Frank Bana Poems

The winding melody fell to rest
Upon the word Shalom
Small intake of collective breath
The doors of the arc slid apart
...

Without a note of music
Or ancient ballad to recite
All throats too dry to sing
Dried of sound and spit by fear
...

Oh God, you're doing it again
One more dark war, the nightmare played
In blazing sunlight, on your stage
Of fertile soil, the fallen mango putrefying
...

These dollar bills, dead personage revered
While men who asked the future fell
And do not show their faces here, nor at Rushmore -
Dangerous to whom, and how, whose money on the bullets
...

He is so often there
Corner of 44th and Lexington
At the breakfast hour
Tall and thin, matted hair
...

I am not waiting for a messiah
This is not a messianic age
Delightful though it is to live
Among nuclear devices primed
...

Among the cancer centres and the property adventures
Nests a promotion for liqueur
The full-figured woman
Black-dressed and unblemished
...

it's not flying that makes me feel sick
it's the bus driver in the morning
he's a crazy young man
drives like he was making hot-blooded love
...

A straight-backed bike
Bone-shaker, with a broken chain
Sunday p.m. at the Rabbi's home
For Hebrew hour, just down the lane
...

Since this decade of zeroes began
There has been something special to watch
In the warm heart of Sunday afternoons
When the game and the season are on
...