Norbert Hirschhorn is our November 2009 Special Guest Poet
You can email Norbert at bertzpoet@yahoo.com
CAT MEETS RAT IN NEW YORK ALLEY
Feral Cat corners Norway Rat
who pleads, Don’t eat me,
I survived North Tower’s collapse.
“No skin off my teeth, or claws,
I’m hungry,” replied Cat. But I taste awful –
sodden pizza, dumpster offal,
not your kind of meal. “Pizza, you say?
With pepperoni? Yum! Make my day.”
Please don’t eat me, I’ve got brothers,
sisters, cousins, children, mothers,
all who depend on me.
“Welfare crap, I’m a Libertarian Cat, free
to eat what, where, and when I please.
You’re morning’s pie, so quit the shtick.”
Then here’s my neck, please be quick.
No sooner said, Cat preparing to dine,
When Norway Rat sucked out his eye.
Life, dear Cat, is a loan, not a gift.
QUATRAINS
Snip, snip, snip,
I work at my collection.
It isn't stamps, dolls or clothes -
my hobby's vivisection.
I bury my memories in the cellar
in boxes and cartons and bags.
I slice up the suit I was born in,
and cover myself in rags.
Slice another jug of wine,
pour a loaf of bread.
Tomorrow we may be happy -
today we are dead.
TRACE TRUCE NEWS
We’ve listened hourly for the news, alert to any trace
Of a truce, the news shall trace for us the truce,
You see, which then itself becomes the news.
We search haphazardly for trace elements of news
Between the truces of war that are otherwise traceless,
Which sneakily leave bruises without a truce.
We pray dearly for any news, agonize over any truce,
Even that which vanishes into vacuum, shattering what little good news
We thought we’d earned, deserved, that night of crystal traceries.
Trace the skeins of our hourly listening, turn on the news,
What’s happened to our Jews, for them no truce, no trace.
NARAPOIA
– The fixed delusion that one is persecuting others.
The breathing you hear on the line
is mine.
I press my mouth to electrical outlets,
exhale toxic neutrinos.
I whisper to my computer:
"Destroy yourself."
I wear my periscope to work.
I fart in empty elevators going down.
I peel back your face –
just like mine.
DEATH IN VENICE
“Stand up straight!” my mother said,
“you’ll turn into a hunchback
and no one will marry your sister.”
“Size-places, now!” my teacher said.
“Norbert, stand up straight,
don’t be such a shlump.”
“Mister, please, stand up straight, or else
how can I fit the jacket.”
“Why don’t you stand up straight – Oh,
depressed again are we? Well,
that does it, I’m leaving.”
“Lie down straight,” my mortician said,
“I haven’t got all day.”
Norbert Hirschhorn is a physician specializing in international public health, commended in 1993 by President Bill Clinton as an “American Health Hero.” He now lives in London and Beirut.
Norbert received a Master's in Fine Arts degree from Vermont College in 1994. His poems have been published in over a dozen journals, three anthologies, four pamphlets (the most recent: The Terrible Crystal, from Hearing Eye, London, March 2008), and two full collections: A Cracked River, Slow Dancer Press, London, 1999, and Mourning in the Presence of a Corpse, Dar al-Jadeed, Lebanon, May 2008. A third collection, Night-Time Shadows, is out to publishers. Please feel free to visit Norbert's website at www.bertzpoet.com.