Appealing for shelter to escape the power of her eyes,
Her neck gasps,
Breaking my pride
Sprinkled over the cheer of her treasures
Ah of her drums!
My songs wave with their rhythm
Smoldering on the tips of her forests
Her scent heavily rains into my lungs,
I breathe the screaming of her vessels,
Sunken in a sad ocean,
Surprisingly
I chase up the birds of her chest,
Being suddenly liberated,
Shaking the ash of the feathers of infatuation,
And on my high walls
Laying the burdens of shyness,
Growing,
Contemplating my sobs,
How many a time I stared into her rivers,
The hidden pearls in there call me
I open her scale in glee
As her fragrance pursues in surrender
A poem by Kareem Abdullah
Translated by John Henry Smith *****
Kareem Abdullah is an Iraqi poet and writer. He was born in Baghdad in 1962. Kareen Abdullah is the author of “Baghdad in Her New Dress” (2015 Book House). His name has appeared in many important Arabian literary magazines and he won Tajdeed Prose Poetry Prize in 2016. Kareem has eight poetry collections in Arabic and his poetry has been translated into many languages.
Sieg Heil!
by Pesach Rotem
Remember Dr. Strangelove?
Dr. Strangelove had an unusual affliction.
He could not stop himself from making a Nazi salute.
He knew that in the United States of America
it was socially and politically inappropriate
to make a Nazi salute
but he did it anyway.
He just couldn’t help it.
Dr. Strangelove was
a fictional character.
It was satire.
It was funny.
Sixty years later and
here comes Elon Musk,
who appears to be suffering
from the same damn affliction
except for a couple of
minor differences:
1. Elon Musk is non-fictional.
2. He is not the slightest bit funny.
November 22, 1963
by Pesach Rotem
I am sitting in Mrs. Hinkley’s fourth-grade classroom.
We are reading the story of Old Yeller, a heroic dog who meets a tragic end.
Suddenly, the P.A. box mounted on the wall squawks.
I expect, naturally, to hear the principal’s voice
but I do not hear Mr. Grant’s voice.
I hear Walter Cronkite’s voice
and it is very serious.
He is saying something about Dallas, Texas.
Is he crying?
Of course not.
Walter Cronkite doesn’t cry.
But it does sound like Walter Cronkite is crying.
It is very serious.
Caesar had his Antony.
Lincoln his Whitman.
Who will eulogize our handsome young prince,
victim of a murder most foul?
Life Lessons
by Pesach Rotem
When I was nine years old,
I had to go to bed at 8:30 every night.
“No fair!” I protested,
“Bruce gets to stay up till 9.”
“When you’re as old as Bruce,” my mother assured me,
“you can go to bed at 9 o’clock.”
It was a trick, of course.
I knew I would never be as old as Bruce.
You didn’t have to be a particularly precocious child to see through that one.
Thus I learned not only to distrust my mother,
but to distrust all grown-ups, everywhere.
An important lesson for every child’s growth and development.
When I was fifty-nine-and-three-quarters,
I had my first heart attack.
It caused significant irreversible damage to my heart,
leaving me in a weakened state, constantly fatigued.
Bruce was hiking the Grand Canyon.
“Yippee!” I shouted to my mother’s ghost.
“I did it! I’m older than Bruce!
Now I can go to bed at 9 o’clock!”
Lesson number two:
Be careful what you wish for.
The Rooster Crows
by Pesach Rotem
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I’ll be gone
— Bob Dylan —
The rooster doesn’t crow at the break of dawn.
That’s just one more lie we were told by our parents and teachers.
The alarm clock crows at the break of dawn.
That diabolical tyrannical mechanical contraption.
Go to school!
Go to work!
No more snoozing!
No more dreaming!
Get up now!
I ain’t no rooster!
When I was sixty-two years old, I moved to Yodfat,
next door to David and Kathy,
their three lovely children,
their beautiful flower garden,
and their chicken coop.
And guess what?
The rooster crows at the break of dawn.
Pesach Rotem was born and raised in New York and now lives in Yodfat, Israel. He is a member of the Voices Israel Group of Poets in English and of the Israel Association of Writers in English. His poem “Kindness” was awarded Honorable Mention in the Reuben Rose Poetry Competition, and his poem “Professor Hofstadter’s Brain” was nominated for a Best of the Net Award.
