Ariga: Visions: A 'Zine: Poetry

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Poems by Thomas Fortenberry

The Day My Wife Took Her Last Shower

(for the Holocaust survivors)

Watching her move,
tanned, seasoned skin
as gaunt as a belt, pulled tight
against my groin, my heart
bloodless in the afternoon sun,
my face glowed like a lampshade
softly, warmly, two stars for eyes
pricked just so in this canopy
of heaven on earth
-bound need, barb wired soul
wrenching against the bonds
of yesterday's acceptance of the yoke.
I watched her walk
float, invisible cherubic wings
drawing her near
the entrance of the showers
where they would clean her life,
thoroughly erasing her presence.
I was losing all the dirt in my life--
God, how the empty air screamed that day.

The International City: Jerusalem

I have proposed this for all
The years of this decade:
Stop wasting time, unite
Behind the one world
Order and do away with strife.
Hatred is taught, not learned;
It is perpetuated, not chosen
Of freewill by the sane-- we
Who live life fully, sense
That which is unfathomable,
Untouchable, unknowable;
Just out there, beyond
Our wildest dreams is reality.

Can't you see it now?
With the simplest of votes
Together we could all agree and
Jerusalem could become the universal
City of Man, the first international city
Without borders, without distinctions,
No restrictions according to race, creed,
Or other blinding malfeasances
We hurl at each other; our daily defense
Is defense, fear and loathing of what if
The other lifts his weapon, protests,
Raises an angry voice and complains
As if that is not the moment by moment agony
Of having ears and eyes and mouth
So we don't miss one precious second
Of all that wasted hate. Heedlessly, we plunge
Deeper into the pit, bottomless
In our hunger to explore the void
Whilest ignoring the very soil at our feet.
Why look elsewhere when we have it all
Before us, the Home of Man,
Our city, Jerusalem? Ask not,
And ye shall find not. Look away
In shame and see the lost arc
On the far side of the circle of life
Spun like an empty vessel
Holding no answers to no questions, hollow
Echoes coming back to taunt us
With our own ignorance.

Have we learned no lessons?
We are not 12 tribes divided,
But one people. No one lost,
Nor should be; we are all found
In each other's eyes, if
We simply take the time to look.
Of choice, there is freefall
Like apples from trees of knowledge
And then there are learning curves
Thrown at us all day long
From on high, down low
Knocking knees out from under
The steadfast resolve to ignore
All the peace, love, and happiness
We can stomach. The insult
Is knowing that we know
Now, and yet still, rock-solid in our faith
In disbelief, ignoring the truth
Slapping us between the eyes
Like a stoning sticking fast
So tightly bound to mind it might be
A cubed condensation of God's word,
The eternal reminder.

Should we pray?
Sure, that will help,
But God also gave us strength,
Strength to stand up, strength to choose,
Strength to act like Men. Maybe
We should start trying;
Get off our grossly swollen apathy,
Unprune our violently twisted knees,
Stretch our pathetically shrivelled hearts,
And just give life a chance,
Give a damn for once. In a while
We will stop bickering,
Stop fearing and hating and backstabbing
Our shimmering mirror souls shattered
Into a universe of disparate jagged shards;
In a while we will heal, recover
Our reflections and be whole
Once more our way sure, our path
Clear and blazing up the mountain
Like a molten stream of lava
Flowing back up to its source.
All day, every day the truth is expounded
In the auditorium of our world,
The Philosopher speaks: deaf we hear
Thunder fill the azurite dome above
Us, in our mindlessness we ignore the lightning
Writing verses between the pages of our days,
To overbusy with nothing, nothing
So important as freedom
From the tyranny of our doubts.

Is anyone listening?
I have proposed this for all
Who will hear me, know
What is right from wrong,
Good from bad. It is time
To choose victory over defeat,
Put behind us 10,000 weary years
Of repeated historical ignorance, time
To move forward, to start anew,
To give birth to our future's past
Glory-- the day of celebration
When the savages civilized themselves
And tore down all the walls, erased
All the broders, and ended divisions
Among Mankind. O Jerusalem!
International City of Mankind,
I call to you, I pray to you--
Make my prayers heard!

A Haiku for Elisha Porat

Elisha Porat,
You invited me inside
I took myself back.

Thomas Fortenberry is an American editor and writer of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, comic books, plays, teleplays, and screenplays. For much more information about him, visit his home page at www.kakuta.com/thomas
[all poems copyright Thomas Fortenberry, USA. email: kurvanas@aol.com ***

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