04-15-2013, 02:00 PM
August in Prague
August in Prague and only the downcast
faces of ghettos greet the players. Worry
lines the streets because August travels fast,
it warns a different type of cast. Days hurry
Haman, although he's dressed in stranger's robes.
September's trees wear Purim finery, leaves
pool the streets like castoffs from some party
Alasuerus threw. We hail Vashti's sheaves
(although she never comes!) She knows her duty
and wears her exile in Esther's fragrant globes.
Pogroms graze wearing a king's signet ring
and reap the sighs of cast and crew the same.
But who will be the one to sing
the part of Mordecai, to cry the refrain
from the gallows and pluck the tender lobes?
Friday the Thirteenth
Why don't you write a poem today?
They all will ask and I will say,
"too much work" or "just a cough"
or "jury duty" vague enough
perhaps, or maybe I was baking apple pie.
There is a camp on crystal lake
where teenagers are on the make.
I know I shouldn't let it vex me
they're teenagers they can't have sex! See
now I have to ask you all to lie.
So I was sick! Please just don't ask
about this cleaver or this mask;
they are some props I bought for Halloween.
And if the cops ask where I've been
I was writing, you are all my alibi!
August in Prague and only the downcast
faces of ghettos greet the players. Worry
lines the streets because August travels fast,
it warns a different type of cast. Days hurry
Haman, although he's dressed in stranger's robes.
September's trees wear Purim finery, leaves
pool the streets like castoffs from some party
Alasuerus threw. We hail Vashti's sheaves
(although she never comes!) She knows her duty
and wears her exile in Esther's fragrant globes.
Pogroms graze wearing a king's signet ring
and reap the sighs of cast and crew the same.
But who will be the one to sing
the part of Mordecai, to cry the refrain
from the gallows and pluck the tender lobes?
Friday the Thirteenth
Why don't you write a poem today?
They all will ask and I will say,
"too much work" or "just a cough"
or "jury duty" vague enough
perhaps, or maybe I was baking apple pie.
There is a camp on crystal lake
where teenagers are on the make.
I know I shouldn't let it vex me
they're teenagers they can't have sex! See
now I have to ask you all to lie.
So I was sick! Please just don't ask
about this cleaver or this mask;
they are some props I bought for Halloween.
And if the cops ask where I've been
I was writing, you are all my alibi!