I was working on my first book of poetry. I had decided to self-publish. My husband and I agreed it was the right time; we were in the right position. I had enough pieces to choose from, and there were to be four separate sections that would flow into and organically follow one another into the planned slim but substantial volume. Each piece had been carefully selected, edited and categorized. I was putting the pages into a plastic sleeve – everything was that ready. My editor and writing partner, Ruthie, was on the phone, we had just discussed the cover graphic.

.

When my husband screamed from another part of the house I said, “Ruthie, we’ve got an emergency, I’ll call you back.”

.

Ten days later Ruthie visited me in the waiting area of the hospital ICU where my husband’s life was precariously balanced between the spiritual world and ours. I hadn’t called her, but the “grapevine” had updated her. Ruthie and I didn’t speak of my poetry book again for about two years. During that time my life and those of my family had been sliced off and discarded by the amputation of my husband’s leg and subsequent, continuous, illnesses.

.

The transition from poet to full-time caregiver was jolting, heart breaking and revealing. It revealed an amazing strength that I could only have guessed at. And at the same time, I found myself to be a coward who was no longer in touch with her feelings. The social worker in ICU had suggested that I keep a diary, an especially good therapeutic tool for a writer. On second thought, I told myself, no. I was too afraid to remember any of the emotional turmoil. At that point I had no idea how long my husband would live, if at all. I never wrote a word of what happened in real time; I do not want to experience any type of vivid re-call. The memories of that time, when they do come in the small doses that my sub-conscious will allow, are all negative in the extreme.

.

About two years or more into my husband’s illnesses, which had developed from an acute crisis into a chronic one, I again dared to pick up the plastic sleeve of poems, with Ruthie on the other end of the telephone. I found the whole process, the poems, the editing and sorting, even the idea of publishing, meaningless and a waste of time. I thought no one would be interested any longer; my words had lost their unique ring.

.

To prove my point to Ruthie I read a stanza from my poem “Gray Hair” (published in Israel Senior Life): “The stray gray hair / has been hidden for years / under the brown wig / waiting for the war to end”.

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“So what,” was my attitude. Then I read to her from “Hannah” (published in Fallopian Falafel): “Mother! / Daughters cry out through the generations” – and I shrugged into the phone. Who wrote these? And, what does anyone care? To me they seemed valueless.

.

Ruthie parried with full quotes from several of my other poems, award winners among them, and they left me empty. I had been writing throughout the crisis – I never completely stopped. But I no longer recognized myself in my work, didn’t feel I could “waste my time” with it. I was no longer me; the earlier version was exposed for the fraud I felt she was. But Ruthie persuaded me to go to a poetry workshop that I had given up at the start of the crisis.

.

The group leader, having heard my self-flagellating introduction said, “I don’t want to hear that any more, you’re an excellent poet.”

*

One year after my husband’s passing I can report that my senses have slowly begun to re-convene: I have continued to co-edit, and write for The Deronda Review; I have submitted poems and articles elsewhere, albeit at a much slower rate. With the encouragement of writers here in Gush Etzion, I started a writing workshop which I call Pri HaGush, the sister group to Pri Hadash in Jerusalem. Surrounded by writing companions, I have been able to breathe more easily as I write. I have stopped tiptoeing around the rawness of my feelings. Even before mourning and grieving entered my life, writing was a process. The women writers of Pri HaGush have helped me recognize myself, the old and new versions, at least as much as I have helped them with writing skills and publishing venues as the group leader.

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Most recently I attended the Jewish Women’s Writing Conference in Jerusalem, where I reconnected with friends and colleagues, and put a face on my by-line from cyber-space.

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I still have so much to work out, work through. There are those feelings that I’d rather not deal with. There are the conflicts, the regrets, and guilt too. But yes, there is writing after death. I didn’t die, my words haven’t died, neither has my style. I just need a reminder from time to time.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, The Poetica Magazine Blog

Mindy Aber Barad, Guest Blogger

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Mindy Aber Barad’s poetry, stories, book reviews and essays have been published in Fallopian Falafel, The Jewish Press, CyclamensandSwords.com and other publications both on and off line. Mindy is the Israeli co-editor of The Deronda Review. – Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

One medicates the self with the nearest thing at hand. One does not wish to call attention to one’s dis-ease. Frailties are exploited by social carnivores. Even as an adolescent, I used writing as a balm, as a solace, as a poultice for what I came to know, fifteen years later, as chronic, seasonal depression. Eventually, and nurtured, this reaching for writing allowed me to develop as a poet. I remain in conflict with this annual six-months’ duration. Looking at my writing that treats depression directly, I am struck by two things: how little of it I’ve done; and how pervasive the roots are in almost everything else I attempt. When approaching depression directly, I have to acknowledge that this familiar infusion of mood is also one of my commonly productive modes.

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Here is a poem, retrieved from a place I inhabit often, and usually in private (my writing group deigns to go there only as a suffered punishment): sonnetville.

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I’ve battled back depression all my life.

He flanks and charges, spies, and sues for peace.

Should I agree, he then withdraws the lease.

He finds me in contempt and throws a knife.

We wrestle without rules. He takes delight

in foiling any fairness or appease.

And if I try to cease hostilities,

he lifts me off the ground and picks a fight.

But sometimes while I’m sharpening my tools,

he comes in guise of trusted confidante,

and soothes and coos and mentors me with care.

I trust him to infuse the very air.

I breathe for him, shape his words. I’m the runt

who works his mine, who digs and brings his jewels.

.

Compare this with another poem, written on the occasion of the first birthday of my third child. It’s obviously shot through with depression, although I love all my children dearly.

.

The baby’s year encased me like a rock.

A perfect quartz whose angles never showed,

it skewed my vision ‘til the summer snowed

and mornings came upon me like the dark.

Days there were when light came through like a talk

with friends and I could laugh and lose the load.

At other times the clocks unwound like roads,

while I moved like a boat without a dock.

By equinox the crystal cracked, and I

felt loosened, like a captive whale set free:

I pause before the rift--as if a lie

were clear--and pond’ring what the sea might be,

I reach for his extended arms and lift.

We hold each other and, together, drift.

.

