Five Poems by J. J. Steinfeld

 

The Anticlimactic End of the World 

 

God uses special effects and excessive pyrotechnics, 

a mute speaks, sweet-voiced, 

upon regaining speech 

and a sense of humour. 

 

Everyone in the room is awed 

left trembling and sweat drenched. 

  

It’s a precursor to the most transcendent night, 

an elderly hunchback declares, 

the hump dissolving into ramrod straightness. 

 

Prestidigitation will become commonplace, 

a former stutterer slips into eloquence, 

greeted by applause like legendary thunder 

even a hint of legendary lightning and divination.  

 

Three in the room grip camcorders 

ready to capture the unfathomable 

then the three swell to thirty 

to three hundred to three thousand 

soon an excited sea of camcorders 

attempting to outwit the incomprehensible. 

 

Will all this be on the morning, evening, or night-time news? 

I wonder, silent in my confusion.  

 

This is a lousy movie with sloppy dialogue, 

a blind cynic grumbles, retching out metaphor, 

then screams in mid-sentence, I can see,  

and looks at the delicate feet 

of the most beautiful sinner in the room. 

 

This room, spacious beyond measurement, 

populated like a history of forgotten parades, 

I inadvertently entered, haphazard condemnation, 

sat at the very back, seeing all the deformities  

and infirmities and worn-out dreams. 

 

One by one 

slowly and consecutively 

things are resolved, errors undone, wounds healed 

even belligerency is soothed. 

 

It is miraculous, the youngest in the room says, 

a recent wrist slash now a soft decoration. 

It is glorious, the oldest in the room says, 

long-memoried scars turning smooth. 

 

I know it’s the end 

but I’m not letting anyone in on the secret 

the one-liners are just too sanctified 

and I have nowhere else to go. 

 

 

It Saddens Me They Put You in This Nameless Room 

 

When did you banish 

your imaginary lovers 

and imaginary rescuers 

you now hiding alone 

without companions 

or saviours? 

 

Are you that brave now 

suddenly self-reliant and self-contained 

so certain of your voice’s 

strength to reach in directions 

and distances beyond sight? 

 

When did you stop confusing 

the past with the present 

confessing to them both 

with equal abandon 

and claiming the future 

for your own? 

 

And when did you learn to fly? 

Before my very eyes yet 

the ceilings we both know 

are not that high in this room 

your wings, I must say, 

are more impressive 

than any I have ever seen. 

 

 

 

 

Mystified 

 

All of history, all of time 

all or nothing, 

words spoken  

in the faint darkness of the forest 

from hidden-downward flora  

or crouched-away fauna 

I’m not sure 

not that I can properly translate 

either the words of flora or fauna 

(I have been pondering the languages 

of flora and fauna 

and have come up mystified) 

I keep listening 

might as well 

I am misplaced in the forest 

the faint darkness edging toward full darkness 

and I doubt if help is on the way 

not that I would know what to say to a rescue party 

maybe I could repeat the forest sounds 

all of history, all of time, 

all or nothing, 

deal with the perplexed looks 

the second thoughts 

about this rescue of me 

I could display my inability 

for somersaulting or speechmaking 

or enumerating lives lost and found 

speak eloquently about a kinship  

with flora and fauna 

and see if anyone believes me.

 

 

 

 

Life on Another Planet 

 

A man with a face so mysterious 

in its contours and overpowering beauty 

it made both women and men 

wonder about the prospect of love 

a decent man but seemingly without a history 

worth mentioning, an undisturbed past, 

who sat cross-legged on his lawn 

in an unexpected light snowfall of late autumn 

and waited “for their words of instruction” 

that, at least, is what he said to neighbours 

forward enough to touch his shoulder  

and ask why he was sitting cross-legged  

in an unexpected light snowfall of late autumn. 

 

The house was sold during a cold winter’s day 

and before the spring thaw 

a new family moved in 

too thin wife, three sad-eyed children,  

and a husband whose face 

was misshapen but as mysterious 

as the man’s whose face of overpowering beauty 

made both women and men 

wonder about the prospect of love 

and who is now part of the neighbourhood lore 

as having sat cross-legged on his lawn  

until he received urgent words of instruction 

and vanished like the passing of autumn. 

 

 

 

Foretelling 

 

There, on the second wooden step, 

the one with the misshapen sides, 

is an envelope with your name 

and nickname from the old days 

and the words in block letters 

larger than your name or nickname: 

WHAT YOU WILL NOT ACCOMPLISH. 

 

You start to open the envelope 

but hesitate in a shudder of reconsideration 

tomorrow or a thousand tomorrows away 

or even as you hold the envelope 

you need to know if it will rain in the morning 

not what dreams of yours will fade with time. 

 

Suddenly, you question the letter 

no return address, no divine guarantee 

nothing but a nickname you haven’t used 

since you had no fear of failure 

or opening envelopes.

Acknowledgements: 

Used by permission of the author: 

 

1) “The Anticlimactic End of the World” from An Affection for Precipices (Serengeti Press, 2006) by J. J. Steinfeld. 

 

2) “It Saddens Me They Put You in This Nameless Room” from Morning Bafflement and Timeless Puzzlement (Ekstasis Editions, 2020) by J. J. Steinfeld. 

 

3) “Mystified” from A Visit to the Kafka Café (Ekstasis Editions, 2018) by J. J. Steinfeld.  

 

4) “Life on Another Planet” from A Visit to the Kafka Café (Ekstasis Editions, 2018) by J. J. Steinfeld.  

 

5) “Foretelling” from Absurdity, Woe Is Me, Glory Be (Guernica Editions, 2017) by J. J. Steinfeld.

J. J. Steinfeld - Canadian poet, fiction writer, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives on Prince Edward Island (Epekwitk),where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published 24 books, including An Unauthorized Biography of Being (Stories, Ekstasis Editions, 2016), Absurdity, Woe Is Me, Glory Be (Poetry, Guernica Editions, 2017), A Visit to the Kafka Café (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2018), Gregor Samsa Was Never in The Beatles (Stories, Ekstasis Editions, 2019), Morning Bafflement and Timeless Puzzlement (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2020), Somewhat Absurd, Somehow Existential (Poetry, Guernica Editions, 2021), Acting on the Island (Stories, Pottersfield Press, 2022), and As You Continue to Wait (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2022).

As You Continue to Wait (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions, 2022): http://www.ekstasiseditions.com/recenthtml/AS%20You%20Continue%20to%20Wait.htm

Acting on the Island (Stories, Pottersfield Press, 2022): https://49thshelf.com/Books/A/Acting-on-the-Island

Selected books by J. J. Steinfeld (Poetry & Stories): https://49thshelf.com/content/search?SearchText=J.+J.+Steinfeld

Ekstasis Editions books (Poetry & Stories) by J. J. Steinfeld: https://ekstasiseditions.com/backlisthtml/steinfeld.html