Purim Spiel

from the Beloit Poetry Journal: 1990    

 Purim Spiel --a poem of hope
The elder, alter older -
a tree
alone with its thoughts

Of kings, of Isaac snatched
by the ram's horn
again 

the thorn 
burning for Rivka by the well

Between them wide as an ocean
white wake foaming

a cormorant with flaming tail

Fuming from the waves
its signature of white on blue
a warrant sent 

Against the world

    but wait!

the story changes...
Back track

the firebird on its flume
red tongue panting like a dog
In heat. Esther. Queen
of Persia prancing for her idle king

A worshiper of things
he lays his power down
upon her ceding haunch

And she, she rollicks in her duty
rolls his Majesty
about the gilded room

Until a tree 
grows in his mind    the Alter
Elder is at stake 

its point 

Can touch the heart and 
stop it

Cold, a twitching stick 
with eyes wide

As oceans, as the 

desert city
on the desert's edge    He sees.

Taking in at last
breath

the Jews dancing
for their lives
their purled queen 

the sequined 
Rider blossoming like snow
like the bloom of the dark

crocus below
The bruise under that white 

skin, a king's passion
pressed against her breast
the alter

Of his lust, her love
but not for him - the world

Lays itself before her
renews the pledge    To her

As with each morning
clouds mount 
the skies and ancient trees
will come again to crown gray mountains with new green.


Jacob Russell

History–in my lifetime!

I was six months old and Roosevelt said it was a day of infamy, then Truman dropped a tiny sun on Hiroshima and General Ike took off his uniform, put on his civies and gave a speech about the Military Industrial Complex, and threw the hat that Dickie missed but Kennedy caught and lit a fire in Vietnam giving Nixon a 2nd chance to give his famous two handed 4 finger sign of victory before Ford could say the long nightmare was over, and Carter walked down Pennsylvania Ave to the White House and visited Three Mile Island and hostages in Iran gave the White House to Reagan who began the Great Unraveling and reminded us every day how defenseless we were against the now tens of thousands of Suns-of fusion bombs waiting their signal in silos and submarines for Bush One with crooked smile and crooked son under his arm, who would have to wait for Clinton to tuck his cock back in his pants to take his turn at looking so awful that America would even elect a black man who wasn’t really and had a great smile and wore that suit like he owned it when he shook hands with Trump and smiled his great smile, thinking of the millions he would get for doing such a bang up job for his real friends after he left the white house to the wrecking ball with Orange hair… who fragmented into deadly shrapnel as it left the White House for a bowl of oatmeal with frozen lips and rockets burst over Whuhan in the shape of a giant virus and mighty winds and fire swept across the land to the drip drip drip of melting glaciers and rising seas and everyone looked up looked up looked up, and said–see? See?See?…. nothing to see! And pretty soon, there wasn’t!
Happy New Year

More Truly and More Strange #631

From Wallace Stevens, Tea in the Palaz of Hoon.
9×12 Watercolor, Pen and Ink. This is from 2016, but didn’t have a photo.
Want? It’s free, or for whatever you want to donate, plus shipping.
Matted, framed with glass.

View more work at Saatchi Art, and on my web portfolio: ART BY WILLARD For photos on this blog, click MY ART on the right panel and scroll