It’s a sort of a paean to the depressive state. I find it significant that the poem apostrophizes precisely the boundaries of my seasonal depression: equinox. Once when someone asked me what my winter state is like I responded: “It’s like having had a close friend die. But you can’t remember which one.”

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Many years ago I discovered light therapy. It works simply and reliably by exposure to full spectrum bright white light, early in the morning, to initialize one’s circadian clock. I also tried several SSRI medications for about nine years and finally gave them up (lovely side-effects) and returned to “my lights.” Does this completely remove the depression? No. But it goes a good ways toward making winters more bearable for me and for those people around me. For the rest I have poetry.

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Why or how does writing work as a treatment? Speculatively, I’d say it provides what my mind seeks in winter: attention to the self; a place for reflection; a therapeutic page-space. This doesn’t mean that I stop writing in summer. I have a correlative mania in summer that makes me a lot of fun to be around. And that summer person likes writing in the middle of the night every bit as much. The process of composing poems is also a process of composing the self. There is order, stabilization, perspective. That’s what I discovered as a depressed kid. And it nourishes and sustains me still.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café

David A. Epstein, Ph.D., Guest Blogger

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David A. Epstein, Ph.D. works as a house-spouse and a carpenter. He is a member of the Brickwalk poetry group in Connecticut, and is a board member of The Hartford Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens. He has published poems in Poetica, Poetic Hours, The Lyric, Blue Collar Review, and Shofar. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

Please joing me in welcoming the poets featured on this, our second week of Open Forum here on JWorld Cafe. Next week we'll resume regular posts with our guest bloggers. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor.

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Ina G. Perlmuter

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Shiva for a Mother

.

Words of encouragement

came from unexpected sources

They came to console me

They spoke of her inner beauty

how she had impacted on their lives

They mentioned her love of family

her steadfastness in commitment to others

The rabbi mentioned her exquisite care

and selflessness in caring for her parents

the respect she lavished on her husband

understanding the many roles

of her children and grandchildren

They were right, all of them

Yes, they all spoke the truth

part of what made saying good bye so painful

.

Choices

.

The office, mahogany majestic, with pomp and sense of medical history oozed with

Frank Lloyd Wrightian lines and musty leather bound chronicles of neurological surgical

artistry. Descriptions of handiwork by skilled medical wizards who collaborate in

God’s work. Repairers of brains but not their thoughts. Repairers of spinal injuries

short circuited in falls or punctured by man’s malicious inclinations.

.

And there, in the exhausting silence which followed the prognosis by the surgeon,

a gentle man, and a giant in his field, came a blindingly clear whisper from the

elderly patient who had spoken hardly a word for months.

.

She sat regally and suddenly words, her words filled the whole room.

Her words bringing a sudden rush of tears from the children who had accompanied

her to this consultation. “now please listen to me,” this bride of fifty seven

years haltingly articulated, “I have had the sweetest of marriage, a wonderful husband,

and I my children found their life’s partners,” and as tears burned rivulets

down her children’s cheeks and tears welled in the surgeons eyes she announced in

an oh so final tone, “I do not want this or any procedure done”.

.

It could have and maybe should have rested there but it was our Father’s hope that

the proposed surgery would enhance our Mother’s life. It was this hope which made us

forget how wise Mother had always been. The illness of a parent has this tendency.

In consultation with us, our Father’s decision was to go ahead with the proposed

protocol.

.

In the end we children saw no improvement. Our Father on the other hand

was more positive. He reassured us that making choices is never easy, one must

look at two equal options when making choices.

.

On a positive note, our dear mother lived out her life in her own home with a husband

who still referred to her as his bride, her devoted children, grandchildren and great

grandchildren and two wonderful caregivers in the surroundings she cherished

.

Like in Ramallah

.

Elaine Rosenberg Miller

.

In the dark, the guiltless, moonless night

They made their way along the walls of the modest house, along the stuccoed walls

Soundless, sightless

On they crept, swiftly, stopping to listen for restlessness, recognition, awareness, life

Soon to be dawn, soon to be day, they hurried on

Soon, blood, glistening blood, molten blood, then darkening blood, stiffening blood, streaking blood

As in Ramallah

In Ramallah, the young man raised his hands, palms up, his fingers splayed

On his hands, his scarlet hands, death

In Ramallah, in Ramallah, one man's blood painted another man's upraised hands

Blood!

Blood coursing through the body

To the heart, to the brain

Bringing warmth

The child fell back on his bed

A single thin mattress

He fell

And his blood pulsed onto the mattress

They slit the neck of the baby, the dewy folds offered no resistance

They killed the parents.

Young parents

And when they were done, they fled into the darkness, softly, softly, the ancient stones recoiling in horror under their feet

And when they returned to their children, their parents, their neighbors, the blood of the family was on their hands

Garments

Faces

Souls

Like in Ramallah

.

My Broken Soul

.

Jennifer Alderson

.

My soul is fragmented just like

the jagged edges which are glass

the shards of universes streaked

with bleeding like a suicide’s

wrists near her own closed fisted palms

the holy vessels cutting in

like knives which piece the wick which would

bring forth the light God gives to us.

How can a suffering soul heal

and when will the Lord redeem us?

Do children suffer by the word

of the Lord above looking down

on those who pray, “If not now, when?”

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Father Narcissus: A Testimonial

The ego-less man acquires peace

it’s said in other religions;

and Martin Buber describes us

in relationships of blockage in

how we view others; absorbed in

the egocentric relationship

we fail to see the ‘other,’ with

their wants and needs made separate

from us by our own paradigms.

I learned all this to find that I

am immersed in self-absorption

with little real feel for the thoughts

of others, despite my wish to

know what their feelings are up close.

How do I experience the real—

not just in regards to God but

in other human beings, too?

My walk through life is tunneled as

though I was in a train traveling

through underneath a bridge with views

both frontal and then backwards, too,

but not to the sides as I look.

I am the Narcissus who looks

at himself but no one else and

hears only Echo calling him—

his own voice resonating back.

.

the joys of being alive

.

