Tag: Chanukah

Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel by Howie Good

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Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel

After 30 minutes of Christmas music, the high school choir broke into the Hanukkah song “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” at the holiday concert. The person seated beside me began to complain under her breath. Jesus Fucking Christ! I thought. I examined her out of the corner of my eye. She wasn’t an obvious Nazi. Somewhere in her fifties, she was trying hard to look younger, a frosted blonde with the sharp features of the obsessive dieter. I didn’t say anything, though I might have let out a sigh. The song changed to something Christmassy. I focused on my daughter up on stage. She was heedlessly singing, her face all alight.

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Howie Good’s latest poetry books are The Horse Were Beautiful, available from Grey Book Press, and Swimming in Oblivion: New and Selected Poems from Redhawk Publications.

To Light the Whole of the World by Dick Westheimer

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To Light the Whole of the World

Tonight we set
the menorah
in the window
facing the world.

I light the first candle
which flickers feebly
against the whole of darkness.
I look from the flame

and see reflected
in the glass
my hand holding
the glowing shamash,

the helper that will light
two candles tomorrow.

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Dick Westheimer has—with his wife and writing companion Debbie—lived on their plot of land in rural southwest Ohio for over 40 years. His most recent poems have appeared or are upcoming in Rattle, Paterson Review, Whale Road Review, Minyan, Gyroscope Review, and Cutthroat. His chapbook, A Sword in Both Hands, poems prompted by Russia’s War on Ukraine, is forthcoming from Sheila Na Gig Books.
Website: dickwestheimer.com