Three Holiday Poems

A Spin of the Draydle

The world like a diamond draydle spins on its axis;

The faster the taller, the less dizzy we feel;

But when it slows and it tilts, then heaven relaxes

Its grip on our history. When the man of steel

Falls apart in proximity to krypton, it taxes

Our belief in a moral commonweal.

Wobble and topple we, we at the end of days,

Flipping to this side, scraping out of orderly rails,

Wondering whether this time flood or blaze,

Prayers and curses, when everything fails,

Vertiginous grasping, swoon into daze,

Head over heels, all that desperation entails.

Tubermensch the potato man and Pope-Eye

The Pontiff cannot save us from the spin we’re in,

That old black magic, so off the top we fly

Straight to the region called Pandemonium,

Love’s own phantasmagoria, a sly

Ingenious illusion of miracles, to pin

Us on the map of world atrocities,

Cities of refuge on the plains, where we hide

And seek salvation from the hell-hound’s spies;

Hunted by kippers and haunted by the rhinoceros’ hide

That enfolds us in the crumby folds of eternal lies,

Behemoths and powdery moths, like butterflies

Chased to extinction by superfluous guides.

Spinning the Hannuka Dreydle

In case a Cossack or Familiar of the Inquisition

Burst through the door, we weren’t praying a forbidden prayer,

but simply gambling for nuts and raisins, son

against father, while momma watched and sisters cheered

us on, and what about the lights we lit, no fun

if you can’t see the lucky signs. He stares

at us as though we were crazy. And when the sun

comes up next morning, if we are still alive,

we sing about the miracle that happened here:

the oil that lasted so many nights, the five

brothers who beat away the armies and took the one

and only temple back. Then we had to clear

away their filthy idols, so our faith could thrive.

Celebrations and Cerebrations

Our holidays are wholly ours, such days

As evening brings, with candles, cantillated

Melodies in minor mode, but when they flayed

Our ancestors, their skin tattooed from head

To foot with shameful messages, fingers splayed

Across their mistranslations, like bodies laid

On procrustean water beds, until the dead

No longer looked like us—and yet they played

Their mysteries and called their devils, bred

In pig-sties, by our name and cursed our trade

And commerce as sins: whereof our humble bread

Became their luxurious cakes, and we were made

To build their pleasure palaces where they wed

Incestuously, pretending to be us outspread

And palpitating in the games they played

Across misappropriations of our dead.