Two Poems by Baruch November

Lives upon Lives

Contractors affix buildings on top
of buildings in Jerusalem.
Occupants below must clear out
for all the years it takes
to finish adding
to sandstone structures.

I have lived lives upon lives.
I want to go back
to when I was certain—it was my twenties.
I dismissed many great women.
Someone greater was always coming along.

I have been an inept architect.
I built for one who does not live
with the truth of others.
I built for starlight,
not shelter.

I built for ghosts
of those never born.
I built a hollow home
for howling winds.

I built a demise
in waiting
and thought it
a masterpiece
towering over
the settled lives
of others.

*

The Tiger of Detroit

Every one of his home runs
in 1938 was hit off of Hitler.
Rage transformed
into urgency
in the batter’s box. 

He wanted so much to amaze those
who called him Christ-killer,
sheenie, kike, pant-presser.
They say only Jackie Robinson
had it worse.

When he did not play on Yom Kippur,
he electrified the fasting
congregation: tall shul doors
opened to reveal
the tiger slipping through.

The rabbi pounded his pulpit for silence.
Women swiveled their necks,
children stood on their chairs
to catch a glimpse of Greenberg–

A man who never played cards,
knowing his teammates
would holler if a Jew
threw down a full house,
a royal flush—
taking all their earnings
home to buy his wife
a necklace bright
as the closest
strand of stars.

*

Baruch November’s latest full-length book of poems, The Broken Heart is the Master Key, will be released this August. An earlier collection of poems, entitled Dry Nectars of Plenty, co-won BigCityLit’s chapbook contest in 2003. His works have been featured in Paterson Literary Review, Tiferet Journal, Lumina, NewMyths.com, and The Forward. His poem “After Esav” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a host and organizer of the Jewish Poetry Reading Series, which has featured poets such as Linda Pastan and Grace Schulman. For more than a decade, Baruch November has taught courses in Shakespeare, poetry, and writing at Touro University in Manhattan.