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
____________________
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.
Like A Name
Elli Hazit
Literacy
What product of what hot night, room
here ponders the correct answer?
A rudimentary measure of knowledge attained
Knowing isn’t everything
They orbit, leaves in the wind
Eyes and hands leading toward questions
Sometimes the spark glows
with strange names that sound like murmurs
They gather,
cadences broken on space, air, compression
into someone making something, of someone
from nothing
Cells in a frenzy of procreation,
impulses drive them, reign when not in check
and they’re always checking
Reviewing
Then later
there will be recovery
All this to connect to
Productivity
to achieve leisure
Another chance
at creation?
____________________
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.
A.M.
Elli Hazit
A distracting influence
with good manners
Gazing at a tree’s width,
its bare tendrils of branches
There’s no compensation for misbehavior
We are insatiable
Nights of release are
glossed over in the grooming
and accessories
of a prepared countenance
and competence
Worries come unbeaded and fall
rippling around on the floor
Clothes are heaped on chairs, the bed
and the door is closed discreetly
on the private mess
where strangers are unwelcome
There’s a reluctance to organize
the day’s thoughts
much less pathways to order
only to be undone by haste
and misgiving
She rises,
all this in mind
____________________
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.
Ruby’s World
Elli Hazit
Staying inside the present helps
Ruby to starve herself
For now, Ruby said, I won’t eat
For now
Just for now
For now, I don’t want to cry, eat, laugh, shout, fight
But I can be elliptical
I can pretend and pretend and pretend at pretending
I can stay inside
Myself
Ruby thinks she’s fat
And Ruby is dying from want of a mother’s love
Maybe
Or Ruby is killing herself
so boys will like her skeleton
Ruby has good bones
____________________
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.
Mall Rats and Their Grandmothers
Elli Hazit
The beggar held out his hand
And I looked the other way
* * *
She
cannot read or write
Settles back
under her cloak of
fundamentalisms
The Philosopher
said there is no coherent self
but there is beauty
and a perversion
His own Sister
made up lies rewrote him
I imagine her with long hair
bangs cut straight across her forehead
After six thousand years
the tools get lost
Art tinkered to death
And no one loves
the Long-legged Boys
who talk too loud
Bred from moments of booze-soaked joie de vivre
boredom, or just vague curiosity
They loom
Hunters without lances
in an overheated dugout
circus tent
of choices elaborately displayed
She
makes meals to set before the
Men
leaving herself safely in their hands and
She
wears no shoes
except to go out in the daytime
covered to her ankles
The image of the law
____________________
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.
Analogies
Elli Hazit
You study scientific decay
Regeneration,
compounded and recited
As if the memory
will increase the knowledge,
move history forward,
achieve something as yet unattained
When aren’t we just
plugging holes,
whispering reassurances,
stopping crimes before they occur?
Really, to lay a foundation
takes poetry, perseverance,
Capital,
stakes in a beatific future
of solutions
Don’t shake her
her brain will never be the same
Give something gentle back
At least there’s that
My memory fails me
That’s something like the heartache
every life contains
The receptacle is noisy, unpredictable,
misbehaving, and contagious
Blends appetite with waste
until the herd moves forward
into a state of grand preoccupation
Water, necessity
No brand,
braided uncertainties,
callous lovers
Only these little hopes
of improvement
____________________
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.
For the Parade
Elli Hazit
Contented?
Building,
The endless construction
manifests in
something temporary
For want of the durable, the unchanging
Tagged walls skim past
Messaging of letters, words, fragments
Seams drawn, delineated
Her carriage straight and intentional
A stride that leaves no doubt
of faith or confidence
In public, for the viewing
the critique
By herself—that’s another story
The letters shriek
Words form, descend
And this emotion snarls into life
Turning,
escapes from view
Proceeds, tosses candy, scrambles, rests
The sacred repetition suggests
No redo
Just a renaming
A day’s celebration
____________________
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.
Winter 2011
Elli Hazit
The ravens
scatter in the snow
fly back up to the bare branches overhead
Black on white
against an overcast sky
Winter sprawled out over the vast fields
Green gone
Light scarce
Warmth withheld
A shelter
A gathering place
for considered reflection
is sought out
The phrases are concentrated
like parcels
Carried to become less specific
Richer for the telling
Or forgotten, like a verse
The tune unwinds
Wind swirls sparkles of ice
into my eyes
____________________
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.
Education
Elli Hazit
Your answers bewilder me
I’ve forgotten the method
and I am far too old for relearning
these equations, properties
Rules to live by
Advice cascades over the modern day
There’s a way to be better at everything
Better at living
Better at dying
Forgetting the role of chance and
leaving days unnamed,
unburdened by definition
In the throes of real pain
the moment renders itself, by itself
An existence
that will flame out
Comfort exacts desire, leisure,
the luxury of the first world
Every corner holds secrets
that are irrelevant
Or hard fought knowledge
gathered in quiet desk days
Half-remembered facts, connections,
imagined situations
History repeats itself, it’s said
Man-made, why not?
Can this be a soul
that crawled out?
Warmed, lighted, fed, and launched
into the fray, the forest, the field
Distinct from the meal
first served, then made
No rewinding, only memory
complicated, cheap memory
to bolster the feel of experience
____________________
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.
The Haves
Elli Hazit
They teach from an abundance of books
They have analyzed the warp and the weave
of how best to convey—Words
We’ve dissected, again,
the best method
for reinvention
No one will articulate the obvious:
The random gifts,
the essential inequalities
that life doles out
Maestros and laggards,
Chanteuses,
Those who pick up
and those who concentrate on
the specifics
How it might rain
Injustice will prevail
as time wears down
the most energetic
The differences seem as marked
as ever, but distance makes
a buffer from the tears
Heartbreaks are of another sort here
where water flows freely
we see images, read and bemoan
sporadically
their extreme need,
our extreme luxury
Muster sympathy
Jump into the pool
to cool off
Fly, fly anywhere, but somewhere nice—
Some place full of exotic plants,
and beaches
to rest from our heavy labors
while night falls on an exposed plain
of hunger—there
Back in the stacks
the millions of books
beg to be read,
are preserved, cherished, catalogued
The course of human history
that begat this.
____________________
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.
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