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UFO in a Russian village               Crossing Hungerford Bridge

         Coffee-shop afternoon           The Mermaids of Atlantis Speak

 

UFO in a Russian village

      after the painting by Moshe Maurer

 

Although it is not a burning bush

it has chosen us. We watch it glow

 

past blind stars in the gunpowder sky

to smash a crater the size of a mass grave.

 

Our houses are vanishing into the snow.

We hold the Torah aloft in the moonlight,

 

huddle together, knowing but not knowing.

 

 

Joanna Ezekiel

in collection Centuries of Skin, 2010

Ragged Raven Press, ISBN 978-0-9552552-9-8;

previously published in A braid of words, 2003, Poetry Monthly Press

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Crossing Hungerford Bridge

 

It’s pouring with rain. A red bus on Blackfriars Bridge slows

        in traffic. Gulls bob on the river, far apart from each other. One pecks

 

and pecks at something I can’t see.  On the South Bank,

        the horse chestnut trees are decked with small electric-blue

 

and white bulbs. Big Ben strikes one. I hear footsteps running

        behind me and I clutch my bag, remember the lads

 

thrown over the railings one Saturday night. Only a solitary jogger,

        speeding up as I slow down.  A train rumbles past; two boats

 

appear from under the bridge, chugging heavily. At the steps,

        a man with broken boots asks me to spare some change.

 

 

Joanna Ezekiel

in collection Centuries of Skin, 2010

Ragged Raven Press, ISBN 978-0-9552552-9-8;

first published in Sarasvati, 003, 2009

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Coffee-shop afternoon

 

A reef of cinnamon

floats on the top

of your tall hot chocolate.

 

My green tea

is still as a pool, curling

Japanese characters

 

of steam.  I hear

the cub cry of a baby,

cradled by her father

 

as china cups clink,

swung into stacks

by the cheerful waitress

 

who has striped our table

with a damp cloth.

This moment

 

of being here which

is what we have; for now,

all we need.

 

 

Joanna Ezekiel

in collection Centuries of Skin, 2010

Ragged Raven Press, ISBN 978-0-9552552-9-8;

first published in Obsessed with Pipework, 46, 2009

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The Mermaids of Atlantis Speak

 

Our father Neptune banged his stave three times:

the notes his throat made, long as ropes,

pulled the city underif we’d refused,

we’d have been sent to try our luck on land.

 

By day, we squirm our emerald tails past

scattered bones and tumbled cooking pots.

The eyes of skulls are plankton caves.

With every hour, the pillars weep more dust.

 

We won’t stay here by night. We know of sharks

that trail a stench we’re scared to name.

The city swarms with echoes. Far beyond,

neon jellyfish pulse upward, searching.

 

 

Joanna Ezekiel

in collection Safe Passage, 2007

White Leaf Press,  ISBN 978 0 9551932 1 7;

first published in Reactions 3: New Poetry, 2002, 

(ed. Esther Morgan), Pen&inc,  ISBN 1 902913 16 7

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