Winter Jewish Poems

Is it Hanukkah 
Or Chanukah 
Both are correct
It depends if you use the Latin or Hebrew dialect 

Regardless of what you say
The meaning is the...

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The Old Man Could See
By Cat Ferman

 
UCLA, 1969 
My dad's late for class again.
He spots a girl from Sweden
And asks her out again. 
My...

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Ashes to Ashes

Smoke
rises in the distance.

The boxcar
rocks,
rocks,
rocks;
stones
are placed along the ties.
Were they placed by Chance
or left 
as gently as Kaddish.
I lift my hands in the...

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~ Surviving Hell on Earth ~
      (The Nazi's Camps)


They had seen Hell on Earth
  Lived through it, survived
Tight-lipped through...

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Shema ("Listen")
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable homes,
who return each evening to find
warm food and a hearty welcome...

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If you square two and take away from eight,
In the month of April that is my birth date!
Write month-date as lucky angels dictate, 
like a...

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Winter's Friday afternoon
  The Sabbath comes in so soon
The sun, if there be one
  fairly plummets down
    Already's appeared the...

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We drink to Life. L'chaim. Summer smiles
In Leah's eyes, June sunlight gently glowing.
The glass waits on the earth, bowl, base, and stem 
Remembering. Then, shards...

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Honey. 
A question.

One?

For now.
Subject to chain-reaction change.

As long as we're clear
about our lack of restraining rules.

Quite so, dear.
I'm wondering about that line
"Jesus is the reason
for...

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I walk in a busy street, happy faces everywhere
Coats buttoned tight against the cold,
Stomachs full, warm shoes on their feet.
They don't know.

My grandparents limped through...

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Black Winter


She hid behind veil
The coldness
Her companion
The umbrella her armor

I died
Years before
Her last kiss
In heaven I adore

I shed tears
At my widows pain
In paradise
I go insanely...

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Two hawks aloft
crows anxious banding together
Carol Ott comes over to my house, likes the warm weather, November
a California Christmas and maybe species will change places...

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let noise drift swiftly swirling away on angry grey clouds
let troubles tumble into rough winter waves
while I
exhausted
joyfully
breathe your name--
Hashem*


let the pain of ten thousand wars...

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