Merle Molofsky
Good morning, everyone. Here in the Northeastern U.S., we’re buried in snow, which is not atypical for this time of year in this region. But it’s okay to experience something that is not atypical, in a year that has been anything but.
Although, worldwide, we’ve had some good news about vaccines and even a bit about our democracies, many of us are still in mourning and those that aren’t, still worried.
But, as always, we look to poetry to heal our souls and to help us try to mend the broken world.
Our poet today is Merle Molofsky, who is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City, with many qualifications in that field. She serves on a number of faculties and is a member of the editorial board of The Psychoanalytic Review and of the editorial board of The International Journal of Controversial Discussions.
Her publications are many and varied. Among them are Necessary Fictions (IPBooks, 2019) and Streets 1970 (IPBooks, 2015), also fiction. A play, Koolaid, was produced at Lincoln Center, directed by Jack Gelber. Her poetry books include Ladder of Words (Poets Union Press), Mad Crazy Love: Love Poems and Mad Songs, Embodied by Word Music and an anthology called Correspondences, all published by Poets Union Press. Many of her poems have also been published in journals, and in 2012 she was the recipient of the Gradiva Award in Poetry from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis. She has also published numerous reviews of music, books and film, as well as so many articles with fascinating titles that I can hardly wait to begin reading them. In 2018 she had a whole chapter in a book called Pedro Almodovar: A Cinema of Desire, Passion and Compulsion, edited by Arlene Kramer Richards and Lucille Spira (IPBooks).
But enough of her unusual writing history. Here, now are three of her poems. You may find their spirituality in beautiful keeping with our feelings right now. One does not forget that we also need humor, as in the second poem, in which a biblical Joshua answers a biblical Matthew.
–Irene Willis
Poetry Editor
THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
Hungry, longing for knowledge,
we gorged on the fruit,
craving something sweet.
Children need to eat.
Perhaps we should have sought the origin,
and dined on the Root…
JOSHUA 23:8 ANSWERS MATTHEW 27:46
Why have I been forsaken, why am I now bereft?
You who have sustained me, our Oneness has been cleft.
“But cleave unto the Lord thy God, as ye hath done unto this day”,
Joshua has taught us this, when he was old and grey,
His namesake Jesus felt the split. What does cleave really mean?
Adhere to. Split from. Both in one. What is it we can glean
from mysteries of language? Contradiction. Paradox.
Truth? But Faith in Word just taunts, and mocks,
and can we know? Do we know O?
O is for Optimism, P is for Pain,
K is for Knowing. Start over again….
Son: “Why hast Thou forsaken me?”
Father: “Who else shall I forsake?”
Son: “Father, I forgive You. With love I set You free….”
Father: “For God’s sake, Jesus, give me a break!”
ALONE
Definitions:
I knew what it meant,
I know what it means,
I know what I feel,
but I don’t know why.
Where is anybody?