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CAUGHT IN THE NET 68 - POETRY BY RUTH SABATH
ROSENTHAL
Series Editor - Jim Bennett
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Introduction by Jim Bennett
Hello. Welcome to the next in the series of CITN featured poets. We will be looking at the work of a different poet in each edition and I hope it will help our readers to discover some new and exciting writing. This series is open to all to submit and I am now keen to read new work for this series.
You can join the CITN mailing list at
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http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/index.htm
and following the links for Caught in the Net.
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“Are you America?” each wary sojourner asks. Soft pillows and ample blankets nestled in vast tiers of bunks, nightmares you help smother, sweet dreams you set in motion; talent shows, chess tournaments, movies, “Are you?”
from; Into the Light: Safe Haven 1944 by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal |
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CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 – POETRY
For Want of Red
One Art Too Much
Transition
Riding Past the Museum of Natural History ...
As If Anyone Gives a Whit
Into the Light: Safe Haven 1944
Mother’s Wishbones, No Doubt,
Frank, Burger, Chop & Steak
I Ate My Mother’s Hair
3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY
4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY: RUTH SABATH
ROSENTHAL
RUTH is a New York (U.S.A.) poet, well published in poetry
journals and anthologies, including: Connecticut Review, Ibbetson Street, Jabberwock,
Mobius-The Poetry Magazine, Pacific Review, Taj Mahal Review, Vallum. Anthologies
including: primal sanities! a Tribute to Walt Whitman, Songs of Seasoned Women,
Voices Israel, Long Island Sounds, Empty Shoes. On October 6, 2006, Ruth's poem
"on yet another birthday" was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2006 by Ibbetson Street.
For more about Ruth "Google" her, and also visit the following websites:
http://www.pw.org/content/ruth_sabath_rosenthal
http://www.ruthsabathrosenthal.moonfruit.com
http://www.poetryvlog.com/ruthsabathrosenthal.html
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2 - POETRY
after Kim Addonizio’s, “What Do Women Want?”
I see men wanting a red-clad woman:
see-through-cheap red, backless
& sleeveless, breast-tight, cheek-taut.
Behind their ogling, no thoughts barred.
What ecstasy, peeling her ruby-ripe layers,
her glistening core color revealed. O!
to see the body in red slink past
“All You Can Eat” to “The Pink Pussy
Cat” down the street; to nosedive into hard-
core fantasy, rock & roll in it. Hey,
in the thick of it all, they appear master-
fully cool — cucumbers that’ll escape
getting caught red-handed eyeballing
the eye-catcher. In the dogged pursuit
of red, each voyeur cocksure of coming
home fulfilled, no shred of red
showing — my old man, a looker
from way back, home to me, his post-
menopausal wife whose red faded
dress grows threadbare, eyes bloodshot
bawling over this most wearing state of affairs.
I look to my husband to redress despair,
hold me, at the very least, notice me.
He looks my way, turns away.
Mastering the art of love, no easy matter.
My brush strokes naturally take wrong
turns winding me up in one sticky corner
after another: First, with Eddie X. His dolor
tainted my paintings beyond salvage. I moved on,
the art of loving him too gray a matter.
Next, Jerry Y. — worst piece of work I’d ever
endeavored, but for our daughter & son,
whom he sent running to my corner
shortly after Alfred Z. inspired me more
than painting ever had. I penned a song
in AZ’s honor: “Loving You, All That Matters.”
No hit with his family, I hit canvas with color
piled thick, painted harder, faster over objection.
Disaster! In the mother of all dark corners
of the “Thick-As-Thieves” gallery, right near
the exit sign, an unsigned portrait of me hung,
next to it, the yellow “Post-it” reads “You Don’t Matter!”
My likeness (Write it!) like a deer in the brush, cornered.
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A longing for heart quiet,
end of further fall
into winter — short days of sun
forwarding to spring’s
longer days, circling back
in the sameness of time —
heart-and mind-numbing time
with no respite. A longing to quiet
thoughts playing back
battle after battle, the failing
to even half-fill life’s wellspring.
And in my darkest season
of discontent, convinced the sun
will no longer shine in this lifetime;
feeling that sting
as from a bee disquieting
green slumber, swelling to a fault
every damned day, slamming me back.
Season upon season, holding me back,
chilling me with doubt that the sun
will come to warm body and soul without fail
and, invariably, given time,
better times will rise each dawn quietly
advancing into spring.
Fast forward, past spring
to summer, autumn, back
to winter, and round again, disquiet
ever more glaring under the sun.
Then, out of the blue, a glance, nod, time
stopped. My heart races falling
in love, doubt conquered . No fooling!
Empty seasons done for, Spring
burgeons and flowers time —
a new lifetime. No looking back.
Moved past risk and reasons,
my heart basks. Quiet
as snowfall, springtime-sprouting,
sun-bursting-through-cloud quiet,
a kiss blown, then blown back.
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Riding Past the Museum
I first took toward infidelity,
how far I descended.
