mister street

mister Street
wants all the meat he can rip off
the bones of the world

walks tall past it all
strong as a Wall
built according to plan

mister Street
will throw you a treat
and take what he knows is his,
just knows it is,
according to plan

--  
(c) ilyse na'omi kazar, 1985
written about a lover but today I'm thinkin' Wall Street,
therefore capitalization added

Classroom

a box, a
yellow box
with motionless
           figures
   sitting, stranded,
         each wrapped
up in
       his own
   thoughts, worries,
                  feelings,
and bits of trivia
                 flying,
trying
           to find a
       poor, unsuspecting
head to enter
         and
     fill the spaces
       from which the
          dreams evaporated.


(c) ilyse na'omi kazar, 1972, age 15
written while desperately bored in Spanish class
with lasting gratitude to my English teacher Alex McKay
who submitted the poem to Typog (where it was published)
even though the picture the poem draws of school made him sad.

bus ride / the mother

wheels rolling forward, her mind rolls back
to a suburban foyer
the eyes of a skinny child commit to memory the floor tile pattern
while bent over with pants dropped down,
having learned to practice a strange silent stillness under the rubber hose.

she hears the musical pitch of the slicing of air.
the slicing of air.
the slicing of air.

behind them a screen door opens, shuts,
the voice of the father:
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
turning up eyes to see
his hand grab the striking wrist.

the girl runs upstairs and
in the absence of inquiries
upholds the dutiful silence.

the raised highway licks a bruise on this landscape
like green welts on the back of a thigh.


(c) ilyse kazar, 2010