Fragments of a night
Lost in translation.
I fall asleep over a book,
I wake up to check my phone.
Bombings in Brussels, terror in the airport, blood in the streets.
My cozy room, my cat on the pillow next to me.
I can't sleep. It's too cold.
I turn up the heat. It's too hot.
I'm hungry, I'm thirsty.
I walk downstairs to the kitchen. I walk back upstairs to my bedroom.
I check my phone. I'm too tired to sleep.
Finally a dream:
Men caged like animals screaming in pain.
Other men ravishing their insides with bloody faces.
Howls of anguish, moans of desire.
Cannibals all, chained to a wall.
Then you walk in
But, in my dream, you are an ancient warrior spattered with blood.
You flash me a smile as if to say: "Honey, I'm home."
As if death and battle were just another day at the office.
My alarm goes off. I check my phone.
A bloodbath in Belgium. That was no dream. The horror is real.
I open the shades to let in the sun.
Now I can see
That you and my room and the world have always been this way.
But I had never seen it with my own eyes
Until last night.

Rosalind Resnick
March 22, 2016

There is no need to ask that question.
You have already conquered my heart
And laid it waste.
The cornucopia of my affections is now yours for the taking.
You have carried me to your bed and made me yours --
A love-struck Psyche vanquished by Cupid's arrow.
You are my master, my lover, my teacher, my protector.
I am your mistress, your beloved, your student, your friend.
We share a bed, a book, a table, a life.
There is no need to ask that question
Because you already know the answer.
No need unless you want me to call you my husband,
No need unless you want to call me your wife.

Rosalind Resnick
March 15, 2016

I live in the place between dreams and reality
Between connection and nonattachment, peace and chaos, heaven and hell
Between the black and the white of the yin yang I walk the curved line fast and slow at the same time
Always with one foot in and one foot out, I am on the outside looking in and the inside looking out
Both the director and the actor of this movie, dancing to the music and watching the dance from the balcony above it
I can fade into the background yet still be front row center
My presence and my absence leave a wake I am told
This space is a no-man’s land
A boundary between the spiritual and the material world like the edge of a city’s park
Where things hold no value except the memories they keep and like everything else, enlightenment is a fleeting phase
Where caring for your fellow person is in your best interests and caring for yourself is in everybody else’s
In this space there are no limits, no set itinerary and nothing is out of the question
Like the words I use to write this poem, this is where the intangible attempts to become tangible and yet there is always room for interpretation
This is the place of translation and I am the translator, learning new languages and dialects to open new worlds to people wherever I go
I live to bear witness to what’s ever in front of me and in this place I can watch it all, for this place is the interval between the first preview and the last credit, between when you enter the subway station and leave out of another, between the first kiss and the last embrace, between your first breath and your last one
It is life, and when it is time for me to longer be here I hope I will walk to the other side with grace, wonder, and the pain of departure just like I did when I entered  

Though I've always loved music
I never got beyond Three Blind Mice
Learning to play the guitar
 
So I tried playing the piano
And my teacher suggested
Maybe I could play better
With boxing gloves on
 
And I did like to box
But my trainer informed me
I had a glass jaw
Maybe I should learn to draw
 
So I took his advice
And went to art school
But drawing naked women
Made an instructor laugh
"I've never seen an ass as big as that!"
Said he. "And those breasts
Look like beach balls!
Is your mother shaped like that?"
 
So I decided to be a poet
Someone said it wasn't difficult at all
"Just write a bunch of words
Read them in a sing-song voice
Girls will swoon, you'll be a winner!"
But the problem was I couldn't sing
All I could do was stutter.

In Italian, they call it la storia,
A story, a fish tale, a love affair,
True or false, real or imaginary,
It doesn't matter.
The history of the Gallic wars as told by General Julius Caesar
Or the hundred merry tales devised by Florentine scribbler Giovanni Boccaccio
Or the breve storia of the lovers Paolo and Francesca who traded heaven for a kiss.
In Italy, every vintage is the stuff of legends.
Even the coffee at the rest stop on the autostrada has a story.
Se non è vero è ben trovato.
If it isn't true, it's still a story beautifully crafted.

Rosalind Resnick
March 8, 2016

I saw a fork in the road,
And I took it.
I split my car into two cars,
I split myself into two selves,
One of me driving east,
The other driving west,
Until I was on one coast
And she was on the other.
Freedom? Adventure?
I barely remember those words.
It was so long ago,
And we were both so young.
But I'll never forget her silky brown hair and her torn denim jacket
And the guitar in the back seat of her car as she drove away.
Will we ever meet again at that diner on a road whose name is lost in my memory,
Where we said our goodbyes over pancakes and coffee?
It would be fun to catch up over cups of nostalgia
In a place where we could be
Forever young.

Rosalind Resnick
​March 1, 2016