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After Reading Lorca
The ‘emptied spaces of clouds and rivers’ of Lorca’s poem ‘Nocturne of Emptied space’ reverberates through the verse giving it a sad, anxious and broken tenor that connects with the reader at a subliminal level.
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Look, it is emptied space my love.
When I search the silence of derailed trains,
the air rips, and faces are erased of emotion.
My eyes become a dead-end sky, punctured by the moon,
wrapped tightly as anguish devours anxiety.
It is all I can see – horses without riders, flowers
without blooms, faces without voices, unmarked
graves. Limits continue to burst free from the laws
of physics and still there is nothing, no sky,
moon, weather, no rooster’s crow, only empty boxcars.
Janet R. Kirchheimer, author of ‘How to Spot One of Us’ (2007), is currently producing AFTER, a cinematic documentary where contemporary poets perform poetry about the Holocaust and explore the obligation of poets to respond to genocide. Her poetry chapbook, ‘Seduction: Out of Eden’, co-written with Jaclyn Piudik, will be published by Kelsay Books in summer 2022. Janet's poems and essays appear in numerous print and on-line journals and in anthologies including Connecticut Review, Atlanta Review, Mudfish, and String Poet. Her chapter, ‘At the Water’s Edge: Poetry and the Holocaust,’ appears in The Psychoanalytic Textbook of Holocaust Studies (Routledge, 2019). A Pushcart Prize nominee, Janet received a Drisha Institute for Jewish Education Arts Fellowship, is a writing coach, and teaches creative writing. Her website is: www.janetkworks.com
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