The Book of Isaac

      Aidan Semmens

      Parlor Press

      Anderson, South Carolina

      www.parlorpress.com

      Parlor Press LLC, Anderson, South Carolina, 29621

      © 2013 by Parlor Press

      All rights reserved.

      Printed in the United States of America

      S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Semmens, Aidan.

      The book of Isaac / Aidan Semmens.

      pages. cm. -- (Free verse editions)

      Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 978-1-60235-373-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-374-9 (Adobe ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-375-6 (epub)

      I. Title. II. Series: Free verse editions.

      PR6069.E395B66 2013

      821’.914--dc23

      2012044928

      Cover design by David Blakesley.

      Cover photograph provided by the author.

      Printed on acid-free paper.

      Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paperback and ebook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina, 29621, or email [email protected].

      For IAH & all the subsequent Hourwiches

      Contents

       this Esdras went up from Babylon as a scribe

       bent writing, assiduous pen in hand,

       radicalism is not your mistake

       for them many living on the earth

       our psaltery is laid down on the land,

       expound, expound, the vinestocks lie untended

       as for us & of art & art, you have expressed, beauty

       I conducted you through & sea, at the beginning

       as if by you requested I shall not hear

       intention of the blower is critical to hearer

       in shul & bes-medresh we occupy these text

       the woodcarving tradition which delivers

       in order not to break the second command

       the input viewpoint takes truth ignorant & in disguise;

       fair reader’s desire of the girl’s capital

       Kropotkin settled with a sense of ease in silence

       an imperial world’s population change

       the schizoid character of Russian society

       & masquerade of revellers; you will carry out to Purim

       sound of blows began the dream of Vera

       Białystok from London on the reading & critique of Talmud

       the café is the universities from the ghetto

       bay mir bistu sheyn, to me are you

       my dear Vladimir Ilyich, forgive that I do not address you as comrade,

       the Russian peasant family alone

       Gleb Oospensky in his suspicion stood alone

       no wise ruler the shepherd of his flock?

       for me & not only for me in those days

       to suffer silence is to suffer as a fool

       the first edition of Leviathan

       I saw you cry like a ship ready to sail

       the ground is fully prepared for insurrection

       seem to recognise that part of the workers

       a parable is told of warring tribes:

       here it is, finally got here, the best flour!

       ah, pessimist, you do not know the people

       for the passéists between we, great Apollo

       we threw downward from tsar & kow-tow to these

       number me the things that have not yet been