Jeff Goodman

the poet suggests that "we walk

on air

against your better judgment"

.

and as the pressure of the

past was mounting and truth

be told, old age rapidly

.

advancing, chopping off one

hydra's head only for it to

sprout another two and so on

.

slowly but surely we saw ourselves

drawn to a light, elevated

towards greater heights

.

floating in air above cities and towns

barns and farms, soaring above

petty grievances and what had

.

seemed to be from below, threatening

strife. the stewardess offered peanuts

and orange juice

.

"we're all out of tomato juice" she said

and just as the plane

was approaching Toscana

.

the "fasten your seat belt light" came on,

the pilot's voice came over the intercom:

"please be seated folks, we’re encountering -"

.

"a little turbulence" was what he had meant to say,

but the end had

arrived; a giant purple - red fiery

.

fire sprouting dragon in the sky had

swallowed up the plane, it's stomach juices

almost drowning us all, in vile liquid

.

"wake up wake up" its time to wake

up, "put on your boots.

and be outside in three minutes."

.

the red headed corporal was awakening

the troops, today was a Friday,

time to clean up the camp. 'fore going home

.

for Shabbat.

.

Full Circle

.

Frieda Landau

.

His great grandfather arrived with little

English and less dollars to make a new life

At the sewing machine and the cutting table

Or the pushcarts which grumbled and groaned

On the cobblestones, never gliding gently.

.

His grandfather escaped to the open spaces of

The Bronx and Brooklyn, to give his children

The life he never had, of leisure to learn

And forget the old tongue and the old ways

That were his secret shame when he was young.

.

His lawyer father – Columbia and Yale law -

Moved to the manicured homes of Connecticut

And tried to pretend he was old money

Never hearing the laughter behind his back

At the upstart immigrant's grandson.

.

He returned to the old neighborhood

Where the once mean cold water walk up

Is now a flat with character - and elevators and hot water

Where his rent is more per month than his

Great grandfather ever dreamed of making in a year.

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The following two selections are collaborations between two poets, Avril Meallam and Shernaz Wadia, in which they pick a topic, each write a poem on it and then weave the poem together in what they’ve come to call Tapestry. They met virtually through one of the first weeks of Open Forum we had on Poetica two years ago.

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Beneath the waves

(by Shernaz)

Under the rippling surface off which,

glint moments of mundane existence

a deep stillness belies the agitation

.

I dive into the tranquility, effortless,

seeking out from recondite beds

exquisite pearls of ancient wisdom

secreted by the oysters of experience

.

sometimes I pry them open a tad too soon

at times I chance upon the rarest of gems.

.

(by Avril)

.

A deep, silent tranquility

obscured by a raging sea.

My own inner world

cradled from the storms around me.

.

As I enter this space

and merge with the peace

of my innermost being

I connect to my Source

hidden beneath the waves.

.

Beneath the waves

.

I sense a deep quietude

as dive into the tranquility

under the rippling surface

of the raging sea

of mundane existence

.

As I enter this space

the stillness that belies the agitation

cradles my inner world

from the storms around me

.

I seek out, from recondite beds

hidden beneath the waves,

exquisite pearls of ancient wisdom

secreted by oysters of experience

.

Sometimes I pry them open a tad too soon

but when I connect to my Source

I chance upon the rarest of gems

and merge with the peace

of my innermost being

.

When the gate opens

.

(by Shernaz)

.

Often overpowered

by neglected shadows of life,

I cower in dread…will they lead me

into dungeons unknown?

.

Can they?

.

When you lift the latch

all my fears will drown

in the surging force

of Your kindly light

.

(by Avril)

.

When the gate opens

will I be ready

to catch a glimpse of the Divine?

.

Or will my eyes be looking backwards

glued to the familiar

that I perceive as the truth?

Unable to get out of my box

to flow with the tide of change

towards peace and harmony

.

When The Gate Opens — Tapestry

.

when You lift the latch

and the gate opens,

can I, overpowered

by the shadows of life,

be ready to catch

a glimpse of the Divine

.

would I cower

in dungeons unknown

look backwards in dread

unable to get out of my box

or

would my eyes lead me

to perceive the truth

drowning my fears

in Your kindly Light

as I flow

towards harmony and peace

in the surging tide of change

.

Thanks for visiting JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog and reading the work of our Open Forum Poets - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

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Frieda Landau is a writer and a photographer, specializing in military topics. Landau was born during a postwar pogrom in Poland to Holocaust survivor parents. She writes poetry as a way to deal with her family history. Her work has appeared in Poetica Magazine and has been anthologized in Poetica’s Holocaust Anthology. Her website: http://www.freewebs.com/listgoddess/ . Her poetry collection, In the Shadow of the Shoah, will be published by Poetica Publishing in the fall of 2011.

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Ina Perlmuter is a wife, mother and grandmother who has published her poetry through ISPS and Poetica, and participated in a reading at the Brewed Awakening Coffee House in Westmont, Illinois. Work is forthcoming in the ISPS Anthology.

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Jeff Goodman lives in Yerucham, Israel with his wife and children. He is the Deputy legal advisor for Beer Sheva Municipality and writes a weekly column, “Elu Devarim” by email. He was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1957 and made aliyah with his family in 1969. From 1976 to 1979 he served in the Golani Brigade, following a volunteer year in Dimona. He attended Law School at Bar Ilan University, and further Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and Har Etzion.

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Jennifer Alderson is a writer and poet whose work has been published in Poetica Magazine and Mim'amakim. She is presently working on her book, The Bible According to Eve.

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Elaine Rosenberg Miller is an attorney in Palm Beach, FL. Her essays, memoirs, poems and short stories have appeared in many literary journals, including AllGenerations; Jewish Magazine; Lit Up Magazine; Miranda Literary Magazine; The Brooklyn Voice; The Forward; The Jewish Woman; The Writing Room Literary Anthology; Wilderness House Literary Review; Women and The Holocaust; Women In Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal (University of Toronto) and Writing Raw.

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Avril Meallem has had work published in journals in Israel and abroad including Voices, H2E, the Yated newspaper, The Doronda Review, Leaves in India and on the Poetica forum. She is a regular contributor in the “Your Space” section of Muse India literary e-journal and together with Shernaz has won two first prizes and two honorable mentions for their Tapestry poems in the monthly competitions. She is the author of a book of poetry, Dancing With The Wind and is presently working on a second collection. You may reach her at aemeallem@gmail.com.

