Max Reif Poems

Supervising the small children,
I glance at my watch to see
How long until my break.
My eyes see boys
...

In dreams I keep trying to find my way
back to the house of my childhood
and sometimes I end up getting lost.
...

The paper boy brought Sunday’s Post on Saturday night
as our family watched “The Hit Parade” inside.
We’d hear his cart rattling by on the icy pavement,
then his song, in his nasal voice: “Baaay-berrr! ”
...

A room full of people talking like runaway
trains that won’t ever stop.
No sun or moon rises or sets for the room—
no day or night, no seasons.
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These people,
who look like good people,
like people I pass every day,
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I'd live my life in shorthand,
the short hand of a poem,
a zen brush painting.
...

The stars that were over my head this morning
Were there from the First Day,
Those stars I hid crooknecked from in cities,
While travelling my wayward way.
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Love made me naked
and burned away dross,
...

When Mother was a young girl,
what would she have felt
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In Berlin, where the Wall
was like an outcropping of the world's
skeleton that ran right along its surface,
...