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five poems from the sequence ALAS
Aliens 3
א. An immigrant shall be considered
ב. Likely to become a charge on the rates
ג. As neighbours they are unpleasant
ד. Salesmen with stentorian voices
ה. Accustomed to
ו. Live in different conditions
ז. Among
ח. Sad loyalists of religion
ט. Among the
י. Leaders of the Jews
יא. And outlandish
יב. Social
יג. Administration
יד. Life
טו. A matter of birth and heritage
טז. Something showy
יז. A disputed point
יח. Labour
יט. And the foul but thriving poverty
כ. Street after street
כא. Aggravate the Local
כב. Atmosphere Seeking admission.
Sources:
Charles Booth, On the City: Physical Pattern and Social Structure. Selected writings
William Evans-Gordon, speech in the House of Commons (2nd May 1905)
Aliens Act (1905)
Hansard, House of Lords debate, Aliens Bill, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/1905-08-03/debates/56b2b651-6338-4927-a228-45ed626e7740/AliensBill
Babylon 1
א. Babylons may arise when a
ב. Rift
ג. Opens up in anyone’s
ד. Kin’s story. Their preferred soil is
ה. Exile, the site of a
ו. Neighbour turning on neighbour,
ז. Broken bonds and the bitterest bondage. To
ח. Live where Babylons
ט. Arise, is to
י. Sit, in
יא. Tears, on the
יב. Banks of strange
יג. Rivers, stripped of all you
יד. Owned, all you
טו. Knew – or thought you knew -
טז. Emptied of its sense.
יז. Nothing is left to you here
יח. But
יט. Lamentations.
כ. All the other
כא. Songs have been reserved for other
כב. Tongues.
Source
Acrostic: ‘Broken Blast’, Mishna Sukkah 5:4, Sefirah app
Crusade 3
א. Children
ב. Of
ג. Misfortune, I know not what
ד. Force
ה. Of the night
ו. Rose
ז. That
ח. Under compulsion
ט. So many
י. In
יא. Number
יב. On this holy journey to Jerusalem
יג. Under the yolk of the Catholic faith
יד. Resisted
טו. Mercy.
טז. Only
יז. Uncircumcised
יח. Rest,
יט. Not to be doubted
כ. In hope of safety.
כא. Not long after this,
כב. Great fear entered.
Sources
Acrostic: ‘Comfort us in our mourning’, ‘The Chronicles of Solomon bar Simson’, pp15-73 in Eidelberg, Shlomo The Jews and the Crusaders: The Hebrew Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades, (Madison, U Wisconsin Press, 1977)
Albert of Aix and Ekkehard of Aura: ‘Emico and the Slaughter of the Rhineland Jews’, Internet History Sourcebooks: Medieval Sourcebook (fordham.edu)
Dybbuks 2
א. Dear Foremothers,
ב. Aunties of the
ג. Unquiet, please stop muttering in my
ד. Genome. I can’t
ה. Hear what it’s
ו. Trying to
ז. Express. I went to
ח. Read my future,
ט. Only to
י. Find your past
יא. Inscribed, all those
יב. Spasmodic
יג. Reductions of
יד. Ashkenazi stock, clear as
טו. Extinction events on
טז. Limestone. I’m a
יז. Living fossil
יח. Apparently,
יט. My mammograms are
כ. Evidence for palaeontologists, my
כא. Now is your
כב. Then. And now it’s me muttering.
Source
Acrostic: Judges 11:40 Sefaria.org
that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
Ekhah 4
א. Elijah
ב. Never came at Pesach, so we’d say
ג. Dayenu, and stay in
ד. London for another year. Technically, it was
ה. Exile, but exile in the
ו. Suburbs, where the
ז. Schools are good. We were and we are
ח. British. We are
ט. Ordinary subjects; we pray
י. Discreetly, we don’t impose our lunisolar
יא. Year on
יב. English calendars, so we are
יג. Nice to have next-
יד. Door, if sometimes
טו. Loud; then you say you are
טז. Embarrassed for us. But we prefer to register our
יז. Shames in-house. We fear we won’t
יח. Survive disgrace.
יט. Believe us, we
כ. Own our faults and in great detail. We
כא. Do not think we are better than
כב. You. God knows we are not.
Joanne Limburg’s first collection, Femenismo, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2000. Since then, there have been two more: Paraphernalia in 2007 and The Autistic Alice in 2017. She has also published a collection for children, Bookside Down, with Salt Publishing, and several prose books with Atlantic Books, the most recent of which was the linked essay collection, Letters to my Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism. Joanne teaches Creative Writing at the Cambridge Insitute of Further Education and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Copyright © 2024 by Joanne Limburg, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author
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