The Literary Review
Berakhah
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It’s impossible to escape your dreams. Inside them,
you are in a state that consciousness never admits
where whistles and engine roars aren’t allowed
Even in sleep, thoughts mesh with pilgrimages
of a never-silent mind. You rock to-fro on a see-saw
while cavorting playmates blurt out raw sound
xxxxxx
In dreams it is simple. Your mother is mad at you
Nothing can sweeten the acid taste of bitterness
It invades your oblivion as she constantly accuses
you of being a creature devoted to pleasure—
a hedonist, and a bad influence on your kid
brothers, when all you want to do is enjoy surf
on your face and delicious kisses under the stars
xxxxx
When you leave home at eighteen, she throws a
plaster replica of The Pietà, at your head, missing
by inches. Her anger over a Jewish girl (me)
for having this icon (a gift from a Catholic friend),
can be forgiven. But to throw a heavy object
your daughter’s head is not cool. Still, at this point,
xxx
even with that ludicrous moment still palpable, I felt
I owed her an apology. For individuating myself,
xxx
for wanting to experience adventure, passion,
enlightenment—and drugs. I still feel I should seek
forgiveness for any pain to which I subjected
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her sweet, innocent, middle-class self. Nor did I mean
any harm. I was one of those kids who glossed over rules and disbelieved the consequences of my choice to live off the grid. I aspired to be fearless, and I was—am
But I cleaned up nicely, I’ve no regrets at all—except
xxx
if I hurt her with impetuous things I said, accusing
her of abandoning her art, reproaching her for what
I viewed as a lack of social awareness, I felt a need
to countermand my unawareness of what it means to be an adult. I stayed by her side, pampering as she once
xxx
did me. I sweetened the compote. We fed on it gratefully
xxx
We walked her to the door, my brothers and I—
xxx
and that is a Berakhah![1]
- Joanie HF Zosike
[1] Berrakah: berakah, also spelled Berakha, or Berachah (Hebrew: “blessing”). A benediction directed to God recited at specific points of synagogue liturgy, during private prayer, or for being spared from harm.
June 24th, 2022
xxx
Today is the day women become
chattel again in this country
xxx
Like some sci-fi horror story
where a technologically advanced
civilization practices human sacrifice
xxx
Where women are kept at home naked,
in thrall to an exacting fertility god
xxx
Sleep, all you unwanted little babies
xxx
You may not be loved but you will be
carried like burdens
- Joanie HF Zosike
I, Crud
xxx
…creeping from the inside, blocking the passage
Weakening the vocal impulse to sing, to speak
words to distant places through remote telephones,
recordings, flashes in copper pans, on social media
Posting erratic signals, hypnotic messages to parties
unknown, unbeknownst to me, z, he, she, zhey
Walk in agony on a hot bed of coals through the
preaching of testimonials, 21st century hate style
xxx
Imminent, ever-present this odium, never ceasing,
Why? I, crust of earth. I, crusted and crusty,
crumbling, dying. Rebirth, retrack, redo, redux
Unbelievable agony in the face, in your face, face it—
No one is blameless, no one is guilty
Your face isn’t mine
xxx
There is a presence made up of joys and agonies
Married together in an unending cycle of violence
Another specter wears a perpetual smile, filled
with love and optimism despite all indications
to the contrary that it might be a downward spiral—
xxx
But up and down doesn’t exist in space. Arises now
an ever-evolving/never-ending helix, a universe
with a nucleus, with star-studded arms reaching out
to embrace its neighbors with all its expanse
Is this a shore from which we should retreat?
xxx
The paradox of pleasure and pain, this celestial
tickling and biting, this teasing of the engrams,
flows beyond our grasp and reveals the vast,
yet very human enigma—the force of time
- Joanie HF Zosike
New Rules
(6/25/2022)
The bus driver on that lousy 319
bus from Toms River to NYC
yelled at me.
He forbid me to use my cell phone.
That squinky son of a public
servant, the good soldier Schweik
of NJT Bus Line 319—grrr!
There were no signs on the bus
forbidding phone usage.
I know, they frown on it.
But that pompous bureaucrat
on wheels was using his new
mandate for sure, keeping
talky female passengers in
thrall. See, that’s how
the repeal of Roe v Wade sits
on the faces of all women, no
matter how young or old.
- Joanie HF Zosike
Warm/Hunger on the 10th Rung
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A ludicrous smile lights the lips of the capitalist Buddha,
same color as cheeks of cherry and bared blushing nipples
The smile of a blissful self-contented face knows nothing
as children disintegrate and species die from hunger’s lash
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Humanity’s mirrored conception of Christ wraps lives
in a prophet’s fetching body bandeau—Buddha blue
Zion contents us into perpetuity with rapid leaps of smug
Here is where it begins and ends—in the desert’s escap
from vermillion water—who will evacuate the debt?
The balance revolves till the very last second before
global broil—it makes us raped to death—pendulum
wrinkles and grays, dominant species belatedly greens
xxx
Merriment sings out of volcanoes: EVERYTHING YOU
THROW UP ON ME WILL RICOCHET, SUCKERS
Clocks sing medleys of family songs, militant poets fight
amongst themselves to ascend; I bid you walk and never tire
- Joanie HF Zosike