'A Wake-Up Call' 'My Night in Jail' 'I Drink the Sun' by Milton P. Ehrlich
A Wake-Up Call
I woke up this morning
with the sight and scent
of bouquets of red roses
assembled on my chest.
My sleeping wife was gone.
An indentation of her body,
was all that remained in bed.
I searched all the rooms
of our house without
ever opening a door—
and discovered I could
walk through the walls.
I found my grieving wife
sitting Shiva with mirrors
covered in every room.
In the far-off distance,
I could hear a laudatory
eulogy that could not
possibly be for me.
My Night in Jail
Time seemed to have stopped
as I clung to cold steel bars.
It felt like I was held in chains
in the Inquisition’s private hell.
Sleep was not a possibility,
and my shoulder still hurts
from a thwack by an angry cop
who hated me for marching
with “Veterans For Peace.”
I couldn’t get the stink of shit
out of my nose from a toilet
that wouldn’t flush, while I waited
for Lenny, my college classmate,
an ACLU lawyer, to get me out.
I Drink the Sun
For light in the darkness
of the sunset of my days,
before I take the first step
on a journey that has no
beginning and no end.
I pack up all my things,
including hidden diamonds
like an old Jew on the run
to help me start over again.
Will I confront the pain
of the Sturm und Drang—
the erosion of humanity
or float in space and time
as some alien creature
in a state of ayurvedic bliss?
Artwork by Stephen R. Spencer II