“Ser·en·dip·i·ty- the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.”
[Originally published in Fleury’s book “It’s Always Sunrise Somewhere and Other Stories”
Your alarm is going off and you roll over in your bed and turn your back to it all the while cursing it for being so obnoxiously loud and intrusive. It’s 5:30 a.m. and you have to be at work by 8. When you occasionally open your eyes, you can see the sun rise over the nearby lake, hovering patiently waiting for you to wake up and take notice of it. But you went to bed late last night sorting out your bills at the kitchen table before you became totally exasperated, muttered “Fuck it” under your breath and went to bed at 1 a.m.
Once your still hyperactive brain decides to quiet down, you had that dream again. You were dressed in a white tuxedo standing in front of the clergy with your friends and family sitting behind you with seemingly permanent smiles in their faces like the joker. And then their smiles turned to discomfort, embarrassment and their faces express worry when Mark still hasn’t shown up. You two have been together since high school and you’ve been waiting 10 years for this moment, the moment when you’ll marry him and be together until the end of your time on earth. You glance down at your watch and it’s almost 12 p.m. Mark was supposed to be there by 11 a.m. And then you look up into the sky and there is Mark, riding a white winged horse and he looks down at you and smiles, except there is something peculiar about his face. You look closer by squinting your eyes to realize that he has no eyes. His eye sockets are dark and empty and consumed by a hazy rush of fear and distress, you bolt up in bed panting like you were being chased by some horrific looking creature in a sinister forest.
You have tried to figure out what the dream means since Mark has been deceased for about a year now. He died due to complications of pneumonia that went untreated unbeknown to both of you. You did not anticipate this and so there were things that went unspoken because he died so suddenly. And almost every night, you have the same recurring dream and you are feeling persecuted yet don’t feel like you have any control over what happens when you are no longer conscious. You resolve to talk this over with your therapist.
You’ve been seeing him since Mark passed away, for a long time, you were unable to function. You refused to leave the house or get out of bed in the morning. Your sister had to come over and care for you and even helped with paying the bills since you lost your job due to excessive absence. But after 3 months had passed, with the help of your sister and therapy, you managed to get back on your feet, attained another job and started to slowly come out of your former zombie-like state of existence. But your presence of mind is still unconsummated and these days, you are functioning on automatic pilot; just going through daily monotonous routines with no joy, optimism or passion. You’ve isolated yourself from your friends despite how hard they try to reach you by phone or email. You feel angry at Mark for leaving you and so you’ve decided to punish everyone around you, including yourself, because you don’t understand why this had to happen to you. Your once benevolent, sunny disposition has soured into a bitter scowl and an impervious facial expression that conveys indifference.
It is now 6a.m. and you’ve finally decided to get up. Outside, the sun is higher in the sky and you open your bedroom window, stick your head out, close your eyes and take a deep breath of your mountainous surroundings. The sound of the streaming lake uncoils your often convoluted and distorted thoughts and for the first time in months, your usually stoical face breaks into an apprehensive smile. But something in you wants to stay demure and unaffected, so you quickly reverse back to scowling. Yet you feel there is something dissimilar in the air, as if your usual routine is about to take a turn for the best, but you’re not sure you’re prepared for it or even want it.
You make your way into the bathroom and as usual, you avoid looking at yourself in the mirror while you shave and brush your teeth and as usual tears splices down your face. After you’ve downed your carnation instant breakfast, you head out to work at the Blue Blood Department Store, where you are Shift Supervisor.
You like your work, but you don’t welcome the unwanted attention of your female co-workers, who all think you’re a total hottie, even though they all know you’re gay since you used to bring Mark to company picnics and such. You ignore their excessive fawning and just go about your day. And then he walks in. A handsome guy of average height and weight who looks like he may be from Brazil. You practically scurry over to ask him if he needs any assistance. He smiles and says yes and you can see a knowing twinkle in his eyes when he looks at you and as if you two are exchanging secrets codes with one another, you return a knowing smile back at him. And deep inside of you, you know something has changed. You look over his shoulders and outside, you can see the sun setting through the double glass doors seemingly staring at you, knowingly.
Jacques Fleury
Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and a literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at: http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.
Jacques Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey Towards Understanding Your Authentic Self
