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Following are the first few poems from my chapbook, Rocking my father:

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My Father

is a small man
fragile in his bones
like a sparrow. Here
I will paint him for you with
the careful strokes of a child's
watercolor brush.
It is easy to paint him.
He is so still.
He stands quietly, alone
at the water's edge. He is
so quiet that sparrows come
rustling the bushes.
*******************************************

Poland, 1913
My Father Goes To School

If morning after morning
that skinny grey boy, sick
with rickets, buried in dust
hides in the corner
under his bed
where she always
finds him anyway
prodding him out
with the end of her broom,
it has to be, that's all. It has to be.
And if my scared
little father, just four years old,
has to stumble alone
through that stark, demon-filled
cemetery, morning after morning
in the dark & the cold,
then he does.
And if, in Vienna, Adolph Hitler
who already at this point
in time has lived to grow up
must continue to thrive
slaughtering in due time
my father's mother, his father
and the rest of the over
12 million, raising up
in my old father's nightmares
a harvest of tombstones
thick as the stench of the air
around Auschwitz, then so be it.
*******************************************
My Father as a Red Fox

This isn’t his dream
this is real
and somebody’s wanting
to kill him
he’s running
he’s hiding
he stinks
of manure
he’s wading
the icy
rhine river
he’s shaking
in the loft of a barn
he’s alone
his wife gone
maybe dead
maybe not
in the distance
the prattle
of gunshot
close around him
the baying of hounds
closing in
he is judged
by the stench
that surrounds him
found guilty
of living
fear
is the only
emotion
fear unresolved
is a sickness
a virus
that alters
the blood
death
is the only cure

*************************************************************************TO ACCESS THE ENTIRE COLLECTION FOR VIEWING OR DOWNLOAD, OR AS A BOUND BOOK, OR IF YOU SHOULD BE INTERESTED IN PUBLISHING THE COLLECTION OR USING THE WORK FOR WHATEVER REASON, PLEASE CONTACT ME AT: dobbiejoan@yahoo.com