Poetry

“The Imprint of September Second” — Poetry magazine

"Headlines From Childhood"— Connaissances

"Icon"—Cobalt

“Sacred Explosions”: A collaborative project with a fabric artist named Bean Gilsdorf

I can't quite exactly remember the story of how we "met" --- I think Bean sent an e-mail to me shortly after launching her website. I think she was in seach of other Gilsdorfs who might appear in a Google search. There aren't many Gilsdorfs in this world and it turns out we're not related. Anyway, we introduced ourselves --- Bean is a quilter and fabric artist who lives in Portland, Oregon (oddly, where my cousin Dennis lives). She saw my poem "Sacred Explosions" on my website and was inspired to create a work of art in response. It's called "Mareada" ("dizzy" in Spanish), and it's 33.5" x 42", cotton fabrics: hand-dyed, monoprinted, relief-printed, discharged; machine pieced and quilted. My original poem follows below. More on Bean at http://www.beangilsdorf.com/ Enjoy!

Sacred Explosions

As today’s weapons of mass destruction go

the human bomb is cheap—

apart from a willing man, you need

only such items as nails, a battery,

gunpowder, a short cable, and a simple switch

you might use to flick on the light

above your sleeping child. Total cost:

150 dollars. Less expensive than

the bus ride to a distant Israeli city.

Those who we turn away return again

and again, pestering us, pleading

to be accepted. We ask the young men why

they wish so badly to become

human bombs. To cause additional deaths,

we ask, Can you wait, not flinching,

for your fellow cell member,

before exploding yourself?

They become intimately familiar

with what they are about to do—

then they can greet death like an old friend.

Fear? Fear derives from fervent desire for success.

Don’t refer to their deeds as

“suicide”— which is forbidden in our religion—

“sacred explosions” is the preferred term.

It is difficult to select only a few.

Beneath the thumb lies the afterlife—

where even the lowest in rank will have ten times

the like of this world, and they will have

whatever they desire and ten times like it.

Pressing the detonator opens the shortest circuit—

clearing the path, so the soul of a martyr

can be carried to Paradise in the bosom of green birds.

(Based in part on interviews with Palestinian “suicide bombers,”

their families and leaders, as reported in “An Arsenal of Believers”

by Nasra Hassan, The New Yorker, Nov. 19, 2001)