i am nobody and i like it that way
i am not a White Supremist
i am not a Nazi
i am not a Zionist
i am not a nationalist
i am not a patriot
i am not an American
i am not a good citizen of planet Earth
i am not a Jew
i am not a lapsed jew
i am not a Muslim
i am not a dabbler in Buddhism
i do not worship eternal Vishnu
i am not an atheist
i am not a fundamentalist
i am not an agnostic
i am not an occasional church goer
i am not a humanist
i am not a spiritualist
i am not a nihilist
i am part of the ecosphere
the web of life
doing my own small part
to destroy it
Poems from the Ancients
Shakespeare, Whitman, Yeats
gods proclaiming
eternal words
trumpets
in the ear
of the soul.
Poets today
are callow children
straining like Sisyphus
to say something real
profoundity, profanity
not pretty ditties, not witty, just pretty shitty
Struggling to string together
eternity by
uttering
fluttering, stuttering, sputtering words
Angels will not
recite their poems.
500 years ago, adolescent Will Shakespeare
raging with hormones and his own self-importance
strained to make music
out of paltry
words words words . . .
My Wife Eats Grapes While I Sit in the Dark
I have had my fill
of grapes, of poetry.
I could be struggling to spit out some verse
paltry words
that express
nothing new.
My life is small,
contained.
I ate grapes earlier
I had thought to leave for my wife.
They were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
The coldness of death.
Ethan Goffman’s poems have appeared in Ariel Chart, BlazeVox, Bradlaugh’s Finger, Burgeon, The Loch Raven Review, Mad Swirl, Madness Muse, Ramingo’s Blog, Setu, Under the Bleachers, and Winedrunk Sidewalk. His first volume of poetry, Words for Things Left Unsaid, is due in 2020 from Kelsay Books. Ethan is co-founder of It Takes a Community, a Montgomery College initiative that brings poetry to students and local residents. In addition, Ethan is founder and producer of the Poetry & Planet podcast on EarthTalk.org.
RAMINGO! 