Five Poems by Zvi A. Sesling

 

Book Collector

    --for L.S.

 

He collected books, thousands to be sure

placed neatly in bookshelves

stacked on the floor four feet high

even in the kitchen piled on

tables, in cabinets, under the counter

books of all sorts on top of dressers,

bureaus, the piano and the couch: history,

psychology, religion, poetry, sports,

astronomy and more -- more like a bookstore

than living space yet he read few of them

hoping to absorb their contents by osmosis,

become scholarly

Cold As Ice

 

One look from the deep ocean blue eyes

melts the heart

 

One touch from the oven hot hand

causes earthquakes on the skin’s fissures

 

The smile exhales a hot wind

and moisture breaks out on the neck

 

It’s what being in heat is all about:

ready to go, ready to fall like a dropped rock

 

But the heart, the clock of emotion

is frozen, cold as ice, stopped at the half hour

Destiny Rides

 

Destiny rides the spotted horse,

the escaped zebra

 

loons flying overhead

while pigeons, those winged cockroaches

 

are roosting, plotting new ways to beg

for meals

 

when the sun rises rats crawl into

their nests

 

they eat a pigeon if they

can and the saxophone player in

 

the subway station watches the rats

scrounging the tracks for snacks

Last Leaf

 

There is always a last leaf on the tree

like the last woman who held on to a

leg as you walked out the door a long

goodbye with tears of a muddy relationship

 

You have taken what she had to offer

which was never enough even if sincere

just a dog’s bark, a cat’s meow, a horse’s neigh

you never really heard words or care if you did

 

Window candy always melts and if it doesn’t

it hardens to rock and a rolling stone gathers no love

you can sink with the weight of the stone in your heart

how you smile depends on the number of teeth you have

and the woman who held your leg had none left

Little Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoe    

 

There was a little old lady who lived

in a shoe

 

she had so many children she was angry at her

husband who had abused her

 

and did not believe in birth control

left her for a younger woman

 

while other men no longer wanted

her because they did not want the

 

responsibility of all those children

let alone having to live in a shoe

Zvi A. Sesling, Brookline, MA Poet Laureate (2017-2020), has published numerous poems and flash/micro fiction. He edits Muddy River Poetry Review. His work has won international prizes and nominated for local and national awards. He is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee. He has published four volumes of poetry, King of the Jungle, Fire Tongue, The Lynching of Leo Frank and War Zones and three poetry chapbooks, Simple Game, Baseball Poems; Love Poems From Hell and Across Stones of Bad Dreams. His flash fiction book is Secret Behind The Gate. He lives in Brookline, MA with his wife Susan J. Dechter.