with the white, our resting place
which we won’t fully pronounce
until we go out early in spring
to recognize the morning dew.
Bon Appétit* As Political Pundit: A Cento (Issue May 2024)
*Bon Appétit, a monthly American food and entertaining magazine has been appearing since 1956, the year of Operation Redwing, the first air-deployed thermonuclear weapons test by the United States and when the movie The 10 Commandments premiered.
What I’m loving
has a long history
way beyond creamy pasta.
Honey, I brought the goods
by poaching
more is more.
Excess is the point.
Don’t mess around when it comes to
humongous internet imposters
cut in precise soldier-like planks
and seasoned with a complex web
of cheeky and dirty.
Skin side up,
it all pairs nicely
with a twist that turns.
And yes, it can overcook quickly
so keep an eye on the hyper-regional
that’s low on effort
taking cues from shortcuts
like a slurry
of boxed and bagged
cores of spiky.
So tag it. Swizzle it.
There’s more than enough
bracing clarity
as it all simmers
in its firm and meaty texture
towards the last
Last Call.
Stand-Up Ghazal
It’s wandered through the ages, that tell-tale levity of punchline.
Agent against darkness, every cave fire’s flickering punchline.
Two shlemiels walk into a bar up to their eyeballs with angst &
kvetching, then flip-side pivot forgives with luminous punchline.
Kick Me signs slapped onto their backs, a millennia of persecution,
irritations that rankle and arrest, all holy grail of punchline.
Pacing & fisted mic as confessional, another formula for funny.
Self-deprecation cuts both ways, pithy punching bag of punchline.
Rabbi, priest, & imam slouch together on a rickety park bench,
Is jokester really joking? The slippery subtext of punchline.
Dr. Freud, you’ve splayed me onto your threadbare couch to lay
bare my cracks in my cracking up from hurled & ruthless punchlines.
Jewcat Speaks
after Joann Sfar’s The Rabbi’s Cat
Parchment lives in my mouth, and though I haven’t gobbled a parrot
as Sfar’s feline, you still admire the accordion between my ribs
as my chatter fills your bedroom. I make you feel like Sunday,
my butterscotch fur your soft earth, my warmth your pastry,
honey-drenched. In my primal gaze, you are sometimes carcass,
sometimes supplicant, so bring me your lamb shank or gefilte fish
in a saucer. And perchance I take a doze, my skullcap and Cheshire grin
will levitate me, so have ready pomegranate seeds that I will lap up
from the orange blossom water in your cup. You know I know how
to best track in the long quiet, as I scrawl my many names onto
the shoulders of stars. I lick the walls of alleyways to the synagogue
that’s up on its feet. Cat scratch fever has me wondering if blood
that clings to my whiskers could ever be any sweeter. Like that cartoon
Felix, I walk with my hands behind my back, my head down deep
in thought. I am your rambunctious rabbi, revealing to you the through line—
it’s better to remember a few small things because they help you measure
how much you don’t know. I insist that you add to every fortune cookie fortune
the scripture with the cat. And I remind you that I will never carry your slippers,
but my ancestral face will always carry that shield of the Maccabees. And while
I have your attention, remember to honor my cousins—Hello Kitty, Japanese
princess with no mouth commandeering hives of color-drenched tchotchkes,
Tesla’s glow-in-the-dark Macek with his shower of sparks, Schrödinger’s figment
of cat who crouches in a quantum-ruled multiverse, and Tom who spent his kitten
years as a tiny wandering Jew before he met up with that tref Jerry. So at what
point does history nod back at us, then turn platitude—the right to remain on
Greek vases, in Egyptian tomb paintings and Roman mosaics, or as happy
Asian paws, mechanical and beckoning? Am I not Jew like you, transplanted
from civilization to civilization, hungry for home?
Grinnell Mill B&B That Week
From the opened window of the guesthouse
a congress of strung keys sways
in the night breeze
like a beaded curtain
and moonlight on my cheek
is just the right amount of fidelity.
Next to our guest bed decked
with crisp white linens
a cold bird body, its black chevron
on the oak floor with ellipses
of black ants bubbling around it.
What could the free-standing mirror
have promised this barn swallow?
Sometimes we are whimpering wounds.
At the convenience store the goose
nests her eggs atop
a parking lot island
and each day her head swivels
for cars and shoppers as they pass.
Ancient mercies linger.
One moment can only breed
another. Our last day the goose
leads her fluffy goslings
across the morning pavement.
Our last night the strung keys chime
in the evening breeze
like a curtain divine.