Three Poems from Josef Krebs
Miseducation of my wayward self
Born on a Monday
Buried on a Tuesday
Calf to my mother’s whims
My father’s emotional absence
Such a presence
As if death mattered and nothing else
Outside the camps
Behind the wires
Barbed with unlikely memories
And hidden times
Of youth
And fruitful wanderings
Of escape
From unjust hand and belt
That put him on the path
To freedom
Before all that ended
And the grave took him
Long before he ever died
Initially
I intended to become
But then I became
Something else
In place of myself I might want to reboot as a robot
I’m tired and lazy and pointless
Sucking up the air when the planet can barely spare it
An automaton could suffice
So much better
Than a negatively suggestible
Recalcitrant tramp
Following the maps on his legs
From times when he’d sit too close to the fire
After listening to the sound in the snow
As he walked his way
Slow-
Ly
One crumbling crunch at a time
Towards Moscow or Saint Petersburg
Or maybe just the bus stop
To wait
And wait
And wait
Before clambering aboard
To be taken where he didn’t really want to go
Home
So called
But at least there were the flames
And glowing coals there
In the past
In the yesterday
In the yesteryear past
I
I was
I was born
I was
I was born in a minefield
Initially crawling carefully
Then dutifully taking steps
Surrounded by traps
Learning to walk gradually
Cautiously navigating each tile
That might set off a siren
Sounding out my mighty crimes
Alerting the authorities
That I’d sinned
Or misstepped
In not knowing the rules
Of where or what
I was supposed to do
I was not supposed to do
Move speak break
Knock over nervous
Tremulous trepidation of breaking
Unwritten rules
Unannounced unthought through ideas
Before each action raised the suggestion of a crime
Merely by my committing it
Oh, the accumulation humiliation
Unsophisticated at three
Unto the always unknown
Confused with self
If such a creature ever existed
Beyond reaction
To alarms going off
At every mistake
Guaranteed by temerity anxiety
And terror of failing to suffice
Or sacrifice enough to appease
The gods of childhood’s
Diplomacy
Josef Krebs has a chapbook, “Apart from Concrete Existence,” published by Etched Press and his poetry also appears 79 issues of 36 different magazines, including the Bicycle Review, The Cape Rock, The Chaffey Review, Inscape, and Crack the Spine. A short story has been published in blazeVOX. He’s written three novels and five screenplays. His film was successfully screened at Santa Cruz and Short Film Corner of Cannes film festivals.
