Cover Art: Moon of my own by Dastid Miluka, mixed media on paper, 2016, 42 x 30 cm. Private Collection. For inquiries about this piece, please contact us at art@thebrusselsreview.com
Not Enough
I am not a Jewish enough poet
Because I’m not so mystical.
I don’t see God in greenery, prophet
Or children. I’m jesuitical.
I love the punctiliousness of halacha.
Swearing “I am a Nazir!”
Leads to no inspired Aha!
It’s just hair. Yessir.
I am not Jewish enough
Because I decline denouement.
No Messiahs for me. Life’s rough.
Death’s rougher. Politics is cant
But necessary. Dying together
Is not more Jewish than the weather.
Street-Crossing Sonnet
Expedited appreciation of the clouds
In their fragmentation, not their fullness,
A particolor assemblage, a directness allowed:
Not their semblance but their cloudness,
Hurried as one avoids, as usual, the cars
As a Motor Sea pedestrian, a panicked crossing
Against speed, an ant on the arras
Of productivity. A moss in its mossing.
Now on the other side, the clouds are other.
You hold your daughter’s hand, she loves you,
Uncomplicated joy in her presence, in her.
You squelch through mud with daily shoes.
The sky has moved on through your morning,
Your peaceful embeddedness ignores all warning.