Two poems by Karen Greenbaum-Maya

Poetry – Issue 15 | June 2012

In Exchange

August, Munich

Heat floats up off sidewalks
wide enough for troop movements.
Eiskaffe buzz lets me go blank.
After two tall ones, I can’t think.
The soft whipped cream schlags me
into a smoky stupor.
So hot, starlings wilt in the grass.
My shoelaces slip slack, then free.
Trash stench hits me at dawn at ten paces.
How can this work? Why ask the question?
What blocks me now is not all mine.
A building I don’t see
holds an office I can’t find.
Summer dresses are in German.
Cygnets are gray-skinned German law students.
Cars honk in German, it’s my turf.
Cap-gun consonants eat up E for einsam, not Engel.
Trees caged in parks
shade the odd man jerking off
shade angry old women.

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About the author

Karen Greenbaum-Maya has been in wild places such as: Jasper, Alberta; Radium, British Columbia; Ray Lakes in the Sierras, and the Greyhound bus depot in downtown Los Angeles after dark. Places where she has passed for native include Munich, New York, Paris, and Portland (the Oregon one). She has placed poems and photographs in: Lilliput Review, Off the Coast, Sow’s Ear, Waccamaw and Word Gumbo.

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Poetry – Issue 15 | June 2012