Babel’s Steel Towers
Imagine the Wright brothers watching as Their wondrous flying box plane transformed slowly Takes to the sky as the great albatross In blank verse of Empire – the final Boeing Steel giant, seven-forty-seven slices Dead across entire floors, asbestos Laden walls, toppling Babel’s Towers, Steel beams that pierced the sky toward some god. The digital antenna, millions Of dollars, high enough on the roof To derail angels, and the PBS Operator to man it were lost. In the time it takes a person to exhale, Everything fell clean along the steel roads Leading down, the earth burned with steel, dust Flooded the air. On the injured ground, people Spoke the same languages for moments Then forgot how. |
The State of the Affair
I am having A lesbian affair With Jerusalem, (Why is the city Always a “she?”) You male poets Beware – did you Ever ask her Orientation? (Which way is East Inside the city that Is the East?) I lose all direction But in and in. |
Jerusalem Cat Fights Jerusalem & I Sometimes Have cat Fights – I Said I needed space After an old man Kissed me instead Of leading me to The synagogue, And another one in Religious attire Tried to pick Me up at Yad Vashem, because A holocaust memorial Is the best place To find single Women. He said Wouldn’t you Rather sit here, And talk to me? So I told The city, That’s it, I need To leave. Could you Be less subtle? You’re Ejecting me, Like the prophets’ Tirade. So we spent Some time apart. And the reunion, When it came, was Captivity lifted, I Entered like a Dreamer, with her Language on my lips, A psalm of rejoicing. I stayed until She kicked me out Again, with her Talk of uprising, Shots fired in waiting, A Yom Kippur Of unnatural silence. This time I Return a citizen, With an identity card In case she doesn’t Realize where I Belong. |
Gender In Practice You were already Married to A list of your Caste, though You put if off Semi-valiantly. It was fine With me, I Was engaged To the theater. No, my gender is I am a playwright, A poet, a literary Theorist. Is there A bathroom for that, Can I check a box For that identity? I have been Jew-sexual, I fall in love With individuals. All this male / female Rhetoric Appeals to me Literally In theory only. Can I add that To my passport? Can I apostille it On my birth certificate? Could I have a valid ID already? |
To Call Me Your Favorite You were supposed to be my professor An authority, adult enough to know Better than to flirt back, to call me your Favorite, in so many words, voluble In praise of my mind. You never ever wore A wedding ring – perhaps it no longer Fit, or Israeli men don’t – You, being a hybrid, followed Some conventions, the top two buttons Of your shirt carelessly left undone. The books around your room curiously English, the OED at hand, but you allowed Me little time to gaze at books, we gossiped. You – Shaherazade – telling tales of woe, Of love and darkness, Israeli authors, Names, names, names to entertain me a thousand Nights, or until fraternizing with a coed Crossed that mirror where Lewis Carroll Gazed at Alice Liddell, and petit object A (the young girl) gazed back. I saw you looking. |
Outing Glinda “Too long I’ve been afraid of losing love I guess I’ve lost. If that’s love, it comes at much too high a cost. I’d sooner buy defying gravity.” - Elphaba, Wicked I had to find My own Voice again After you and Your love affair With me, those four Years when you Found me everywhere And tried with every Breath to draw me With your words And every gesture from Other rhetoric or Conversation. You joined any company I kept, every study session, My walk home Alone time. You gave Advice to tie me to you. Your questions were never Open-ended: I might lose Your direction, (… or catch on). You spoke While I sang descant: An aria around me. While others watched you Flirt with boys, you sang “It’s in his kiss” to me – I question the gender Reference in your verse. |