Category Archives: poetry

December 2, 2013 · 9:21 am

Escapee

 by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

I could have been one of them,
made to stand in an open trench,
hands in the air, too young
to be embarrassed by my nakedness.
I could have been one of them,
made to walk in line
on my way to the showers,
with my mother whispering tensely to me.
I could have been one of them,
made to augment  the round number
of 6 million who were never heard of again.
Yet because of luck and/or God,
I made my way to American shores,
unaware of the horrors I had left behind.
That was my gift outright.
Second-hand survivors’ guilt
flicks at me now like fires from the ovens,
illuminating the ancient question of whether
I am worthy of such largess.

I could have been one of them.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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November 18, 2013 · 9:28 am

Bearing Witness

 by Barbara Krasner (Somerset, NJ)

I never knew my grandmother.
I never knew why she left her Polish shtetl.
I never knew why she was Austro-Hungarian and Polish at the same time.
I never tasted her stuffed cabbage with raisins in white sauce.
I never ladled the cholent she left on the stove all day for her boys.
I never ate her boiled hot dogs on a bun on Market Day.
I never went by two buses with her to the Prince Street Market.
I never sat on her knee while she kibbitzed with neighbors by the front window radiator.
I never appreciated her generosity as she doled out clothing after the celluloid explosion of ’33.
I never rang her cash register.
I never witnessed her haggling with New York City wholesalers.
I never saw her hold fabrics between her fingers to decide what to sell in her store.
I never scolded her for wearing such thin flowered dresses.
I never noticed the flash in her eyes before a belly laugh.
I never beheld her penetrating gaze or fell victim to her caustic words.
I never addressed envelopes in English to her sisters in Europe.
I never spotted worry lines on her face with three sons in the U.S. Armed Forces.
I never accompanied her to the Joint to sponsor her only surviving relative to America.
I never visited her, wracked with cancer in the hospital.
I never felt her joy when her brother arrived from the DP camp.
She never knew me.

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in or are forthcoming in Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, Poetica Magazine, Jewishfiction.net, Nimrod,Paterson Literary Review, Lips, Minerva Rising, The Copperfield Review and others. She teaches creative writing at William Paterson University in New Jersey. She is the author of Discovering Your Jewish Ancestors (Heritage Quest, 2001) and the forthcoming Goldie Takes a Stand! (Kar-Ben, Fall 2014), a tale of young Golda Meir. You can read more about her at her website www.barbarakrasner.com and her blog The Whole Megillah – The Writer’s Resource for Jewish Story.

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October 28, 2013 · 8:40 am

Scenes from a Movie

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

Three nuns are bouncing on trampolines.
Why are they bouncing on trampolines?
It’s a parody on leap of faith.
And that, my friends, is the sticking point.
Either you have faith, or don’t, or hedge your bets,
caught between the chasm of doubt,
and the certainty of belief.
Current events test my faith;
senseless murders torture it.
I would love to believe that God has a plan,
but lately I have been coming to the conclusion
His plans are rather arbitrary.
Yes, I know man has free will,
but I wonder if that gives him too much license.
I have read that faith heals when
family and community come together in prayer.
Small comfort for tragic loss, I feel.
All great religions posit a higher power,
but in the certainty of my doubts,
there is no trampoline I can jump
to reach the upper vaults of heaven.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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October 14, 2013 · 8:45 am

Numbers On My Arm

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

In Israel,
grandchildren wear their grandparents’
concentration camp numbers on their arms,
at once a strike against Talmudic law,
and a sign to future generations to never forget.
The numbers sit,
not on my arm,
but on my soul.
Who am I to declare such legacy?
What chutzpah I must have
to stand in line with those
who were marched to the ovens.
I am haunted by my escape.
What or whom
has given me license to live?
And why?
Why am I so blessed?
Or cursed?
You say I am not qualified to grieve?
How could I possibly know?
I know, I know.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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September 16, 2013 · 10:16 am

I Can’t Promise

by Natalie Zellat Dyen (Huntington Valley, PA)

I can’t promise that people will be kind.

But I can show you a reservoir of kindness
where anyone can dip their cup.

I can’t promise you happiness every day of your life.
But I can plant seedlings in your garden
that burst with joy in springtime.

