The camp’s directors were thrilled,
of course, that Mr. Robeson
would perform for the children.
They had reservations only about
the program the great baritone intended.
To mix Hebrew folk songs
with Negro spirituals was one thing;
to sing to the young people
in Yiddish was quite another.
Yiddish was the language of exile,
of the ghetto, galut—
not what this generation
of young Jews should be hearing.…
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In the high court of sparrows
I plead my wants, turn on
every light switch, gather twigs
build a nest of sorrow
in the high nest of wants
I build sparrows, gather light,
court twigs of sorrow
plead every switch to turn
in the twigged light of nests
I court the plea of sparrows,
build high my wants, my sorrow,
turn, gather the switch
to strike the sparrow, to empty
the high nest, to gather fallen twigs,
to touch the still feather,
to plead my guilt in the court of sorrow
– Jim Zola…
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“Be wat chu is
cuz if ya be wat chu ain’t
then ya ain’t wat chu is”
He sings the gospel
in a low down dirty bass
as he glides in the bar
on a yellow paper airplane
He places his bible
on the table
and orders a drink
of vodka and juice
He’s a retiree
with a pension trickling in
from Ford Motor Company
but he never has money
because it’s swallowed up
by his young wife
who has alligator teeth
and a large appetite
for crack cocaine…
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My parents’ faces in the photograph
(a formal portrait in an oval frame
to celebrate their sixty years)
are fading to a ghostly blue.
It’s premature, some weakness in the ink.
I feel it as my own ambivalence,
residual resentments, sibling jealousies
dissolving pigment into sadness and regret.
In ancient graveyards, time and rain
reduce a chiseled stone to formlessness,
to what degree depending
on the hardness of the rock.
– Maureen Eppstein…
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sun’s steady breaths ink open
the first paragraphs of another day.
shoes crunch across the glass
from a departed car window,
drunks stumbling
to find direction or peace
while the city rubs its eyes
clear of disbelief.
still reeling from
the morning I left your bed
for good.
the Lawrence el arrives.
8:30 southbound, sick, slow train,
full of rails enough to drive it elsewhere
every time.
skinned knees two mornings after all
of everything we said,
and the imprint of your unsure arms
still holds me.…
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The wind is in the dry leaves all day
It must be someone’s disappearing life.
I heard we can be seen up there,
Minutes after death,
The flickering light of what we will become
Tied to the ghosts of past and passing,
So much like those blue mirages
We find knotted to the sea.
– Seth Jani…
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On this path in the city fens
the man walking in front of me
listens too to the geese and jays
reporting their morning news
In a ragged jacket
and filthy chinos he’s steady
on his feet
I watch him study reflections
of reeds and sky in the shallow stream
edged by rocks and debris…
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