cambridge book review

Battle

Elli Hazit

Bestial
mangy months of pain
Not wrenching, pointed cuts
but underwhelming, relentless
A thick unctuous solution
A beckoning, hellish lure—
to sleep, to anywhere else

Then the insidious beast
flipped side over
spit out gnawing anxiety
Eyes open
Dread and awe
sprawled in every room
Came to stay

Where is the quiet place?
Dry hands grab and clutch
Don’t let the obsessions
past the crippled, blind sentry
bowed over, mouth agape

The lapping somnolence
The careening insanity
left no dates
Consumed time

Survival
that stubborn, scraggly urchin
laughable and weak
Written off
Prevailed
The David
swung all available weapons
Downed the devil

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Elli Hazit was born in San Francisco in 1960. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master’s degree from Boston University. Hazit lived in Paris, France from 1983 to 1997. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Cambridge News. She has also produced radio programs for WORT-FM, Madison. One of her stories, “The Tangerines and the Dogs,” was broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service Programme.

June 15, 2011 - Posted by cambridge book review | poetry | Battle, Eleven Poems: An Audio Chapbook, Elli Hazit