Poem/Rap #12 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

by Joelle Dratch (with an assist from Professor Miller)

Poem #11 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                         My Father’s Belief


This is my father’s belief
To give my all
And take back what was stolen by the thief

A long journey searching for relief
To climb the city that thrives on the mountain and sound the Prayer Call
This is my father’s belief

A knife, a stone, a pistol, as taught by our Commander in Chief
To stab, to throw, to shoot, to squall
And take back what was stolen by the thief

But sometimes I wonder, can we turn a new leaf?
“They took your land, your home, left you with nothing but a dirt wall!”
This is my father’s belief

“Make us proud, Habif.”
I hide my tremble beneath the covert wires packaged neatly under my shawl
And take back what was stolen by the thief

I am enthralled by my father’s grief
This had not been my intention at all
For, this is my father’s belief
To give my life, and take back what was stolen by the thief

Poem #10 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                        Life and Words

Old friends sit on the park bench like bookends
Visages jaded with words—faces crumpled newspapers
Below each stark, shadowy brim.
As I watch them, I think—how strange to be seventy
When time passes, that perpetual pendulum
Nearing closer and closer to sunset.

A leaf flutters, falls—the fiery park ablaze, a forest of sunset
The old men shrouded in overcoats—books to bookends
Words blur and focus between them. I hear the pendulum
Of their conversation as each gesture toward the newspaper
Between them. The sounds of the city, seventy
Horns going off at once, a cacophony filled to the brim

Can you imagine us, years from today—life full, up to the brim
Winter companions huddled together at sunset
I can’t imagine—how terribly strange to be seventy!
Conversation frozen between friends; between bookends
And what will they say in my obituary in the newspaper
When time finally catches up to me and the pendulum

Stops swinging. That perpetual pendulum
Is only perpetual for who? For G-d, I guess. And the brim
Of my hat will shield my face from the inevitable death in the newspaper.
Now, sounds of the city drift through trees, settling like dust at sunset
On the hunched shoulders of the old friends, sitting like bookends
Peacefully. Sharing, quietly—no need to talk. Seventy

Years or more, between them— that's seventy
Times 525,600 minutes. A pendulum
Unceasing, so far. Will words fill the yearning gap between my bookends?
Soft ones—or jabbing ones—harsh ones—uplifting ones—up to the brim
Until no more can be crammed in before sunset?
Life, to me, is a fleeting newspaper

A brief coverage of events, swiftly growing more crumpled. A newspaper
Filled with stories, each unique—but similar. Seventy
Or more stories, tragedies, disasters, but heroes too. And the weather at sunset.
What will it be like when my time comes, and my pendulum
Is no longer perpetual; rather halted at the brim
Of my now-filled, teetering shelf, precarious books held fast by bookends?

“He was a most peculiar man” reports the newspaper, ominously ticking, a pendulum—
“Died at seventy, found dead in his bath, filled up to the brim.”
I suppose sunset is both winsome and wistful—A beginning and an end. Bookends.

(inspired by and loosely based on a Simon and Garfunkel song)

                                                                         --by Meira Nagel

Poem #9 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

              Sestina for the Washerwoman

The girl is doing laundry. The dull day is going
nowhere, so she allows it to unfurl behind her,
flapping like a white kite towards the sky,
with a tail made from pieces of tied linen
that dance stiffly, snapping to
attention, serving only to break the wind.

It refuses to break; the wind
does at least. That’s not the way the girl is going.
She’s close to folding, knees bending too,
as wrung out as the soiled swaths beneath her.
The air is full with the sound of crumpled linen
as her hands point towards the sky.

It turns to look over its shoulder; the sky
does at least. It hears nothing but a whisper of wind
that sneaks between rows of drying linen,
trying hard to figure out where its going.
These white sheets are all that have become of her,
thoughts surrendered, set out in folds of two.

Soon some old washerwoman will come to
collect the clouds hung on lines in the sky,
pulling them down and away to reveal her
sleeping beneath them, wrapped in wind
with nothing to be doing, no place to be going
except dreaming of linen.

The washerwoman will tug her cloudy linen,
and along with the cloth, the girl will unfold too.
The washerwoman will keep on going,
bound by her duties to storm and sky,
leaving nothing behind but a gentle wind
to tug the girl awake, and guide her

back to the kite, to the laundry, where her
still-warm footsteps linger in piles of unwashed linen.
Back to the dull day, where, although many paths wind,
in her mind there remains only two.
One leads to the washerwoman, to the sky
and the other ends in where she’s going.

                                         --Talia Bean

Poem #8 for Fall, 2015, Creative Writing

                         On Hold

Press one for English, Press two for Spanish
Born to nomads, now in America
Running from the place where we were banished
Met with heaps of stares of hmm? What? And huh?

Born to nomads, now in America
Want me to don traje de flamenca
Met with heaps of stares of hmm? What? And huh?
My cheeks rush into a light blush

Want me to don traje de flamenca?
Or do I leave my history behind?
My cheeks rush into a light blush
Secluding myself from my own kind

Or do I leave my history behind?
The once consumed Pechuga adobada
Secluding myself from my own kind
Bearing the weight of life’s stigmata

The once consumed Pechuga adobada
They say Al mal paso darle prisa
Bearing the weight of life’s stigmata
I’m waiting for this so called messiah

They say Al mal paso darle prisa
But am I a muchacha or a girl?
I’m waiting for this so called messiah
Constantly stuck in this endless whirl

But am I a muchacha or a girl?
Running from the place where we were banished
Constantly stuck in this endless whirl
Press one for English, press two for Spanish

                                         --by Joelle Dratch