Category: poetry

  All Israel has a place yet who will be for me.   If I alone rest in the world to come will all Israel […]

My Enemy (December 12th, 2024, New York, NY)   My enemy Is not like you or me. Savage that he is— He is no man […]

  Above the old Jerusalem graveyard white clouds disperse at the light blowing of summer’s wind Serene, blue skies over young soldiers’ graves. The sea […]

View I wondered why a lonely seagull Drifting in a summer gusty wind Flew by the north picture window, Turning toward the roof.Then seen again […]

Brown is More Than a Color   There between red and yellow lives the color brown. My given name, Bryna, translates to brown.   Bryna, […]

The four daughters haven’t stopped talking since that first seder.   The wise one works as a therapist bringing peace between husband and wife.   The […]

Prophecy   I’ve written wisdom’s prophecy, On a white-washed wall, Outside the Citizens Bureau, But no one bothers to read it. They’re too busy with […]

Remembering Jeanie   We went stone-gathering at dawn, Ungainly in old boots Still sticky-eyed and dry-mouthed To gather the rocks recently Risen from the new-ploughed […]

  __________ Chicago-born artist and poet Ira Director holds a BA in Philosophy and Masters in English Literature and Poetry with works published in journals […]

My Mother’s Alligator Pocketbook   gleams like high-gloss patent leather, but don’t dare make that mistake, these erratic ovoid squares once sheathed exotic reptiles that […]

Their veins have pennies in their eyes   And they won’t shut up They keep clawing They keep chattering All this incessant chatter All that […]

Strap on your stilts & raise a wreath to the monument.  For Leonardo’s missing rib, a sundial in a sun extinct  prepare a flood of […]

Crossings – A fugue poem He escaped Siberia across the Urals, his nearly frozen nose still intact, his once blond hair turned jet coal black. […]

Where the Train Tracks End I walk in silence along grass covered train tracks with teenagers, Holocaust survivors, chaperones. We are a sea of blue. […]

  I could do no more, no less. The fate  that brought my father here, ill-omened town, stinking of show, deceit and filth-filled  waterways—so outwardly […]

The Ring Cycle   1. The Lure of Gold, 1991 The Dutch masters encourage me to lift the lid of their cigar box in the […]

Things That Are Frayed Yellow hostage ribbons, now dirty and dull. Vocal cords from protesters at Hostage Square, muffling the hoarseness of fruit vendors at […]

In the eighteenth century, laws were passed requiring Eastern European Jews to adopt non-Jewish names; but no record exists of the sale of these names […]

Hatikvah: In Praise of Those Who Persevere Hatikvah. The song I learned during Friday night services at Camp Nah-Jee-Wah in the amphitheater overlooking the lake […]

On October 7, I walked in Berlin between the walls, of the monument of death, a memory bound in the bond of life, with the […]