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Thomas Fink
Notes:
"'Yinglish
Strophes V' is part of a series of poems that investigates
the felicities of signification arising from how those who
spoke Yiddish before they learned English transport Yiddish
syntax to their new language. However, in these poems, I'm
trying to disrupt linear narration or meditation traditionally
associated with such 'immigrant' literary representation.
The term 'Yinglish' was coined by Leo J. Rosten, author
of various books on Yiddish and Yinglish."
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Yinglish
Strophes V
My aunt and
me, smuggled
there away.
Now I knew
what was afraid.
Behind, my
poor mother
couldn't from pogrom, the czar.
Behind.
Do you stop ever eating?
Driving on
a movie
is terrible dangerous--
the engine meshugge fast
chasing a silly laugh.
Such an impression
through the young.
And this they
call demographics:
to throw down a stop-sign.
I don't touch there nothing.
Injured steel, plastic,
of course not bones
and bloody you seeing yet.
I wouldn't waste my vision on 'em.
______________________________________________________________
Frowzy Cabal Roving For
far pardon. At rage center, Pyrrhic
rock fruition. Prime fief:
festering cave. Pity commands.
Rift of reins.
A nation frowns. Our own,
rendered alien.
Offered only
opportunity
of
cleaving or
out.
Flunking politics, fed
pittance. Petition
no pimp of conscience for cup,
fiddle, or added regard.
______________________________________________________________
Strained Against Roast Concrete,
saliva graffiti. Liquid wages, sky passing by. Proverbs pissing
flamboyant
heat. Don't let bullet do
the thinking, thumbnail, nor puppet show
decor. Any more
than imperialist marijuana or some
winsome Society
for Ice Cream Flood
occupying solo
your meta-trope
coop. Bees
sweat. Orthodox
cheekbones
jitterbug for
an iron blood
weaver. I stood the school,
made of ocean
and gift. Under and over parlor
cop bounds,
auditorium whispering satin, opera
firecrackers. Or enduring satisfaction.
Thomas
Fink is the author of Gossip: A Book of Poems
(Marsh Hawk Press, 2001), Surprise Visit (poems,
Domestic Press,1993), "A Different Sense of Power": Problems
of Community in Late-Twentieth-Century U.S. Poetry (Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press, 2001), and The Poetry of
David Shapiro (FDUP, 1993). His work has been published
in Talisman, Verse, Jacket,
American Letters & Commentary, Lit, Sidereality,
La Petite Zine, Skanky Possum, Milk,
Barrow Street, Phoebe,
x-Stream, Aught, Contemporary Literature, American Poetry
Review, American Book Review, Boston Review, Shampoo,
Moria, Poethia,
Rain Taxi, and
numerous other e-zines and journals.
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