USA

ostriker@rci.rutgers.edu

Fire

"the Lord your God is a consuming fire"

the stories of the gods outshine the moon
your story is darkness outshining the sun

we hide our eyes because of your fire
at the moment of the mountain

let not God speak to us lest we die

*****

no wonder history gives us
cities like widows
sitting in their menstrual blood

no wonder book of revelation surges up
four horsemen orgy of vengeance
after nonviolent gospels

no wonder swarms Christian soldiers
burning libraries
heretics

no wonder chapel in Cuzco
San Antonio striding upon
the prone body of an Indian

no wonder imams cut hands off sinners
no wonder the Jewish lunatic murders worshipers
in a place of reconciliation

everybody trying to look goes blind

*****

One of these days
oh one of these days
will be a festival and a judgment

and our enemies will be thrown
into the pit while we rejoice
and sing hymns

Some people actually think this way

*****

On a good day

there is a bridge that spans the flood
of spacetime pouring between
your imperial palace and our poor tenements

your domain, "ha-makom", of purest
illumination
and our humble lives

to what can we compare your word
beloved it is like flying sparks
running through the four worlds

toward us, the reality cascades
to intellect to feeling
to flesh

like a long distance call
then we send the return message

blessed be you
blessed be you
what delight between you and us

*****

the rest of the time
what
gnashing of teeth

what slamming doors

*****


the yearning

Not until the lower world
was made perfect was the other world also made
perfect....and it is thus the yearning from below
which brings about the completion above.
--The Zohar


and so I am reading the zohar
and they are so splendid these old rabbis in their splendor
and their words are blazing light sparks gushing springs
and their hopes are palaces pomegranate trees perfumes ascending

glorious
but as for me
their gates stand closed
fastened against me

what must I do outside here
shake the latches and wail, they are deaf
mount a lawsuit against them, they are expert lawyers
scratch my scabs go on a hunger strike

forget it they own the cameras, oh my beloved
how long before you tell them who I am

*****

Here is a group of poems from my forthcoming book THE VOLCANO
SEQUENCE (due from University of Pittsburgh Press in February):

© All Copyright, Alicia Ostriker.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.