Eric Sribnick
1. A November Walk
While on a walk today,
I saw the trees release their leaves,
skinny little ones, that looked like fingers
would fly past me in a crowd
and settle on the grass and road.
It had rained last night
and a film of water covered each leaf.
I saw two leaves crash in midflight;
they held and fell to the ground together,
and I thought of you.
2. A Beacon in the Night
Amid the night's black I saw it, the web faded into the darkness
but the beacon was clear. A shot of light to signal,
not of mating, but of fear. Trapped in the web,
the hunter spun his prey about the grey thread.
With each passing spin, the firefly called,
"But to whom?", I wondered.
Encased in bonds, the prey is still
and only a yellow sign screams warning, like a light house
among a rocky night coast to passing ships.
The hunter moves off, a silly move I think,
to leave a meal unattened. As I discover a second
moored in webbing , a third adheres to the gosamer trap.
3. Herd Instincts
Like a cattle prod searing flesh,
the loud buzz of the alarm stirs.
Cattle stampede the land,
instinct governs as they rush on,
never giving thought to the movement.
As the sand begins to fall.
Large evergreens, colored flowers, and shurbbery,
become more of an obstacle than inspiration.
Opportunities for comradery
become only a collage of unrecognizable faces.
As the grains move through the neck of the glass.
Dressed in a dark wool suit,
with a small golden timepiece
contained in the left pocket.
He exclaims, "I'm late, I"m late,
for a very important date."
Sneaking glances at his watch
until he stops ticking,
And the sand rests at the base.
4. Views of the Holocaust
Their stories are carved on my mind,
in stone that doesn't chip or fade.
Tales of Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz,
from survivors, as scarred by memories
as by the row of numbers tattooed along their arm.
Those pictures begged me to open up
and understand the stories.
"Why not me?", I ask them.
The children, with pudgy arms and innocent faces,
look like my cousins.
Emaciated women staring through lifeless eyes,
and only skin to hide their bones,
in them I see my mother.
A smokestack brings images of ash,
bodies float into the air from a crematorium.
A crowded elevator becomes a gas chamber,
as Zyklon-B rushes down.
Blood seeps from a cracked skull onto the pavement,
corpses stacked high into a trench, and
a reeking haze covers the pile;
painful images that carry nightmares.
A young man stands under a swastika,
he smiles as he caresses a scarlet stained club.
The Nazis burned them to ash,
like a shameful child trying to hide a sin.
But the ashes call out to us, for justice, for remembrance.
The ashes won't disappear.
5. Love: The Word Game
Love
Dove
Doe
Does
Dose
Lose
Lost
Lust
6. The Wolf
There is first the smirk, mocking a true smile.
Exposed are the teeth, crooked.
They poke and jag; one peaks over another.
They crowd and shove, fighting for space.
All yellowed, save a few gold capped ones.
His teeth tell more than the eyes,
For they are vacuous and hold only a lazy gaze.
Like the eyes, there is no expression in the face,
Its voice hidden behind fat
Which forms rolls on his neck
That stumble as they race toward his chest.
Amid the features, silenced by alcohol,
A twitch screams the masterŐs desires.
Those bloated fingers drum the table,
Expressing nervous anticipation.
The right hand drops to his lap as the left clutches a glass.
And with the everhardening of his groin,
the right slides towards her and grabs underneath.
Rubbing, rubbing, against her soft frictionless youth.
The right creeps under the fabric, making an initial violation,
as the left clutches a thick wallet,
preparing for the impending payment.