I Need a New Poem

by Jan Zlotnik Schmidt

I need a new poem

One that doesn’t

stick in my craw

expect recompense

Go for the jugular

divide and conquer

Split hairs

Split bodies

Build walls

I need a new poem

One that doesn’t tear flesh like paper

squeeze fingers to throats

or forearms

Blue marked skin

at the crease of the elbow

Streaks like sodden

violet crepe

I need a new poem

One that asks for more

Says to the pregnant

woman at the market

Buy mangoes figs

pears grapes

Taste the sweetness

Let it dissolve on your tongue

For there are no mines

No bombs

No shells

There is only bread

I need a new poem

One that smells of

lavender and bayberry

wild onion

and freshly cut grass

And dreams of itself

as only new poems can.

* * * * *

Jan Zlotnik Schmidt is a SUNY Distinguished Professor of English at SUNY New Paltz where she teaches composition, creative writing, American and Women’s Literature, creative nonfiction, memoir, and Holocaust literature courses.

Her work has been published in many journals including The Cream City Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Alaska Quarterly Review, Home Planet News, Phoebe, Black Buzzard Review, The Chiron Review, Memoir(and), The Westchester Review, and Wind.  Her work also has been nominated for the Pushcart Press Prize Series. She has had two volumes of poetry published by the Edwin Mellen Press (We Speak in Tongues, 1991; She had this memory, 2000).  Recently her chapbook, The Earth Was Still, was published by Finishing Line Press and another, Hieroglyphs of Father-Daughter Time, was published by Word Temple Press.