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Shernaz Wadia is a retired teacher and homemaker living in Pune, India. Her poems have been published in e-journals such as boloji.com, Poets International (electronic and print), Pondering Moments, Poets India, Enchanting Verses International, kritya.in, MuseIndia, Autumn Leaves, Ribbons (a journal of Tanka), and anthologized in the book, Posy of Poesy. Her poem on Alzheimer’s has been selected for an anthology, Caring Moments, brought out by the website Life’s Inspirational Moments, Australia. She also writes on the blog writespace4iw.wordpress.com.

In several recent updates I’ve sent out an open call with my weekly blog updates asking for poetry submissions for an Open Forum to be run on JWorld Café in May. This week’s posting holds some of those submissions. I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed gathering them. The Poetica Open Forum will continue into next week’s blog posting. Please join me also in welcoming the blog's new visual artist, Marlene Burns, whose work is featured above the blog entries. Please visit one of her websites to see more of her inspiring work.  – Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

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Why Can’t The Gardeners Be More Careful

Ina G. Perlmuter

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And the headstones of row B83 and 84

lean one toward another as though in conversation

slag colored crumbling edges interrupt the walkway

and beyond stiletto heel prints puncture the fresh rolled grass

.

My sister and I have come to pay respect to our parents

though we complain to each other

“why can’t the gardeners mow the grass more carefully”

we are glad of this carelessness

.

And we painstakingly remove grass shavings from the letters

which form the inscription on our parent’s head stone

grateful that we are able to perform this act of love

.

Oh Mother I Wish We Could Talk

Ina G. Perlmuter

.

Oh mother, I wish we could talk

I miss you

Mother you instilled by example

seldom threats, never in anger

Mother, I have arrived at a time in my life

I remember you being the age I am now

you seemed more mature,

to have accomplished more

Are my memories selective,

are they colored by time

and seasoned with longing to share

that which is so important to me

.

Yes mother, I wish we could talk

You had a way of lessening the hurts of childhood

of reinforcing and encouraging a child’s abilities

How I wish you were here to reassure me

that I am being judicious in my role as parent

a positive influence in my children’s lives

I miss you very much mother, if we could talk

perhaps then you could reveal your secrets of parenting to me

I want to make myself as cherished to my children

as you will always be cherished by me

.

Jeff Goodman

Steps

.

Who knew that there were steps?

Let alone that they actually lead somewhere.

.

Up or down

Towards a heaven or towards a hell.

.

So Jacob slept on the ground

And dreamt a dream of a ladder

.

With angels going up

And angels going down

.

We've all heard the story

Some of us have even seen the movie

.

Who knew there was a wall?

Something real and tangible you might

.

Actually bump your head against

While ascending albeit unwittingly

.

Unknowingly. Let alone gates or even

Those secret passageways

Hidden from the uninitiated

Veiled by fate

.

Who knew that there were actually

Princes and paupers, kings and queens

.

Banquets being held in really fancy halls

And in rubbish heaps.

.

People talk, yeah people talk

Professors speak and monkeys leap

The police along the street

Patrol to keep some kind of peace

.

Order is mostly what they seek

So tuck in your shirt and straighten your stance

.

The musicians at the ball will never go on strike

They re here to provide the background music

.

For Kafka on his flight, from the

City inspectors who all they really want to do

Is give him one more parking ticket

Before they go to sleep.

.

Who knew that they were not

As serious as they pretended to be

.

That they would have let him off

If he would only speak

.

It would have been enough if

He would have told them one of those

.

Parables or paradoxes he was so fond of

In lieu of the cigarette he offered them

.

But how was he to know

That they were interested in literature?

.

How was he to know that the sky outside

Was really gray, and that the world really was

.

Traipsing toward hell, as the musicians

Played and the wealthy danced

.

How was he to know that the sirens in the street -

That the message delivered to the wizard's hall

.

From out of the deep, was real?

How was he to know all this?

.

This commonplace knowledge

Of what actually occurred

.

As clear as clear can be, coming vividly

Across the six o clock news

.

The gun shot blast to the head

Of the wincing Vietnamese

.

Those images embedded in our collective head

Heard and seen by the sensitive, by those who still

.

Dream. Laying awake at night

Wondering about all those

.

Steps

They

.

Didn't

See.

.

Barry Gonen

What Was, Was (translated from Hebrew)

.

I was a clerk and studied civil law,

I was a farmer, teacher, musician, and tour guide galore,

I was a soldier and policeman in green uniform,

I always stayed an optimist inside.

.

I was a photographer, gardener and planted new life,

I was an archeologist, and dug to discover the past.

I whistled, I drew, sang, and wrote many words,

I always remained an optimist inside.

.

I composed my emotions in multiple scores,

I expressed my thoughts in poems and songs,

I would only think of positive things,

I tried to remain an optimist inside.

.

I didn’t always agree to new directions,

I was not always satisfied with the changes in life,

I didn’t always want to argue with people,

I struggled to remain an optimist inside.

.

I am a husband, father, and grandfather to many offspring,

But their future I see not in smiling colors.

I am a little anxious for the world in the future years,

I find it difficult now, to remain, an

Optimist, deep inside.

.

New Day

Barry Gonen

.

Every new day beckons adventure into realms of the unknown.

Every breath I breathe has hidden hope for the future of the universe.

Every step I take is strengthened by my latent enthusiasm.

Every word I speak has purpose lacking cynicism.

Every thought I would like to think is embodied with optimism

Every sound I hear has enlightening depths of meaning,

Every sight I see, stamps indelible impressions on my mind,

Every person I meet opens doors to fascinating exploration,

For each approaching night, I give thanks for my existence!

Every dream I envision, reinforces my imagination,

Every morning’s awakening enriches my yearning for life.

.

When Is?

Barry Gonen

.

When is a poet not a poet,

a musician not a musician,

an artist not an artist?

.

When their senses are impaired,

When their vision is blurred,

When their thoughts are disturbed,

When they cease to dream,

When they cease to share,

When they give up on themselves,

When they finally cease to care!

.

Frieda Landau

No Mind a Whetstone

.

