Zev Shanken
Zev Shanken presented this family creed to his son and daughter when they were 8. They are now 41 and 32. This tells you all you need to know of him as poet.
SHANKEDONIANISM
Shankedonianism means never forgetting.
Shankedonianism means never repeating.
Each generation does it new,
mixing what’s never forgotten
with what’s never been done before.
If there’s a word for it, it’s a cliché
Thus spake Ricmax Rgumjam Maqalu,
The first Shanken, the caveman who invented poetry.
Zev’s chapbook, Al Het (Blue Begonia) and two books of original poetry with Full Court Press Memory Tricks (ISBN: 1938812786) and If I Try to be Like Him, Who Will Be Like Me?
(ISBN : 1946989215) are available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
A selection of Zev’s poems are anthologized in JEWels: Teasing Out the Poetry in Jewish Humor and Storytelling. (JPS / University of Nebraska Press). To be released 2023.
At 76 1/2
I still wake up in the morning
and sometimes
in the middle of the night,
stunned that I dare exist
not knowing everything—
that I got away with life
not knowing everything—
and that those I love
got away with it too.
Except for those who didn’t.
But not because they didn’t
know everything
Newlyweds
Sliding the potatoes into sparkling sautéed onions,
we joked about the hard scotch tape
that kept your mother’s cookbook together.
When you announced that you had figured out
when to add the basil leaves,
your voice blended perfectly with laughter down the hall.
The whole apartment smelled of plastic shower curtain,
a wedding gift from my mother’s favorite cousin.
Every evening after work, every recipe made sense
High Holidays
Rosh Hashanah
At 92 my widowed grandfather
would sort photos at his kitchen table
as if to say, If I could do it over
I would do it the same, only slower.
Yom Kippur
On his death bed a man confesses his infidelities.
His wife confesses she always knew.
Then the man confesses he always knew she knew.
After long silence one of them asks,
“Why didn’t you say so?”
After a longer silence the other answers,
“It would have spoiled everything.”
The Secret Secret of Life
If the secret of life is found in science,
I won’t understand it. I don’t even understand
how pulleys make things light.
If the secret of life is not found in science,
it’s probably found in an ancient language
rich in idioms every scholar translates differently.
So I know the secret as poorly as and as well as I ever will.
This knowledge has made me wise, creative, and kind.
Which is what I wanted the secret for.
So when they tell me in heaven I had it all wrong,
I’ll politely whisper, “Thanks for the tip.”
What’s Wrong with Loving a Woman Just Because She’s Beautiful?
It’s superficial.
Of course it is. Don’t beg the question.
A beautiful woman may be too vain to love back.
She’d be right; I'm talking love, not a win-win business deal.
You’re talking sex.
I’m talking love: that word we use for the feeling we get
for the body we can’t live without.
But beauty is an unfair accident of birth.
Unlike what, religion? Race? Sexual orientation?
The country you’d give your life to defend?
The fancy school your parents could afford?
I ask again: What’s wrong with loving a woman
just because she’s beautiful, as beautiful as you?
Making a Sick Friend Laugh
He smiled
when I told him I was going to chant a psalm.
He shrugged
when I warned him I don’t know the tune very well.
When I added,
“That way you’ll know you’re not in heaven,”
he squeezed my hand.
Memory Tricks
I remember my mother’s memory tricks.
Rhythmic: Eight and five are thirteen; Seven and five are twelve.
Ironic: Four times your age equals my age.
Pun: The Hebrew word for ‘only’ is ‘rahq.’ It’s only a rock.
Now she can’t remember her nurse’s name.
I try: She is tall, like a hill. Hilda. But everybody’s tall.
Nor can she remember the name of her current bodily affliction.
I try: It hurts your tushie like a hammer, but Roy Rogers will fix it.
Hammer+Roy = hemorrhoids, get it?
Blank stare. As I explain the ridiculous connection
we both start laughing so hard that I feel my heart, beating in my ears.
I wheel her to the Sabbath table. “Let’s make Kiddush.”
Her lips coach me from her wheelchair. I know all the words by heart.
