Tanka by Sanford Goldstein

seeing

joyous faces of seven-year-olds

watching a kite fly,

I want at least one more time

to feel the pull of a white string

. .

as if I never lived

through those horrendous chapters

of merciless history,

find these documentaries

pierce my once eyeless mind

. .

ghosts

move in and out and back

this sleepless night,

and after rest comes through pills,

a masked puppet kisses me

. .

childhood ages past

on lonely Saturday nights

I waited for streetcars:

sometimes someone gave me a pass,

sometimes someone offered a dime

. .

advised by this one

and that about my retirement

so soon in the offing,

I find their musical notes

only sometimes make me dance

. .

each night before sleep,

my long catalogue of the dead

as if by drum beat,

and each time as if anew,

the echo of gone, forever gone

. .