No mind a whetstone to my own

Allusions fly past uncaught

Pleasures of the mind

Pleasures of the body

Inextricably intertwined

Buried in your grave

Nothing to fill the now hollow place

Where Logos and Eros once danced with delight

.

Night

Frieda Landau

.

I go to bed late, later than I should

Finding reasons to stay awake

Watching old movies in black and white

And playing endless solitaire

Or calling unseen friends overseas

Where the new day is almost half done

But friends, however dear, have their own lives

At last, in the grey light before dawn

When sleep overcomes all excuses

I face the desolation of an

Empty bed the rising sun cannot warm

.

Kol Nidre

Frieda Landau

.

How do you remember the unknown grandmother whose name and face you carry

Grandfathers fading into less than memory

Uncles, aunts, cousins, ghosts dissolving in the mists of time

The prayer for the dead a plea

Remember me when I am gone

.

Thanks for visiting JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog and reading the work of our Open Forum Poets - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

.

Frieda Landau is a writer and a photographer, specializing in military topics. Landau was born during a postwar pogrom in Poland to Holocaust survivors parents. She writes poetry as a way to deal with her family history. Her work has appeared in Poetica Magazine and has been anthologized in Poetica’s Holocaust Anthology. Her website: http://www.freewebs.com/listgoddess/ . Her poetry collection, In the Shadow of the Shoah, will be published by Poetica Publishing in the fall of 2011.

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Barry Gonen was born into a musical family in London in 1947. He left England for Israel in 1971 and has been a member of Kibbutz Negba since 1973. He taught English at Tsafit High School for thirty-two years, mostly in the Special Education department, also fulfilling other duties such as musical and security coordinator for the school. He also served in a Border Police Unit for many years and is still active as Security Officer for the Kibbutz on a voluntary basis. His many songs and voiceovers can be found on Facebook, My Space, Skype and YouTube.

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Ina Perlmuter is a wife, mother and grandmother who has published her poetry through ISPS and Poetica, and participated in a reading at the Brewed Awakening Coffee House in Westmont, Illinois. Work is forthcoming in the ISPS Anthology.

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Jeff Goodman lives in Yerucham, Israel with his wife and children. He is the Deputy legal advisor for Beer Sheva Municipality and writes a weekly column, “Elu Devarim” by email. He was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1957 and made aliyah with his family in 1969. From 1976 to 1979 he served in the Golani Brigade, following a volunteer year in Dimona. He attended Law School at Bar Ilan University, and further Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and Har Etzion.

I'm an archivist. I left an accounting job to enroll in library school and graduated last May. The crux of the matter is that I live in Boston. This city is saturated with library students, graduates, and professionals. I have to fight my way to the top.

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Because of this, I've been unemployed since February, and even while it was not unexpected, it's been tough. Living off what savings I accrued working this past summer at Harvard University, pinching pennies, determining if I really do need to pay my cell phone bill (the answer is yes; the answer is always yes) I'm lucky, at least. I have a roof over my head, and my roommates are certainly not going to kick me out. While they might complain, they'll usually pick up groceries on the weeks I should.

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It's odd sometimes, recognizing patterns in your psyche. I spent the two months prior to the unemployment too stressed to sleep, reading or staring at the ceiling until three in the morning, waking up at eight. Feeling as if I was walking around in a fog. That stress is gone, eased into the beginning of despair. That slowly growing feeling of wondering – is this my fault? What if I'm not trying hard enough? What if I'm looking in all the wrong places? What if this is me failing?

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Poetry is not going to help. Fiction is not going to help. Gritting my teeth alone is not going to help. So, I fall into patterns.

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I find myself not always eating as much or when I should. I've reached the point in the cycle, where I'm not sleeping too little, but too much. I'm feeling myself more withdrawn, less able to write what I want to write. That's the largest difference here – not always being able to write.

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Still, this is not a breakdown, I keep telling myself. This is depression. There's a difference. I console myself with everything I'll do once I have a job. Pay off my immediate debts. Start studying martial arts again. Start building my savings. Travel.

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I keep pushing back my deadline. Originally, it was last October. Now, it's by my sister's wedding in late-May.

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Poetry will always fall into the cracks - cracks and fractures, which I thought healed over. I'm forcing the words out one by one, and hoping they spill onto the page in a way which equals something more than just words. I write of the golems and dybbuks, because, at least in writing stories I grew up on, I can find comfort.

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This too shall pass. I know that. I keep the reminder above my desk. Framed words of wisdom my great-uncle gave me for when I finished my baccalaureate.

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“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

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They are words I have lived by since I was seventeen, and I am, if nothing else, persistent in my endeavours. In the meantime, I keep on. I'm keeping my fingers sticky in the library cookie jar. I'm constantly poking contacts and friends in the business. I'm trying my best to remain positive.

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Nothing else one can do, except continue to write.

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Cracked

With the fervor I've been writing recently,

you'd think something had broke, which is,

perhaps, the cypher I seek. I've fallen

by the wayside, jumped off the cliff

years and years ago, and have been flying

since. I've shoved the issues to out of space,

and glossed over what I should have not.

It's not that I'm not thankful for the

emotional dam, the inspired creativity

after a dry spell, but I could do without the

frantic typing, the lurking panic attacks.

I suppose it is too late to say I've learned

my lessons, that I'm finally taking such

other matters into my own hands –

get my head on straight, or straighter,

push past the anxiety, self-deworth,

and uncertainty, figure out

where everything first cracked,

slowly mend the fissures -

and I'm all too aware such processes

will take time, and darling.

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I'll come through,

because I have perseverance,

and for once, I will land on my

feet.

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Stefanie Maclin's poetry and short fiction has appeared in several publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including Under the Radar, The Maynard, Doorknobs&Bodypaint, Astropoetica, Star*Line, The Linnett's Wings, Underground Voices, Battered Suitcase, and Poetica Publishing's Mizmor L'David Anthology: The Shoah. She has guest blogged previously for Poetica Magazine. She has work forthcoming in Illumen, Ashe Journal, and Skive Magazine. She has recently completed her Master's degree in Library Science/Archives Management and is working on what she hopes will be her first full-length chapbook, a work she is tentatively titling Descent. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

In 2009 I posted some poems on the Poetica Magazine website and received a personal email from a reader in India. In response I emailed a poem to him that I had written about India. He suggested I post it on an Indian Literary journal site. Shernaz was a regular contributor there and I immediately felt that we were of kindred spirits. We met in Mumbai in Febrary 2010 during a visit I made to India. During our meeting, I described a form of joint poetry writing to her that I had learned from Sarah Wurtzel in Jerusalem in which each poet writes a nine-line poem on a chosen subject. The originator of the title then interweaves the two poems line by line with minimal editing.