My lover is history, has been
for some thirty-odd years, yet
I still remember the nervous
excitement. How unashamed
and unnaturally good
I felt. How beyond stupid
thinking I’d scale that high
unscathed, so sure I was just
stepping into my husband’s footprints
made long before I ever thought
of venturing to make hurt go
by going the ways of wayward
flesh — before I knew what I know
now: the crawl space one could reach
by carving out a niche in a marriage
preserved for the children’s sake.
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"…I'll find your wits again.
Come, for I saw them roll
To where old badger mumbles
In the black hole."
W. B. Yeats “Who Stole Your Wits Away”
I ask you, where is my body of wit,
For I, a writer of doggerel, so wish
To gain feasting on Yeats’
Poetic delights? Oh, that those treats
Would yield me a brilliance, even if pale
Next to the man’s clearly stellar feats!
Though I wolf down the richness, still,
Line, by waste-line, I grow less
And less status. Where is the genius
In that? Honor? Medals? Believe me,
I’ve long considered silver sterling, truly
Would never so much as bold a wish for gold,
But bestowed either, my head would spin,
Left hand crank out poem after poem
From my lexical well, then I’d well hold
My own among poets, young or old,
Literally grown phat on W.B.’s great wit.
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"And you that shall cross from shore to shore
years hence are more to me,
and more in my meditations, than you might suppose."
Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Thank God for you, Henry Gibbins,
ship of dreams laden with bedraggled brethren
dark and fair, tall and short,
frail-boned and gaunt, each and every one a survivor
reborn in the wake of conscience.
Blessed, their leader, Ruth Gruber,
praised, her leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt;
and you, Captain Korn, your kind face and outstretched arms,
your smiling crew, their helpful hands,
your great vessel's stalwart bulk, hallowed halls, glistening
white toilets, your sky-crowned decks
surrounded by sea-speckled rail—a far cry
from barbed wire.
Divine are you, clean fresh air that fills sunken chests,
lungs ashen from the fires of Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Treblinka.
And you, buoyant sea, revered for strong currents, changing
tides, gulls that glide the breeze and assuage wounded spirit;
and you, dining halls bejeweled with vegetables,
cornucopia of meats, kaleidoscope of sweets that swell
shrunken bellies, smooth withered souls—
“Are you America?” each wary sojourner asks.
Soft pillows and ample blankets nestled
in vast tiers of bunks, nightmares you help smother,
sweet dreams you set in motion;
talent shows, chess tournaments, movies,
“Are you?”
Oh, most wondrous throng—my ancestry—
it is you who are America, my America!
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all furculae with not a frag-
ment of dried-up flesh
or sinew to despoil their luster,
the slew of them ranging in size
from Cornish hen to turkey. Funny,
I never noticed her extricate
one, strip it clean, secrete it
somewhere long-forgotten. I
took possession of those bones,
pried loose some of my own
(from birds broiled, barbequed,
fried), primed each, applied Gold
Leaf. Made more of them
than she could’ve conceived —
the gilt, over the generations
of bones brittling whole, striking
beneath the wait of wishes.
Careful now, food foolery could keep us
from catching good Z’s, shock the likes
of Bo Peep, make countless sheep flock
to play beat the clock. Poppycock?
Fairy tale, you say? No way, for I’ve heard tell
of a spook-man in the moon who sees that cows fall
to raging disease: whole herds, at first fattened
with, then stricken by foul feed we make
of sickened animals’ departed kin.
If you don’t buy that livestock, postmortem, retaliate
posthaste with a slew of deadly steaks, burgers
& chops, then frankly, you’re off your rocker!
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standing behind her, as she sat
on a stool in the shower stall
of her nursing home bathroom,
tile floor catching silver snippets
I cut from her statue-still head.
What could I do with the comb
when I had to wield scissors
with one hand, clasp her locks
with the other, Mother’s tangled
brain not letting her grasp that
she could ease my task, she could
turn her head when asked, hold the comb
and look in the mirror when I finished,
see what a fine job I did? Every month
for seven years, I stood at the sink
in that bathroom rinsing her traces
out of my mouth, the sadness.
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4 - Publishing History;
Previously published in: anthologies: Songs of Seasoned Women, 2008, Quadrasoul Press
poetry journal: Ibbetson Street
Empty Shoes, 2009, Popcorn Press;
Mizmor L'David Anthology: Volume I – Holocaust, 2010, Poetica Magazine Press;
poetry Journals: Mungbeing; Poetica Magazine
Previously Published in: Vallum Contemporary Poetry- Luck issue 2010
Previously published in: Birmingham Review; Creations Magzine;
(titled: What Goes Around Comes Around);
Cyclamens & Swords
Pain and Menory 2009, Editions Bibliotekos Inc.
Poetry Journals: Ibbetson Street; Sarasvati; Taj Mahal Review;
Cyclamens & Swords; Message in a Bottle;
92nd Street Y Podium on-line journal
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5 - Afterword
Email Poetry Kit -
info@poetrykit.org - if you would like
to tell us what you think. We are looking for other poets to feature in
this series, and are open to submissions. Please send one poem and a short
bio to - info@poetrykit.org
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