Goliath

Elizabeth Zelvin: Goliath

GOLIATH

Elizabeth Zelvin

like a sneering hunched rhinoceros

tossing giant boulders on his horn

he blunders toward whatever stands against him

blind animal that he is, he stomps

the ground until it shudders

step by step his lumbering feet crash down

on crowds of people, cities, forests

what will he trample next?

institutions, nations, the tectonic plates

that hold the earth together

will anyone dare to stop him?

one reckless disenchanted politician?

one general with the courage to say no?

one young person with clear eyes and flowing hair

a slingshot and a single stone?

Elizabeth Zelvin is the author of two books of poetry, I Am the Daughter (1981), and Gifts and Secrets (1999), and recipient of a CAPS Award for Poetry from the New York State Council on the Arts. A third volume, The Old Lady Shows Her Mettle, is on the way. During the Second Wave of the women’s movement, her work was widely published in feminist and Jewish women’s journals. Her poems currently appear in Yellow Mama and other journals. Liz has also published seven novels and more than sixty short stories, including the Bruce Kohler Mysteries and the Mendoza Family Saga.

Bernice Holtzman’s paintings and collages have appeared in shows at various venues in Manhattan, including the Back Fence in Greenwich Village, the Producer’s Club, the Black Door Gallery on W. 26^th St., and one other place she can’t remember, but it was in a basement, and she was well received. She is the Assistant Art Director for Yellow Mama.