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We decided to try this via email. The results were not inspiring so we remodeled the idea giving ourselves greater editing flexibility and making it into a more collaborative effort with far-reaching possibilities. Our challenging and exciting adventure had begun and the Tapestry Poetic form was born. We call it “Tapestry” since it’s a word that beautifully captures the sentiment and essence of the form and the intertwining of two different thought processes into a rich tapestry of words.

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The rules we formulated are that one of us gives a title and then we each compose a nine-line poem. We only open the other’s poem after both have been exchanged. Next comes the ‘weaving’ to interlace them into one seamless, flowing piece. The editing remains a to and fro process till we are both satisfied with the result. Bold italics are used for one of the poems to allow readers a picture of the weaving process. Additionally, the nine lines of each individual poem and the majority of the words must be kept; changes are allowed for singular and plural but only minimal changes for verbs, adverbs and adjectives; and only the giver of the title has the option of using it in the poem.

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When the variegated threads of our distinctly individual poems are woven together the result is an aesthetic word-scape as seen in these two Tapestries:

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RAPTURE - by Shernaz

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The Word was uttered

And Life sprang up

In beauteous splendor

To pay obeisance

To His Eternal Will

Ever since it has been

An ongoing love affair…

This rapturous desire of Life

To procreate itself.

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RAPTURE- by Avril

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The music began

Slowly, almost imperceptibly,

instrument after instrument added its voice.

Conductor, musicians, audience.

All held in rapture

by the ascending melody.

It was as if Heaven had opened

and drenched us all

in its celestial symphony.

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RAPTURE --Tapestry

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The Word was uttered

The music began

and Life sprang up

Slowly, almost imperceptibly…

In beauteous splendor

instrument after instrument added its voice,

to pay obeisance

to His Eternal Will.

Conductor, musicians, audience,

all held in rapture

by the ascending melody.

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Ever since it has been

an ongoing love affair…

It was as if Heaven had opened

this rapturous desire of Life

and drenched us all,

to procreate itself,

in it’s celestial symphony

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The Wind of Change by Shernaz

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let it be the force that flows

under feathers of peace

the bond that secures

the brotherhood of man

the salve that heals

the carrier of compassion

the ambassador of love

the redeemer of mankind

Hail! the wind of change

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The Wind of Change by Avril

It’s there,

whispering in the trees

A new beginning

A desire within our souls

to seek the truth

An awakening awareness

of the earth’s cry to be healed.

A deep inner yearning

that knows no borders

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The Wind of Change---TAPESTRY

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Hail! the wind of change!

A new beginning

whispering in the trees;

the force that flows

under feathers of peace

in an awakening awareness

of the earth’s cry to be saved

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It's here!

the redeemer

carrier of compassion

seeker of truth

ambassador of love

the salve that heals

an inner yearning

sown deep within our souls

that knows no borders

a bond that secures

the brotherhood of man

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To date we have worked on twenty-seven titles and only two turned out impossible to weave, the differences between our individual poems being too great.

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Tapestry Poetics has allowed us to intertwine our two hearts and minds around a central unifying topic, allowing us to bring our histories, our cultures and even our religions - I am Jewish and Shernaz is Zoroastrian - with us, essentially making peace on the page and proving that Poetry has no borders.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Avril Meallam and Shernaz Wadia, Guest Bloggers

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Avril Meallem was born in London and attended St. Mary’s Hospital where she studied physiotherapy. She immigrated to Israel in 1998 with her husband and now lives in Jerusalem. She began writing poetry in 1997, with work published in journals in Israel and abroad including Voices, H2E, the Yated newspaper, The Doronda Review, Leaves in India and on the Poetica forum. She is a regular contributor in the “Your Space” section of Muse India literary e-journal and together with Shernaz has won two first prizes and two honorable mentions for their Tapestry poems in the monthly competitions. She is the author of a book of poetry, Dancing With The Wind and is presently working on a second collection. You may reach her at aemeallem@gmail.com.  

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Shernaz Wadia is a retired teacher and homemaker living in Pune, India. Her poems have been published in e-journals such as boloji.com, Poets International (electronic and print), Pondering Moments, Poets India, Enchanting Verses International, kritya.in, MuseIndia, Autumn Leaves, Ribbons (a journal of Tanka), and anthologized in the book, Posy of Poesy. Her poem on Alzheimer’s has been selected for an anthology, Caring Moments, brought out by the website Life’s Inspirational Moments, Australia. She also writes on the blog writespace4iw.wordpress.com. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

"Blindfolded" part of the "Surviving Genocide" series by Raquel Partnoy

Sixteen years ago, when I moved to the United States, I felt that its English language was a kind of shelter which I could use to write on the terror my family and many others had endured during the seven years of dictatorship in Argentina: disappearances, torture, killing at the hands of a terrorist state. This new language has given me the necessary physical and psychological distance to be able to write about what I had experienced during that time. Writing essays, poems, and my book length narrative poem City of Red Horizons, made me concentrate more on the English grammar than on my feelings.

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I have been nourished by three languages and cultures. My mother’s Yiddish tongue and the Jewish traditions she brought with her to Argentina awakened my love to read Jewish writers and learn about her world as well as to understand more about her sad memories. Argentina was the country her family had chosen when they escaped the horrors of Czarist Russia, I grew up there, and the Spanish language enriched my life through the magnificent Latin American and Spain’s authors. I have memories of myself, an already avid reader at fourteen, going to my city’s bookstores to buy affordable editions of novels by well-known authors. For years I kept that collection which I regarded as my treasure. Later in my life, the English Language allowed me to read the original works of great poets, and also testimonies of Holocaust survivors. As I began to read those testimonies, I noticed many similarities in procedures between the genocide committed during the Holocaust and that perpetrated by the military dictatorship in Argentina. I decided to unify both subjects and paint the series Surviving Genocide. At the same time I wrote an essay on the same subject.

