Zvi A. Sesling,
IL
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Free Verse
Area Code
Somewhere inside eleven hundred
pages of non-acid free white pages
black ink shouting names, numbers
addresses – how many I do not know
is your name in one of many permutations:
maiden name, married name – the first
second or third or maybe you have
made up a new name, perhaps hidden
like a wind blown thistle in a bush
maybe with a fourth married name
that I can Google or Dog Pile or use
some other internet search engine
to reveal your current personal information
like a face in a crowd of protestors avoiding
the past
Blood
The sky
is cold dark and gray
like your heart, the eerie scratching
of rats in dumpsters is your song
You have the fangs of the bat
the thud of elephants on my heart
Yesterday you left with someone
or for someone, it makes no difference
Your escape is my freedom, rows of birds
on wires sing their song is for me as the
the ice melts in my veins and brain
Once when I was young four boys ganged
up on me and my blood was red-black when
they finished and also when I avenged each
of them one-on-one until red is my blood’s
color again for my revenge over poured blood
Hometown
Blues
They
have all moved away
my friends who lived within
a few blocks and went to
the state university then stayed
there and bought homes, while
others went to California, Texas,
Florida or are dead like the stores
now boarded and decaying, the
houses with peeling paint, missing
shingles, overgrown grass, cars
rusting in driveways, are homes for
kiddie drug dealers and teen prostitutes,
schools have holes in windows and
police wish they drove armored vehicles
and I hit the gas pedal, wave farewell
to the city of my youth, my idyllic past
Memories
Evil
from the past creeps up the
spine like cold soup, a chill,
a shiver, a sliver of memory
squeezing under the closet door
There was a time in the teenage years
we all thought we were invincible
fast cars, drag races, jumping off bridges
we were a clown in the circus
Then one died in a car crash
another jumped into the water of paralysis
so we grew apart, forgot our past
the way we forget a cup of coffee
The mind is like a recording machine
that replays when you do not
expect it – usually at night
when alone, when we do not need it
Old
Friends
What has
happened to my old friends
Some have vaporized in saunas
Others have become autographs in
Someone’s yearbook or on loose pages
There are those dead and desiccated
In the jungles or rotted in deserts
Some became statistics on highways
While others counted dollars as if
They were pebbles on a distant beach
The rest I look up to at night
Bid them farewell, make a wish
and join the waiting pillow
Secret Signal
The
acne faced moon stares down
each night until its last smile
insults many with a blackface
imitation then returns to the full
face of the intelligent to the
reflection of our own misgiving
We used to lie in cool grass
dew forming on our foreheads
as we stared up and you said
the moon is a she and stars her
children while I argued it was
Earth’s war shield
The other night I looked up and
studied that pimpled face as it
winked and reminded me of all
those who have shared the grass
bed, whose dew had been a
secret signal
About Zvi A.
Sesling, US
Zvi A.
Sesling has published poetry in numerous magazines
both in print and online in the United States, Great
Britain, New Zealand, Canada and Israel. Among the
publications are: Ibbetson St., Midstream,
Poetica,The Deronda Review, Voices Israel, Saranac
Review, New Delta Review, Plainsong, Asphodel, Haz Mat
Review, Istanbul Literary Review, The Chaffin Journal,
Ship of Fools, Chiron Review, Poetry Monthly
Interational, Matrix, The Tower, New Vilna Review
and Main Street Rag. He was awarded
Third Place (2004) and First Prize (2007) in the Reuben
Rose International Poetry Competition and was a finalist
in the 2009 Cervena Barva Press Chapbook Contest. In
2008 he was selected to read his poetry at New
England/Pen “Discovery” by Boston Poet Laureate Sam
Cornish. He was a featured reader in the 2010 Jewish
Poetry Festival in Brookline, MA. He is a regular
reviewer for the Boston Small Press and Poetry
Scene and he edits the Muddy River Poetry
Review. He is author of King of the Jungle,
(Ibbetson St., 2010), which has been nominated for the
Massachusetts Book Award and a chapbook Across
Stones of Bad Dream (Cervana Barva, 2011) and a
second full length poetry book, Fire Tongue
to be published by Cervena Barva Press.
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