Judith Pacht
    About Judith Pacht’s latest book, Summer Hunger, David St. John has written:  “[It] is nothing less than a superb collection of poems, encompassing wry daily reflections as well as sobering and profound historical meditations. With enormous composure and poise, Judith Pacht is able to move her reader deftly between her elegant wit and calm wisdoms. This collection is an exceptional and memorable achievement.” About the same book, Richard Garcia says, “Beneath the quiet, polished surfaces of these poems churns a tumult of life experience that is both lyric and public, personal and political. The poems in Summer Hunger dazzle with a formality that barely contains chaos, with humor and wit; like all good poems, they leave us with intriguing questions as well as answers.” Judith is a two-time Pushcart nominee and her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Runes and Cider Press Review, among other publications. Her website is www.judithpacht.com, which gives just a tantalizing taste of her poetry. I hope she will offer us a generous selection today!


Summer Hunger, New York City

Start with the flat roof
where soot crackles under leather soles,
where pigeons peck crusts that wind lifts
over the parapet, necks jerking, faces turning
one way, the other, like windup toys
searching, waiting for a breadcrumb-dream,
as black grit drifts over tarpaper softened
from heat, days of heat pressed into granite,
into skin and skull, past bones to where
the sun scours cool reason away.

We set beach towels end to end,
let the rays toast one side, then the other,
turn our girlish reveries
to the Beauty of the Boyfriend, practice
the fluttering hand, the cinched waist,
imagine the rustle of a patterned skirt
all leaves and roses swaying just so at the hem,
consumed by what might
(it could you know      anytime now)
blow over the parapet.



The Core Balance Trainer

touches your hard-to-reach center,
subdues the imbalance that rises
from the belly some days, ballast
for those moods that weigh & shift, those lurches,
though there are times
when even the non-skid tread deep inside

skids,

oblique as abdominal muscles,
your core balance slips away,
pitching and yawing
like the boom
of a gaff-rigged schooner
coming about in an uncertain wind.


        [as seen in a Hammacher Schlemmer Catalog]


© 2012 Judith Pacht
Judith Pacht was a Featured Poet who read her poetry at the February 2012 Second Sunday Poetry Series