There appears to be an inane assumption,When we prize too dearly the groans people makeAnd their pain and complaint and compunctionOf some less tender portions of their fate; It would seem that people don’t like the bother;I’ve met young women afraid to leave their roomsBecause they know what a burden they are to others:They believed too well the words others used. Just look at the … Continue reading Inconvenience by Zeke Greenwald
Every morning from his roomI can hear the deed:Boaz at his Jewish prayers,Bound in phylacteries. He is dead, who doesn’t wantComfort from someone;Ajax called out to the skies, notFor god, but for his mom. In my neighbors’ yards, their dogsAre left there all alone:And if you’d walk past you’d sayThere was no master home. Dogs don’t deal in silent prayers,That’s why they psalmodizeAbandoned in their … Continue reading Dead by Zeke Greenwald
Blood gets transfused into my veinsFrom a bag which from the ceiling hangs;Some pipettes from the bottom runLike legs with someone else’s blood. So the maroon cephalopodFloats from the pole it’s fastened on;Staved by a hook, it makes a squid,Who slowly bleeds out drip by drip;I lay below the drying fishOf plastic bag with blood in it. What is blood, but such basic stuff,But blood’s … Continue reading Bubonic Colonic by Zeke Greenwald
Were those really bats we sawover the Hinterhof?Or were they birds swirlingto show the evening off? And was it really hemlockWhich grew around the lake?Or was it an umbellifer,Which it wouldn’t kill to take? Was it really all that grey?Were the streets at night so dark?If Berlin was so morose,Luke, I need not pine at all. Yet German doctors wrote you rosesTo combat your stress.And … Continue reading Chemical Imbalance by Zeke Greenwald
A more relevant read than ever, Elaine Brown’s 1992 memoir, A Taste of Power, covers her early life and all her years in the Black Panther Party. Growing up in Philadelphia before moving to Oakland, Brown was forced to bifurcate into two people: someone who could hang with the black girls after school and someone who could hang with the Jewish girls during school. Her … Continue reading A Tale of Two Personalities: Elaine Brown’s A Taste of Power by Zeke Greenwald
Demaratos began to feel remorse as he approached Sardis on foot. He was traveling with his slave. The last king of Lydia before the Persian conquest was called Croesus. He had made the city fantastic. The gates were carved with reliefs of men enacting different parts of their city’s history, which Demaratos didn’t know, so he couldn’t understand the carvings. That was a little later … Continue reading The Former King of Sparta by Zeke Greenwald
A still grasshopper’s swivelingHis antennae endlesslyBecause he’s lost. Two iridescent alley fliesCircle the house until they dieAlso confused. Just as the house does to the bugs,A very old and yellow spongeDries in the sink. And I am, too, thus at a lossTo be not so like how I was,Or want to be. Continue reading Infestation by Zeke Greenwald
My hair sweats in the hot weather;I think there’s something to be saidThat somehow I can be made hotterBy the thin hair on my head. I’d like to be able to take a walkAnd not break out in a sweatWhich drips out of the folliclesLike a bleeding paper cut. The wound is small, but still the goreDistills somewhat profuselyFor apparently it doesn’t takeA lot to … Continue reading Hélas by Zeke Greenwald
Because businesses struggling in this tough economic time need all the help they can get: Because cultural institutions without our diligence will disappear even more swiftly: I present: Why I Am Joining the Islamic State. If we find ourselves fortunate enough to have a certain amount of financial stability in the current health and economic crisis; as coronavirus rends our society; we should take the … Continue reading ISIS ISIS, Baby by Zeke Greenwald
It’s early morning, I hear an owl;I heard that owl a night agoWhen a strahl of orange street lamps wereA brass band for a single owl tone. That’s when I went to sleep, and likeOther people I was in bed;I did as others for a night,But I’m an unfellowed kind of man. I heard the owl this morning for Last night I didn’t get to sleep.Once … Continue reading Hooters by Zeke Greenwald
