Poetry of the People featuring Michal Rubin

My fourth Poet of the People is Michal Rubin. What attracts me to Michal's poetry is the unadorned integrity, honesty, and humanity of her voice.

Michal Rubin moved from Israel to Columbia, SC 32 years ago.  A psychotherapist, a Cantor, and an emerging poet, her work was published in Psychotic Education,  The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, Wrath Bearing Tree journal,  Rise Up Journal, Topical Poetry,  Fall-Lines,  The Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Waxing & Waning: A Literary Journal, and South Carolina Bards Poetry Anthology 2023.

In a secret dark spectacle

after Ada limon

I saw the twirling gust of dust

moving into the distant

world of pain I remember

and I flew there to be

with kin I have not met

come! they said

and I sat in their midst

huddled underneath their wings

they fluttered, the wings,

and the chill of history penetrated

my sheltered space

I breathed it in 

the chill

and the chains weighty

on my wrists

as I was dragged by the power 

of the dead

into the land


~~~~~

In Gaza

tomorrow’s touch

through the settling dust

will remind you of

love

unhidden in the rubble

behind the corner

forbidden moment

fused with desert breeze

salted droplets we carried

home

or what was home

~~~~~

Exploits

I write with no address

or neighborhood

letters that belong to

the smoke of burnt homes

or piles of old shoes

I try to stitch words 

so they become 

an embroidery of unwanted

stories

we live them

the stories

we spit them as hulls  

discarded shells of seeds

we feasted

I, the betrayer of dogmas spread

stained uniforms strewn on the page

I, the jailed soldier

braid sins into the chain of letters

words bathe in shame

each bullet finds a target

smoke of burnt homes fills the nostrils 

I, the one who left,

weave what you call art

with the exploits

remnants of our crimes