Max Reif Poems

Froggy woke up early and in bed he lay,
Wonderin’ what he’d take to school for lunch today.
Mama came into his room to said,
“Here’s your lunchbox, Froggy. Now please get out of bed.”
...

The hurricane hits,
You batten down your hatches,
Try to secure everything.
...

Sweet summers we stayed outdoors
till we could no longer tell
the trees from the dark between them
and a brigade of fireflies had failed
...

The slow burning of the leaves
prefigures the ripening of my soul.

Today the weather
...

I speak to you easily,
shadowy figure in my mmeory,
reliving all your picaresque adventures
pulled out as from a volume on a shelf,
...

My favorite one, from Italy,
showed a woman
with a whole, walled city
atop her head.
...

In the dead museum
obligation sits, rusting,
a suit of armor
we only just found out
...

The train had come far toward its destination,
although the route was not the one he'd dreamed.
At first, yes: mountains, cities, oceans, friends.
Then, vast expanse of dusty, arid plains
...

Rescuers race to free trapped submarine,
Space shuttle undocks, heads for home,
Passenger jet goes down in sea off Sicily,
Hiroshima marks atomic bomb anniversary,
...

'I do solemnly swear
that I will faithfully execute
the office of President
of the United States,
...