Magnapoets Free Verse and Form

This season

 
Holidays are markers
for dull minds in transition,
I once heard. Not that this
dull mind, jammed between
autumn thankfulness
and shiny mirth,
can unwrap such truth.
This December, each
December, I measure
myself against the ease                                        
with which I’ve coursed the year,                  
encountered the expectations.               
I insist I’m nearly complete,                              
that I’ll soon fit snug
into my skin and then
push past the season.
I’m cool with the idea   
of self-reinvention,
a ceaseless sculpting of the ice.    
So you’d think I’d finally   
see snow for what it is, 
not imagine it idyllic,
petals tumbling from the sky.            
No longer feel it through
the numb and reddened fingers   
of my childhood winters.


janet lynn davis
published in ATG

A Swarm Of Dragonfiles by Elisha Porat

The summer dragonflies surround me
in the evenings, fluttering furtively:
encircling me and ringing me like a halo.
Moving after me as if in escort,
as I ride, on the narrow path
along fetid Alexander stream.

And when I stray, slipping, thrust
into the sharp edges of the
rutted trail, they envelop
me, as if in mourning:
Get up, take heart, stand!  You have
not yet arrived there,
at the scene of your final fall.

Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner

image taken and copyrighted by Idnnss

Pack My Tears in a Croker Sack by David Matthews

pack my tears in a croker sack
throw them from a railroad bridge —
if only I could be
so easily rid of them
this hole in my heart might be filled
and sunlight spill through pouring rain
of words — and music —
and other things — unseen . . .

From Poems of the Mountain Village by Eliaz Cohen

a.

my life is here
in my house which I dug
in the mountain

b.

I would walk
my face against the wind
one of the hallowed winds
of Gush Etzion
all the stone houses are like
boulders growing out of the earth
raising rock fetuses
children of stone.
I am not of stone, in me
all is recorded

c.

when the column of smoke becomes too black
I escape to
the study hall
rub my eyes
with two thin webs of silver

d.

I came to the study hall
there
two flames
webs of thin silver are billowing
everyone is bound on the altar here, on the mountain
the flames of silver whisper
Shalom Karniel* enters
approaches, sits next to me
wants us to write a poem jointly
and his hand hovers over mine
almost coercing it to write
optimistic things
it's impossible to write poems jointly
I tell him
and he dissipates

e.

in the dining room
at evening
I see a smiling mustache
say the blessing over the warm bread
"Blessed art Thou, O Lord,
who brings forth bread from the rock"
and the aging winds whistle after him:
amen selah, amen rock

*Shalom Karniel, poet and educator, one of the pioneer settlers of the original Kfar Etzion, fell in the battle of “the Convoy of Ten” in Kislev, 1948.

translated from the Hebrew by Larry Barak

As Things Stand by Elisha Porat

Nice of you to phone, it was good to hear
Your voice. And how are you? Well done, you've
Come on. I saw what you'd had published in the
Magazine. Too true, quite a few years have passed since then:
And they've had their way, a few grandchildren,
I won't say how many. You're really not supposed
To count. And what about me? The same walls
And forty-two square meters. The ground
Shifts, and round about everything is cracked, and at night
I tremble: sudden fractures, the plaster
Flakes, and on the roof bats puke out bursts of
Fruit squishy with vomit and seeds. And if
I tune my ear to the silence that comes
From your telephone, I can clearly hear:
Droves of yearnings galloping away to the distant hills.

translated from the Hebrew by Asher Harris

On Your First Birthday (Mukul Dahal)

                                                                             ( To Saral  )

This day

you crawled out into the world.

Along with the day’s light

you entered my life.

I chuckled at you;

you cried.

With your cry

you signed into

the book of sounds.

You blinked your eyes,

threw your pudgy

arms and legs into the air.

You slept through days,

weeks and months.

Got on your feet,

and toddled to the end of a year.

Today your first birthday,

I beam at you from miles away.

In solitude,

I have brewed some of my most loved words,

and baked a cake for you.

Wrapped in the

pink paper of emotion,

this cake

you will taste

years later.

