//creative//
Spring 2017
Shabbos Morning Before Services
Spencer Szwalbenest
The marching band
In my radiator must flow
On a different time stream than I do.
I can never tap my foot
At the right moment.
It’s not that absurd
That somewhere an old block
Of reduced fat, free range, aged, 100% organic Wisconsin time
(American time, as of 1865)
Is laced through with the red yarns
That are you or me or the ever-exploding gas bubbles I might make up in my head when I’m lonely and can’t get any sleep.
This morning I’m reading Lunch Poems before I even eat breakfast,
I’m writing a poem on the Sabbath morning.
At this point I’m not sure if I’ve sinned
In killing God or becoming Them.
God is a demiboy like I am King
James Stuart
Or King Pharaoh Ramses II. I can’t even use
The word “king” anymore,
Because the Alt-Right has turned it into a meme.
But negative four-hundred and nineteen years in the future,
While James I is hard at work on his “True Lawe of Free Monarchies,”
I won’t be there, regenerating from the ashes of his candle
To call him racist.
That’s time.
Today I fancy myself Madonna,
So I’m going to pull my time out from the cheese
And go to a synagogue where
I have the Divine Right of Kings
To tie it as tightly around my wrist as I want.
But now I have to go.
I have exactly 1 hour and 8 minutes
To read more of Lunch Poems.
I got it as a gift.
In my radiator must flow
On a different time stream than I do.
I can never tap my foot
At the right moment.
It’s not that absurd
That somewhere an old block
Of reduced fat, free range, aged, 100% organic Wisconsin time
(American time, as of 1865)
Is laced through with the red yarns
That are you or me or the ever-exploding gas bubbles I might make up in my head when I’m lonely and can’t get any sleep.
This morning I’m reading Lunch Poems before I even eat breakfast,
I’m writing a poem on the Sabbath morning.
At this point I’m not sure if I’ve sinned
In killing God or becoming Them.
God is a demiboy like I am King
James Stuart
Or King Pharaoh Ramses II. I can’t even use
The word “king” anymore,
Because the Alt-Right has turned it into a meme.
But negative four-hundred and nineteen years in the future,
While James I is hard at work on his “True Lawe of Free Monarchies,”
I won’t be there, regenerating from the ashes of his candle
To call him racist.
That’s time.
Today I fancy myself Madonna,
So I’m going to pull my time out from the cheese
And go to a synagogue where
I have the Divine Right of Kings
To tie it as tightly around my wrist as I want.
But now I have to go.
I have exactly 1 hour and 8 minutes
To read more of Lunch Poems.
I got it as a gift.
//SPENCER SZWALBENEST is a first year at the School of General Studies and List College and can be reached at [email protected].