A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community
How Poets Pray
It should be easy enough,
just choose a psalm, any psalm,
say, #19, for starters.
“Let my mouth’s utterances be pleasing …”
It’s clear enough, isn’t it.
Intone, recite, chant, sing
“And my heart’s stirring before you …”
But stirring suggests food preparation,
the watched soup pot, the mixed drink
like James Bond’s martini, dry,
shaken not stirred. There you have it,
poets, stirring up trouble. And then
those scholars, linguists, dilettantes
who claim that stirring is closer
in meaning to murmur. And thus,
your cardiac irregularity, your leaky
valve, the pig replacement flap that
opens and shuts almost without effort.
Leonard Kress
Leonard Kress has been published in Missouri Review, Tupelo, Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. Among his poetry collections are The Orpheus Complex (Main Street Rag, 2009), Walk Like Bo Diddley (Black Swamp Poetry Press, 2016), Living in the Candy Store and Other Poems (Encircle Publications, 2018) and his new verse translation of the Polish Romantic epic, Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz (HarrowGate Press, 1986). Additionally, Craniotomy Sestinas (Kelsay Books) appeared in 2021 and Foxholes (Moonstone Press) in 2025.