8^th October,

Swansea

MORE [David Herrle]

Make her larger
Encourage her
appetite
Feed her food
with lots of sugar
Make desserts
Purge her
low-fat caution.

Make her into
a delicious mass,
a Rubens sloth goddess.

Left alone

He will miss
      the seasonal change,
      subtle as it will be:
      the first two waves of chill.

He will leave
      when humid air still knocks
      against skin like angry beads
      and the jasmine draws in
      its final bees for the year—

And will be gone
      while the oleander begin
      their hibernating droop
      and the hibiscus expose
      frameworks of thinning bones.

He will not know
      the needle’s drill into
      tame, unsuspecting flesh,
      or the restive landscape
      of waiting for results—

But will return
      in time to witness
      the expected conflagration:
      scarlet berries on the yaupon.

Janet Lynn Davis
Loch Raven Review, Autumn 2005

The Fifth Leaf by Elisha Porat

To My Mother

I was just a child when my father sent me
into the alfalfa field, running
barefoot on the cracked earth,
excited at the prospect of finding him
a special five-leafed specimen.
To this day I remember:
a crisp October in a translucent fall,
bees buzzing in
soft lumps of purple honey.
I moved past him, but
time defeated me; and so
standing on the low wall
in the shadow of the graveyard,
I call to him just as I did then:
Father; eternity; sweet alfalfa.
I was a child and my foot was bleeding, but
in my hand I held the botanical wonder:
a five-leafed plant
and sorrow that knows no consolation.

Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner

photo taken and copyrighted by Ildi Lazar

With Me From Lebanon by Eliaz Cohen

(a memorial poem)

Every one has his own Lebanon
a handsome dead soldier carried on my shoulders
I brought with me from Lebanon
His name mumbles to me
I do not want to remember his face

Every one has his own Lebanon
scratched on his soul
I remember only the rocks, the ascent
Breathing hard, falling on thorns
and he upon me and he
with me from Lebanon

Yoav,
At morning, a light tapping waking up his soldiers,
Sharpening the end of a pencil,
on a blank sheet of apper
a world is recorded now:
tensed faces, a ram caught in the green tree.
Dust and the smell of blood reising from an ambush.
He died handsome, Yoav.
A spot on his forehead, like an Indian girl promised to a man
they did not harm
the freckles the body continued to attack like a panther
and Lebanon with me is not sufficient to burn

Every one has his own Lebanon
an embryo grows stabs
so you'll remember!

Open Lebanon your doors and all my winged
visionary soldiers will come
and they will be planted in you like cedars.
Like Yoav, like  Nadav.

His look is like that of Lebanon
and who has betrothed a wife
and has not taken her with him
in a tongue of flames
wants to shout with me
from Lebanon my bride with me
from Lebanon come
clotted with the stain, those pierced by the sword
living as if in widowhood
why has your face darkened Lebanon
the dawn does not rise caught
in the fog lowering a curtain on memory, a heretic flash.

Yossi,
Sitting in a patrol jeep, long flexible legs gathered to
the deer-like body of a good boy from Ashdod.
Doing a communications check with God.
God come in, over.
All night the fire burned, consuming the cedars of Lebanon
identifying Danoch by the white teeth of his smile
Lebanon became gutted, withered, charred
when a seed was buried in his fathe rin the embrace of souls
and may the Lord guard them
when flames flared up in Moshe and Eran

Every one has his own Lebanon
a burning heart that is not comsumed
once I returned there:
to Lebanon in a tank like a young wild ox
and I found in the birch tree a ram's horn was held.
The ram fled (like the leg of Itamar
which remained in the thicket)
she is opposite me in the living room, above the books
she guards against my lowering of a curtain.
Or, on another occasion, opposite the Syrian Hermon
I am teffilin in a Greek temple, a military post penetrating
the heavens
Where are you, mother
go up to Lebanon and shout
and the wayfarers will not let go
I go with them
against my will

Every one has his own Lebanon
a handsome, dead soldier carried on my shoulders
and all his girls whisper his name
and he is upon me
and he is with me from Lebanon

translated from the Hebrew by Larry Barak

4th of Iyar, 5760