A PROMISE

BREAKING NEWS: Sam Pierstorff, the editor of the Quercus Review, will be reprinting my Ed Galing article previously in Rattle Magazine "Ed Galing: A Poet of the Greatest Generation" in the May issue. The issue will be a tribute to this 90 year old small press legend....









A PROMISE

i have an
obligation
to perform
as a Jew,
i have a solemn
duty,
not to forget
the past,
no matter how old
i become.

my heart as
always
yearns for
the homeland
for a place of our own
we Jewish people
so long without one,
I shall not
forget where i
come from,
the tenement house
on the lower east side
where the early
jews first settled
down in this new land


all of those memories
lodged in my brain
like a newsreel of the past
and i can still see
the ship, and those
who stood on the top deck,
watching as they
approached the statue
of liberty and freedom.

In my ninetieth year
in my mind
i have just been born.

BURLESQUE by ED Galing

BURLESQUE

I alway sat in the
front row
with the bald-headed guys.
I was eighteen years old,
and all i wanted
to do was see a naked
girl in the flesh.
it only cost about
a buck or so to sit
downstairs,
there was a blacony
for fifty cents,
but you couldn't see
anything looking down
on the stage.
the orchestra was loud,
the drums with the
boom, boom, boom
the trumpets so loud
it broke your eardrums.
the curtain came up
and after a half hearted
chorus number,
the strip teaser came out.
we all hollered, take it
off, take it off,
the stripper pranced up
and down the stage,
bit by bit she peeled
off her clothes until
the G string.
she would wiggle her
ass, give a wink and
dissappear behind the
curtain.
then i went to the
men's room to take a
pee.