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Early in my career I used to paint landscapes of Bahía Blanca, my hometown in Argentina. Although I draw large human figures on paper, I had not yet thought about including them in my oil paintings. So it was not by chance that in 1976 small figures began to appear at the doors, windows, and skies of my cityscapes. That was precisely the year when Argentina began to experience one of the cruelest chapters of its history. A military coup took place; thirty thousand people disappeared and were eventually massacred by the government.

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When my daughter disappeared and my son felt in a state of depression I thought that I would need more than single works to picture what was going on in my country at that time. I began working on series of paintings and also writing essays on the subjects of those paintings that later were included in the catalogs of my exhibits. The figures would grow larger on my canvases and became the main characters of my work. It took me several years to produce the first series of paintings where I was able to start expressing my experience. However, later I realized much had gone unexpressed in those paintings, and then I began writing poems inspired by each of them. It was a sort of dialogue between the image I had in front of me and my memory.

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The voices of the authors who have experienced injustice, or worry about it, like Adrianne Rich, Silvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, Muriel Rukeyser, Whitman, among others, have been the forces that encouraged me to write and tell the story of my family, which is a part of the saddest chapter of my country’s history.

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Lately, I have started to “translate” my poems to Spanish and this is a very different story. It is not the same thing writing “would they leave my daughter safe on the streets?” than: ¿dejarían ellos libre a mi hija por las calles? or “make them disappear” than “hacerlos desaparecer.” I deeply feel the weight of the Spanish words, they are heavier and more painful than the English ones. While switching from one language to the other I feel that my Jewish roots, and the experience of my ancestors, are always alive in my writings.

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Although I have devoted most of my years to painting, I believe that both painting and writing have always been the engines that gave me the strength to keep on living and to survive.

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Raquel Partnoy is an Argentine painter, poet, and essayist who has lived in Washington, D.C. since1994. Her solo exhibits in this city include: Parish Gallery; B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum; Embassy of Argentina; D.C. Jewish Community Center; Studio Gallery. Her work has been featured in: Arte al Día-Documenta 87 - La Plástica Norteamericana; The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology; Religious Imagination and the Body: A Feminist Analysis; CALYX, a Journal of Art and Literature by Women US. Her essays have been published in Women Writing Resistance-Essays on Latin American and the Caribbean; The Jewish Diaspora in Latin American and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory. Her narrative poem City of Red Horizons will be published in Argentina in 2011. Please see more of her poetry at her blog City of Red Horizons and her artwork at her blog Pintores Argentinos. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

                                            "Clamor" by Raquel Partnoy

My grandparents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who settled in Argentina in 1913, shortly before World War I. They decided to leave their country because of Czarist persecution and discrimination against the Jewish people, and also because of the Army, into which Jewish boys were drafted never to return to their homes.

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My parents were not able to pack many of their belongings when they left Russia, but they did bring a samovar, a mandolin and a sewing machine. In their new country they began to rebuild their lives, always preserving their traditions, language and cultural heritage. The samovar came to my home with all the family memories and I decided to preserve them in my paintings.

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When I painted the series “From Life,” “Life’s Windows,” and “The Brides,” I used all those old photos to portray the negative and positive aspects of life. From then on I could never separate life from art. My series “Life’s Experiences” is related to the dictatorship in Argentina when more than 30,000 people “disappeared.” Many youth who believed in justice were arrested, tortured and eventually killed by the authorities. In that series I tell of my own pain for the disappearance and later imprisonment of my daughter.

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After that I produced the series “Clothes.” By painting clothes without people I portrayed the life my only son, who suffered depression during those horrible years, until he could not bear it anymore and committed suicide.

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Between Two Skies

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In my city of red horizon that trap the winds

and shelter the wings of monsters,

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where a white salt marsh bars the land from bearing fruit,

and the tamarisk bush houses fear,

there are people who envision new skies to keep on living.

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In my city of windows blurred by the dust of indifference

and the gray complicity of silence,

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where streets have kept the indelible prints of the angel of death,

prints of genocidal boots,

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there are people who vanish from earth,

yet were never allowed to meet new skies.

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In my city of gloomy parks, where churches are siblings

to the killer crows, to terror,

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where outrageous spokespersons, poison the air

and break all dreams that sprout anew,

there are people who never chose to live under new skies.

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Portrait of My Mother

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A violet light falls over my mother’s face, or

it is she who radiates this light.

Her dilated pupils look into infinity, maybe at

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the life – the ghosts, she left behind.

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On the ochre wall of the kitchen, a blue shadow

emphasizes her Semitic profile,

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and her expressive features are framed by her white

hair – with a wave on her forehead.

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We all sit around the table, she is under the clock

whose tick - tock accompanies her voice.

She speaks in Spanish , although it is mixed with

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some Yiddish the children understand.

The story starts –and she is a good storyteller– when

she was a child in her Russian hometown.

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Her eyes smile, she remembers her life with her eight

siblings in the house near the river.

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The laughter of the girls when the brothers,

who under the water, caught their legs by surprise.

And, in the winters, their sliding on the frozen river,

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playing together, always sharing their happiness.

The family’s joy as they painted the walls,

and prepared special dishes for their Jewish celebrations.

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All those lively noises while making food

they stored in the basement for the cold seasons.

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But this colorful landscape darkens, she recalls when

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young boys were forcefully taken by the army

and never again they returned home.

Pogroms, houses in flames, death, Cossacks fiercely shouting:

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Jews go away ! Go away !

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My mother remains silent in the corner of my kitchen,

her words still floating in the air.

