AUBADE

Rav Samael is at the city gate at dawn
So the Messiah will be greeted
If he comes today. The soldiers nod;
The ancient public letter writer smiles
And offers him an apple slice.
She sits by her rickety table
Leaning on one elbow, enjoying the shade.
When a customer approaches
A pen appears in her hand; an ink bottle
Uncorks itself. The sand which she'll throw
On the wet ink when she's done
Rattles impatiently in its box.

Greetings to the World. Also, two poems

Two lost souls from Poland as well as two from the Ukraine and one each from Germany and Venezuela (hail, Venezuela! You know why) have, I presume accidentally, stopped by here. Probably too soon to announce I'm trending.

My better self thinks it's me, all too willing to say

"That was unworthy of you!" when I've done this or that;

My worse self is humbler, but enjoys life more.

If I sneak out, leaving my decent impulses home

Working on drafts of its interminable admonitions,

The incarnation of my dark desires, my corrupted will,

Inquires after its brother's health, transparently concerned.

THE KARAITE

For twenty-six years

Ambel Kahn met sunrise,

Six days out of seven,

At the North Gate

Lest the Messiah come

And no one greet him.

Death made him less diligent

He’s there now once,

Perhaps twice a week.

Other gate-haunting ghosts

(Beggars, mostly,

Who even in death

Have no place else to be)

Bring him their problems.

(You think a beggar’s problems

End  when he’s buried?)