My fourth Poet of the People is Michal Rubin. What attracts me to Michal's poetry is the unadorned integrity, honesty, and humanity of her voice.
Michal Rubin moved from Israel to Columbia, SC 32 years ago. A psychotherapist, a Cantor, and an emerging poet, her work was published in Psychotic Education, The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, Wrath Bearing Tree journal, Rise Up Journal, Topical Poetry, Fall-Lines, The Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Waxing & Waning: A Literary Journal, and South Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology 2023.
In a secret dark spectacle
after Ada limon
I saw the twirling gust of dust
moving into the distant
world of pain I remember
and I flew there to be
with kin I have not met
come! they said
and I sat in their midst
huddled underneath their wings
they fluttered, the wings,
and the chill of history penetrated
my sheltered space
I breathed it in
the chill
and the chains weighty
on my wrists
as I was dragged by the power
of the dead
into the land
~~~~~
In Gaza
tomorrow’s touch
through the settling dust
will remind you of
love
unhidden in the rubble
behind the corner
forbidden moment
fused with desert breeze
salted droplets we carried
home
or what was home
~~~~~
Exploits
I write with no address
or neighborhood
letters that belong to
the smoke of burnt homes
or piles of old shoes
I try to stitch words
so they become
an embroidery of unwanted
stories
we live them
the stories
we spit them as hulls
discarded shells of seeds
we feasted
I, the betrayer of dogmas spread
stained uniforms strewn on the page
I, the jailed soldier
braid sins into the chain of letters
words bathe in shame
each bullet finds a target
smoke of burnt homes fills the nostrils
I, the one who left,
weave what you call art
with the exploits
remnants of our crimes