Leslie Grollman

Thus the Arroyo after the Storm

in a bardo
in a dusk  in a marsh
in a drop  in a stop-gap
in a maze
a glaze in a rain
in a skate
in a matter of fact
in a cold in a field
in a roam in a wipeout
a god in a sad
in a sneeze
in a splattering
a catch
in a mat
in a knotting in a slime
in a gloat
a talisman
in holy
in a rapid
a thrum in a close
in a cup
in decay
in a way
in entropy
in scar in tarpaulin sky
in a tear, the riptide snaps
as rain batters
in a bartering, born from shade
to shatter
a why
in a bardo, in the dead
as a castaway eating the last fruit
as the dead
in the sound of doors locking until pain pushes / against the dead
forgetting how to pray / rushing against a skin pushing
/ lucky, the dead / a pebble herons a rockslide / the dead, the lucky /
a skin torn makes pustules of presence / the dead, they push against my
skin
until fissures until bursting out of the bardo
 like Gauguin’s last squeeze of cadmium yellow
/ the dead /
until crying
until prayer as crying
until crying / as grain

I chase my days they roll into a gutter
I gape
as if that gaze a magnet to recoup them

I am the boy and his bike the arroyo carries out to sea

THE RED

                                                                                [The Alhambra Decree of 1492 expelled
all Jews from Spain and Portugal]

{the words in bold are taken
from the Alhambra Decree}                            

 

                               by the grace of God, King and Queen
salutations and grace

 

           we were made as daffodils, once 

                                            braids of snakeskin and a covenant

                                                       then, an unwanted allegro

                                                                         (all unravelling begins with a gesture away)

         our homes, our bodies    ransacked

                                                                                   (all unravelling begins with an Other)

 

            

       neighbors’ lies accrete
like shrapnel they shred breath

 

                                     bees pollinate, unaware

                                             

imprints float away from our bodies

 

                                               

some voices become bones dogs bury, others whispered

                                                                      

                                     

                                                                                  

                                Jews and Jewesses of our kingdoms:
depart never to return

 

assure us we can’t be erased with ash
tell us
tell us again how waves of gold                                                     
drip  
                                                                                  numinous from a bleeding sky

 

 

                                           on the streets, butchered bodies
carved crosses on their foreheads

                                           a crow pecks at a slab of meat

 

 

                                                                     (all unravelling begins with bared feet)

 

                             

our bodies search to extend our trace

 

                                            surrounded us, stars,
comfort us in an ordinary sky                     

in one long brushstroke
a quipu, in red, each knot an account
(all unravelling begins with matted hair)

 

our tortured bodies squirm on stakes
    the sky swells with stench

   

we are spun from the word in an ancient stonecave
we are primed not blank

 

       we rock our bodies in the syntax of chants

                                                                               

  therefore, we

 

when we dance, we lose ourselves in God

  

                            we, not nameless    
slouch toward a hunger-moon

                                                              

we, like a smear of Lac-red pigment scraped
onto a primed canvas           on the eve of a flower

                                                          

 

                                                                      we cup our hands like crescents
scoop each other’s sweat

       words gesture from our shriveling bodies

                                                         some grasses reach toward Spring

                                                          

                                                                        hear the violated letters of the holy
 hear the scrolls cry out to God

               whipped     
hazed

 

                                             the King, the Queen command

 

(all weaving begins threadbare)

                                                           

                                                we wild another eye that cannot be gouged.

 

Leslie Grollman’s work appears in pidgeonholes, Psaltery & Lyre, Cordite Poetry Review, bath magg, Streetcake, BeZine, Sweet Lit, Ellipsis Zine, Moist Poetry Journal, Spoken Word Scratch Night, Writing Utopia 2020 Anthology, and elsewhere and is forthcoming in NiftyLit and Emerge Literary Journal. Leslie was shortlisted for The Surreal and Strange: Prose Poetry Competition 2022. She was chosen to be a reader for an Octopus Books’ reading period. Leslie earned an MSc Creative Writing, Poetry, with Distinction, from the University of Edinburgh in 2020 at age 70.