SIMPLE PLEASURES

I like the concave

shape of a spoon,

it’s simple symmetry

of curve and line.

“He liked to spoon,”

she said.

And I thought of you.

Curved  ’gainst my back,

or I ’gainst yours,

we’d drift 

eluding consciousness --

Two travelers in the

world of counterpane,

intent on hedonistic pleasures

of the gentlest kind.

ONE COW AT A TIME

Angie wanted to give a milk-producing waterbuffalo to a poor family.

She’d read it was the thing to do so families in developing countries

could have enough milk to drink. And some to sell.

She’d read it On one of those “Save The World” websites.

But why send good American Dollars to The Sudan? Angie thought.

She saved her dimes and quarters, 

And by December had enough to buy the cow.

She sent it to a family whose name she found on the web,

the address suggested a tenement apartment on the Lower East side

of Chicago.

Angie felt good about the gift.
But somehow the waterbuffalo gift Didn’t turn out right.

Sure, the family had more than enough milk, 

But the Housing Authority made them move.

Go Figure

NEPHILIM NO MORE

Do the children of the Nephilim

still walk the earth?

Banished from the Heavens,
their fathers defied
God's plan
mating with mortal women.

Slain by Michael,
They came to their end.
But what of their offspring?

Are they the Yeti

said to flee from man’s sight

As they wander the Himalayas,

timid, yet gigantic in size?

Would you know one 

if you saw one?

Would her language be

unfathomable to human ears?

“Eiiyee,

I am the Nephilim spawn,”

she’d cry.

Her attempts to share

her loneliness

falling on deaf ears.

I have expanded and reformated the chapbook of short stories and poems I published in May. It is titled "The Presence of Loss" It is available on Amazon by searching my name under "books" search, Susan Tuz or the title.

WOMAN AS VESSEL

Some sisters hate the thought

of woman as vessel.

But if the poet is

the vessel,

And language the medium,

then Vessel Woman I gladly am.

Picasso stands beside

an urn,

back of a nude adorning it.

His look is pensive,

his pose, the same.

Woman is truly his vessel.

His medium,

canvass and paint.

The medium of language

inadequate,

He is trapped in Spanish.

Thus,

he drinks from the vessel often,

Reporting his conversations

with nature in periods.

READING OVID IN NORTHEASTERN SPAIN*

Atalanta disrobes,

wearing little but ribbons

that flutter at her ankles 

and knees.

Hippomenes’ heart takes fire.

As they race, 

side by side,

Atalanta sighs --

languishing on his face,

she halts,

to pick up the golden apples

he lets fall,

losing the race.

I am no Atalanta,
but am I Lilith?

*In 8th Century Spain there was a myth among the Khabbalist community

that Adam had a first wife named Lilith. She was formed from the clay

of the earth by God at the same time he formed Adam. Lilith refused to

abdicate her equality to Adam, refused to submit to his will. She fought

with him about sex. She was a seducer of men and a strangler of  children.

One day she uttered the four-letter word for God and flew off into the sky

never to return.

TIME'S PASSAGE

There is a richness to life
that comes with old age.
I am glad to be here.

Somehow young,
yet somewhat old,
at 62
I savor life's riches.

The glint of memory
bathes each day's bounty,
giving dimension to events
in geometric proportions.

What riches await me
as age travels on?