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* these are fragments of a larger narrative on her blog, City of Red Horizons

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Thank you for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Raquel Partnoy, Guest Blogger

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Raquel Partnoy is an Argentine painter, poet, and essayist who has lived in Washington, D.C. since1994. Her solo exhibits in this city include: Parish Gallery; B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum; Embassy of Argentina; D.C. Jewish Community Center; Studio Gallery. Her work has been featured in: Arte al Día-Documenta 87 - La Plástica Norteamericana; The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology; Religious Imagination and the Body: A Feminist Analysis; CALYX, a Journal of Art and Literature by Women US. Her essays have been published in Women Writing Resistance-Essays on Latin American and the Caribbean; The Jewish Diaspora in Latin American and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory. Her narrative poem City of Red Horizons will be published in Argentina in 2011. Please see more of her poetry at City of Red Horizons and her artwork at Pintores Argentinos. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

I was listening to Elizabeth Alexander being interviewed on NPR. Alexander was able to make statements about the places one goes in poems, and the sort of psychological necessities, the way poems give poets and readers and listeners a certain useful space to inhabit. It’s amazing that some people have the perspective, the experience, the wisdom to be able to offer such confident phrasings. My own perspective is more like lament. Lament for the time when poets were, in the Greek sense of the word, the makers of the world. When culture was transmitted orally, and the role of the poet was the one who intoned our history. I’m going to offer an interpretation of how poetry’s role and use has changed. And I’ll suggest the implications of those changes.

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Poets have, now, a diminished role. And yet, there are more people writing poems in the world today than at any time in history. How do I know that? Candidly, it’s a guess. I have heard a significant factoid (which is something one comes to know that doesn’t change one’s behavior): There are more slaves in the world today than at any previous time. It is believable in the sense that the earth’s population is larger than at any previous time. Percentage-wise, slavery may be much diminished on our planet. But in terms of raw numbers, it is evidently true that there are more people whose lives are wholly owned and controlled by other people than at any other time in human history. Contemplating this - really pondering the implications of this - is so vastly sad that one must do the inevitable shutting off. It’s a hard return to segue back to the burgeoning number of poets, but let’s do it: there are more venues, online and in print, than at any other time in human history. Poets seem to be so numerous that one cannot swing the proverbial cat without hitting one. I’ve lived and written in the same small city for the past decade, and still, the names of poets who read publicly are rarely familiar to me. Reading around in journals, in online journals, in Poetry, and link-hopping on poets’ websites bring me to the same conclusion: there are more people writing poems now than ever before.

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On one hand, poetry has ceased to obtain. On the other hand, why are so many people engaged in poetic writing? Could it be, as Elizabeth Alexander suggested, that poetry is a sort of backlash against a culture thriving so vitally (and vapidly) on rapid electronic information? I don’t know that it’s even necessary to make such a tie. I don’t think that one needs to justify the existence of poetry by saying it exists in reaction to some other aspects of human or literary culture. It’s enough to take poetry as an a priori desire or need. Dense, freighted, musical language is edifying.

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Clearly, the practice of poetry intrigues people in ways that suggests our primary relationship is with our selves, that self that then must encounter the world. Consider, then, that the locus of poetry has moved, but only slightly. In oral culture the words of the poet mediated between the individual and that individual’s understanding and reception of the community. Now poetry is just inside the skin: one doesn’t use poetry as a public tool to extrapolate about the world; one uses poetry to interpolate. I worry that the preponderance of poets may mean that people are more enslaved to a self. Ought we be more tied to others? Here, again, is the covenant: define your self by how you treat others.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

David Epstein, Guest Blogger

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David A. Epstein, Ph.D. works as a house-spouse and a carpenter. He is a member of the Brickwalk poetry group in Connecticut, and is a board member of The Hartford Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens. He has published poems in Poetica, Poetic Hours, The Lyric, Blue Collar Review, and Shofar. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

A friend once described my breakdown as high functioning. I still went to work; saw my friends, though not as often, I admit. I dated someone, although in dating him, I succeeded in making everything worse. Perhaps, most importantly, I wrote; a 200,000 word monster. Those words have never left me. Those characters have never left me.

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It started simply enough. It was the summer of 2005, I had graduated from college three months before, had not yet started the job which would eventually drag me down. Hamlet was performing on the Boston Common, and I went to see it, not once or twice, but four times. I began to see things in the underlying edges of the characters, in the subtextual movements on stage. It was a short story first, two actors having not seen one another several years, happened to be in the same town for this performance.

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It grew from there. I expanded the characters. I gave them bits of my history and neuroses; they stopped being just friends at some point, being instead lovers, then in love with one another. I gave them my breakdown. While I was having my breakdown, I was writing these characters at three in the morning. Drinking my continuous spin of tea, I wrote these characters until they lived under my skin, and I could not differentiate where my breakdown ended, and theirs started. When I finally broke it off with the bad-for-me-boyfriend, I broke them up too. I wrote those 200,000 words in just a little over a year. I closed my eyes, and those characters still danced before me. It was perhaps the closest I came to an absolute brink. I forgot briefly how to live.

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When I finally started to pull myself out, when I finally left that job and started graduate school, I would not write that story. I still have it saved on my hard drive, but for almost two years, I would not allow myself to read it. Because if I did, I would go back. I would fall into again that desperateness of emotion, that absolute emptiness I thought I'd never escape.

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It was the end of the 2008 fall semester, nearly a year since I had started to fight, when I wrote my first poem reflecting on that period, when I finally realized the fissures had started to reforge, never entirely whole again, but still practically invisible. Except to those who knew. Except for those who watched me fall, and crawl my way back again.

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Except for those I have since told.

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Perhaps it is right that I'm finally working on that monster again.

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Sauntering [Downward]

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When you murmur between sheets,

and stars, I can hear you.

Your rise and fall of voice and tone,

quiet words,

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soft touches, and kisses.

You admit more in the darkness,

and under cotton –

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(Egyptian high count,

I only would have you

buy the best) –

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but still. I wish you wouldn't

whisper what secrets you keep

just under skin.

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Because when you do, I cannot escape,

and every time you fall,

I do too.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Stefanie Maclin, Guest Blogger

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Stefanie Maclin's poetry and short fiction has appeared in several publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including Under the Radar, The Maynard, Doorknobs&Bodypaint, Astropoetica, Star*Line, The Linnett's Wings, Underground Voices, Battered Suitcase, and Poetica Publishing's Mizmor L'David Anthology: The Shoah. She has guest blogged previously for Poetica Magazine. She has work forthcoming in Illumen, Ashe Journal, and Skive Magazine. She has recently completed her Master's degree in Library Science/Archives Management and is working on what she hopes will be her first full-length chapbook, a work she is tentatively titling Descent. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor