Thursday, August 10, 2006

poetry from Anselm Brocki

Solving

Instead of forever
looking for worthy
problems to solve
in order to become
breathlessly absorbed
living vibrantly for only
a few prized moments
because of so many
tedious, repetitive tasks
to perform, why,
in a more perfect
world, couldn’t
challenging problems
be on the breakfast
table neatly, discretely
like spoon, bowl, and
napkin each morning,
ready for my total
attention, puzzlement,
and startling crescendo
solutions?

--Anselm Brock

poetry from Anselm Brocki

Skirmish

“Don’t you dare
give me those old
rotten apples you’re
hiding behind there!”

That’s Louise, my
child mother, insulting
a swarthy, broken-English
fruit seller at Grand
Central Market in 1933,
She’s twenty-six,
I’m ten. He fills a paper
bag and grumbles back
in Middle European
from behind an artful
display mound of his
freshest fruit. Neither
of them thinks the
other quite human.

“We’ll wait till we get
home to wash these,”
she says loudly before
we leave. “No telling
where his hands
have been.”

I look at his smeared apron,
white cap bagging down
on both sides, dark
eyes, five o’clock shadow
and dirty fingernails but
can’t imagine yet what awful
things he has been doing
with his hands.

--Anselm Brocki

Thursday, August 03, 2006

poetry from Michael Estabrook

Back in the Middle Ages

“Say, Doc? I grimace
as he yanks the stitches
out of my jagged red hernia scar
(though curiously it doesn’t hurt).
What happened
when someone had a hernia
and needed surgery like this
way back in the Middle Ages?”
He brushes
my incision carefully
with an alcohol wipe.
“They died,” he says
as he strides out of the room.


-- Michael Estabrook

poetry from Michael Estabrook

Looking Over His Shoulder

I saw a hawk
regal, strong, and proud,
invincible as Odysseus,
swoop down and land
in the tree out back, never
looking over his shoulder
to keep an eye out for death
or the tax man
or the latest physical ailment,
like the rest of us
seem to be doing
all the damn time.


-- Michael Estabrook

poetry by Micheal Estabrook

My Grandma Sadie

One of the survey questions
was to name a few
of the key influential people in my life.
I didn’t have to think about it long:
Shakespeare, Dante, Mozart
Whitman, Thoreau, and my Grandma Sadie
just noticed that none of them
are still alive, but that doesn’t
stop me from talking
to them regularly. Fortunately,
I suppose, my Grandma Sadie
is the only one who ever
feels impelled to talk back.

-- Michael Estabrook
 
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