Anne

By Juliette Van de Mheen

At first
Her excitement

About Kitty
Paper girlfriend

Whose importance was yet
Unfathomable to Anne

The one true friend
Who knew her innermost thoughts

Her poignant confidences
Deeply touched her readers

Hidden in the Achterhuis
On her journey within

Perceptive chronicler
Frank and honest observer

Of her small stage
Of a world at war

Learning about life
And adolescence's pitfalls

Indomitable and vibrant
Yearning for release

Striving to be a positive force
For her world and people

These letters to Kitty
Her legacy

Through which speaks
An intelligent and courageous girl

Her words unforgettable
Their impact will last

Juliette van de Mheen/stardustraven lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She has worked at the University Library of Amsterdam, where she worked partially for the Rare and Early Printings Project), and she now works at the Municipal Archive.  In June a poem about Kristallnacht was published at Poetic Medicine, and another poem under the nickname "stardustraven" was published at Naturewriting.com."

Rosh Hashanah: The Echoes of the Shofar

 

By Shoshanah Weiss-Kost

 

 

Through the tunnels of the Shofar

Comes a wailing and an inner moaning from the depths of our souls.

My heart beats faster when I stand and listen.

I enter a mild meditation as the sounds reverberate against the walls of the synagogue and back into my ears.

 

Listening to the the Tekiah and the Shvarim and the Teruah they enter my heart.

Like waves coming into the shore of the ocean.

Tears stream down my face as I think of how I got to this particular point in life.

Tears of joy mixed with tears of sorrow.

 

Each year we enter a new corridor of hope.

Grasping onto the branches of the tree of life.

Our prayers raise us up on wings of the angelic forces.

Braiding a crown on the head of the King.

 

We must grab life by its’ lapels and do what is our divine tasks.

Lift us up over the waters of life.

The echoes of the shofar help us to transcend,

So we can see and regain a perspective on our lives.

Reflecting on our year behind and setting goals for our year ahead.

There is so much to accomplish.

No time to waste.

 

The Shofar breaks the opposing forces.

It breaks apart our individual serenity.

It shakes us to our core.

The sounds release angst about life’s challenges.

It is time for renewal and growth.

We are being given another chance on the scales of life.

Shoshanah Weiss Kost has a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Jewish Studies from the University of Illinois in Urbana. She did post graduate work in Jewish Studies at Michlelet Bruria and Anne Blitstein Institue in Chicago. Shoshanah has published poems in a variety of poetry journals such as Horizons, The Deronda Review, and Poetica Magazine. Shoshanah Weiss-Kost currently gives monthly lectures for women on Torah topics for the Erica Neter Mayer Jewish Learning Division of Congregation Adas Yeshurun in Chicago.  

HIGH NOON ON THE SCHOOLYARD

By Milton Ehrlich

The nightmare of childhood
got played out in the schoolyard.

George La Rosa. the biggest guy in class
was a bully, who had his way with favorite scapegoats.

La Rosa wore a swastika
as a member of The Friends of New Germany.

His fascist father gave it to him to wear
at the ‘39 Bundist rally.

He warned me Hitler was on the way
to round up all the Jews.

As the only Jew in class, it enraged him
that I didn’t go to school on Jewish holidays.

Not fair!, he would rant, you dirty kike,
I’ll soon take care of you.

Father signed me up for Gold’s Gym Bicep Builder.
I learned to box three rounds with kids my size and weight.

When he tried to push me down the stairs,
I challenged him to meet me after school.

We squared off in the schoolyard
with classmates cheering wildly.

After striking a brutal blow to my eye,
he thought the fight was over and let down his guard.

Exploding with fury, I summoned all my ten year might
to smash his nose with a pulverizing hard right.

I wore my black eye as a badge of honor.

His broken nose made him look like a Jew.

Milton P. Ehrlich was born in 1931. A psychologist, he began writing
poems after the age of seventy. He has published numerous poems in
periodicals such as the "Antigonish Review," "Toronto Quarterly
Review," "Wisconsin Review," "Poetica Magazine," "Penwood Review,"
"Jewish Currents," "Christian Science Monitor," and the "New York
Times."  

archives:

Winter

By Michael Miller 

the radiator sings

its sweet nigun

my home is blessed

 

 

 

 

 Ein Sof

By Michael Miller
 

the sky is wet with ink

as I fumble for my keys

but one haphazard glance

and my eyes fall straight up

to stars so near I duck my head

 

and beauty turns to fear

here, face to face

with a distant creation

like a crystal sphere shattered underfoot

at some cosmic wedding

 

but it is mine

my wedding

and it has come too soon

too soon to lift the veil

too soon, too soon

my fingers say as they claw the doorknob

 

for it is a majesty

and a greatness

and a presence there behind a veil

that I cannot lift,

not here.  not now.

 

not yet.

Michael Miller is the editor of High Coup Journal, an e-journal for snarky haiku, and his poetry has been published in Four and Twenty, Short Fast and Deadly, and the Boston Literary Magazine, amongst others. He currently writes poems up in an attic about 40 miles and 130 years from where Emily Dickinson did the same thing.

Kaddish 

By Martin C. Rosner, M.D.

Lamentations, lamentations fill
The temple of my mind,
Plangent with grief.
Not for me, not for me,
Nor even for my friends
Who limp their painful way
Along the steep descending road,
But for the voices in the winds
Of history, all the nameless
Sufferers who came before,
Now stifled in obscurity,
Their torment unrecalled..
I never knew them, although
I feel they were my kin.
Now their reproaches, bleeding
Through the centuries,
Assail me to exhort
For recollection, justice, sorrow
And compassion, while the deafened
Ears, the small dry selfish minds
Refuse to hear their cries.
Thus I must mourn
For they will not. 

Dr. Martin C. Rosner has 5 published books of poetry, his last described at his website: www.thedoctorinthenight.com His poetry has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers including 17 poems in "The New York Times" and is currently part of the course in modern poetry at American International College.