The Mad Poet of the Year blog posts share the poetry of a long-time Mad Poet. This year-long appointment provides readers with a deep dive of the writer’s work and thoughts on poetry. We are thrilled to have Ray Greenblatt serve as the inaugural Mad Poet of the Year for 2021.
ON THE PARIZSKA
by Ray Greenblatt
It is close and threatening today,
I feel as if I must push
through the crowds of ectoplasm
in dark robes and cloaks
gold circle on the breast
or high gilt hat perched,
on what is now a fashionable
avenue of upscale stores
once the dirt-rich street of
kosher butchers, bakers, cobblers
a Ghetto surrounded by walls.
In the Prague cemetery
moss-draped
pock-marked
lightning-split
sometime cedar fused with rock
the gravestones lean
together for balance
huddle for comfort.
When the clock tower tolls the hour
the astrological signs
suggest the future,
through an opened window
one-at-a-time pass
the Disciples looking down
indifferently or
with a scowl prickling beards,
into the town square where throngs
of tourists are lectured in
Czech, French, Chinese
among many others
the babble of the world.
And I in my high-tech hotel
in my spacious suite
of paneled rosewood
bath of Carrara marble
in full weight cannot
hold down history
vitality, the wailing.
A mere eighty years ago, most of Europe looked away as the Nazis attempted to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth! Ironically now in recent years all over the continent, certain tourist destinations are fashionable: Jewish synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, Jewish streets or neighborhoods, any piece of Jewish history— now have shiny brass plaques attached. Where was humanity when it was most needed?
Ray Greenblatt has been a poet for forty years and an English teacher longer than that. He was an editor of General Eclectic, a board member of the Philadelphia Writers Conference, and is presently on the staff of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. He has won the Full Moon Poetry Contest, the Mad Poets Annual Contest, and twice won the Anthony Byrne Annual Contest for Irish Poetry sponsored by The Irish Edition. His poetry has been translated into Gaelic, Polish, Greek and Japanese.