Contributor: Art Heifetz

- -
I'm sick of all your sophistry
your stories of how suffering
somehow ennobles the spirit
your assurances that we're
your chosen people.
Chosen for what - the camps?
OK you created death
as the price we paid for knowledge
as payback for the apple
you warned us not to touch.
Or to prevent this small blue sphere
hung like a glittery ornament
in empty space
from becoming overrun.
Malthus would have approved.
But why inflict so much pain
before the final sweet release
on those who never ceased
to praise your name?
On small children?
On babies?
We were supposed to be
a little lower than the angels.
Why make us grovel like the beasts?
What is the purpose in all that?
Tell me.


- - -
Art Heifetz has published 140 poems in 11 countries, winning second prize in the Reuben Rose competition in Israel. See polishedbrasspoems.com for more of his work.

Contributor: Art Heifetz

- -
She left him in mid-breath,
Her letters piled up,
Unopened,
On the kitchen table
Her voice still on the machine,
Apologizing for her absence
And imploring the caller
To leave a brief message.

When he traveled to the places
Where they’d met,
The footprints were all worn away,
The old, familiar faces gone.
Their quaint seaside hotel
Now seemed sad and shabby,
The new owners puzzled
Why he’d come
With a photo of a woman
They couldn’t recall.

The secluded cove
Where they’d made love
Was littered with bronze bodies
And watched by tall white condos,
Angled so each unit
Faced the flat green sea.

It was only when he held
His daughter’s infant girl,
And felt her tiny fingers
Searching for a breast,
That he recalled his late wife fully.
Cradling the baby’s sole
In the palm of his hand,
He wondered what footprints
It would make.


- - -
Art Heifetz is an ESL teacher in Richmond, Va with over 50 poems published in 6 countries. Website: polishedbrasspoems.com

Contributor: Art Heifetz

- -
Turn off your iphone.

Come to my world.
Feel the mud ooze up
between your toes
as we cross a soggy meadow.
Learn to tell small lies
that can’t be verified.
Have a chance encounter
with a handsome stranger
in a dimly lit café
reeking of Gauloises.
Expect the unexpected.

Stop texting that u luv me,
I have trouble understanding
the clipped prose of the young.
I want to court you with
a dozen antique phrases
from the time before
my hair thinned out and
turned from chestnut brown
to leaden grey.

If you post this on your wall,
I’m going back to
older women.


- - -
Ex-Peace Corps volunteer and retired insurance agent, currently teaching ESL to refugees and writing poems, with 36 accepted for publication since June in the US, Israel, Australia, France and Argentina.

Contributor: Art Heifetz

- -
How shall I remember you,
now that your birthday’s
drawing near?

By the timbre of your throaty voice,
your sighs and whispers
floating on
the sultry summer night?

By the scent of fresh croissants
at a copper-urned café,
of steam rising from
wet cobblestones,
of limp jasmine falling
on your moonlit hair?

By the pressure of your palm
as you guide me gracefully
across the polished floor,
the feel of musky skin
sticking to my chest
as we smoke our cigarettes
in post-coital bliss?

Is this what they mean
when they speak of
the afterlife?
Is this what they mean
when they speak of
love undying?


- - -
Ex-Peace Corp volunteer and retired insurance agent currently teaching ESL to refugees and writing poems, 36 of which have been accepted for publication since June in the US, Australia, France, Israel and Argentina.