I can’t promise you undying friendship.
But I can give you the words
to mend shattered bonds.

I can’t promise there’s a world to come.
But I can give you the tools you need
to fix the world that is.

I can’t promise that those you love will love you back.
But I can give you an open heart
to receive love when it comes.

And if you can’t promise to use all your gifts
At least you can promise to try.

Natalie Zellat Dyen is a freelance writer and photographer living in Huntingdon Valley, PA. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Stories, The Willow Review, Global Woman Magazine, Intercom Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, and other newspapers and journals. Links to Natalie’s published work are available atwww.nataliewrites.com.

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April 8, 2013 · 6:00 am

Union Square Chess

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

“Sit down, son, and play a game of chess.”
“I’m not very good at it.”
“This is not a tournament, just a game.”
“Of chess?”
“No, of life.”
“I seemed to have forgotten basic strategy.”
“Well, you can forget about all that.
You think you can plan your moves?
Only the Grandmaster can do that.”
“There’s a celestial Grandmaster?”
“You bet there is. He sets up the board,
but it’s up to you to play the game.”
“But what if I make a mistake?”
“No problem. Everybody screws up once in a while.
You just have to play your game, straight through.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all there is to it.
Just sit down and play.
You’ll do fine. Just decide what moves to make,
but don’t forget, He controls the board.
Your move, son, the clock is ticking.”

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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March 11, 2013 · 8:03 am

Crash Victim’s Father

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

“God is punishing me for my sins.”
Oh, father, are you sure?
Or is this your valiant attempt
to understand what cannot be understood?
A daughter is dead, so is a son,
as is, tragically, an unborn child.
A whole religious community now mourns.
What evidence, I ask, suggests it was your fault?
You load your shoulders with the pain,
to make sense out of the senseless,
but why carry even more sorrow by contributing
the additional burden of perceived sin?
Surely, God in His wisdom does not wish to pile on.
It would seem He has better things to address –
why the accident in the first place? –
as He dons His Old Testament robes of wrath.
Nothing can make the night day for you,
but what value is it to extend the darkness,
by throwing a believed culpability into
the incomprehensible celestial mix?

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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February 18, 2013 · 7:35 am

Crosses on the Wall

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

My father sent me to Hebrew school,
where mournful prayers kept me a prisoner,
preventing me from playing first base
for my beloved Little League team.
On the High Holidays, I dreaded wearing
my wool suit which made me scratch.
I looked all around the synagogue, bored,
counting the number of lights on the memorial wall.
I kept sneaking looks at how many pages remained.
Liberated at 13, I ran free, but was slowed by guilt.
Years later, I am a speaker of literature
at a conference at a small Catholic college.
Two nuns sit in on my workshop,
and on the wall floats a giant cross.
“So boychik, my ancestors seem to be saying.
“How are you feeling these days?
See how your lack of Jewish education has cost you?
Are you now playing first base for the other side?”

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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December 17, 2012 · 9:17 am

The Broken Country

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

No poem expresses enough;
no word heals enough.
We are the broken country.
We have been felled by madness,
swamped by guns, abandoned by God
who seems to have attended business elsewhere.
We are the broken country.
Reason provides answers after the fact.
Faith provides comfort after the fact.
People will gather in churches and synagogues
in a fruitless attempt to make sense
out of what is senseless.
Psychologists will offer theories.
Clergy will offer solace.
Politicians will offer legislation –
all too late.
You can’t close the gate
after the horror has been released.
We are the broken country.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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November 26, 2012 · 9:15 am

Loss of Grace

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

The perfect metaphor, you think?
The missing word in my crossword puzzle,
G-R-A-C-E,
a word I couldn’t get,
a quality I don’t have.
How many other words
have I missed in my life?
L-O-V-E?
C-O-M-P-A-S-S-I-O-N?
P-U-R-P-O-S-E?
Apparently, I don’t understand the clues,
and my penciled answers
are constantly erased in self-doubt.
Understanding the overall theme of this puzzle,
lies outside my up and down comprehension.
I would like to receive the full measure of Your grace
to finish this rather incomplete puzzle
with a bold pen stroke of assurance.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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