The Glacier
Issue Four
Winter 2025

DAS GUTE

At the poetry reading, at the KGB Bar, 
at 4th street and 1st, 
this Yid came in, 
sat on a stool, ordered a drink
and started howling, 
Das gute. Das gute, 
while Jess was reading her poems. 
It’s not important that he was a Yid 
except I had said to Mike, moments earlier, 
I have this student, H., super observant Jew, 
who always says to me, ‘Lippman, A Yid is a Yid, 
the rest doesn’t matter.’
So this Yid starts flexing his bonehead drunk lips. 
Harassing a woman next to him with his phone. 
The bartender tells him to keep it down 
Jess is reading her poems
but he’s too drunk or pissed drunk off his ass 
and the barkeep tells him he has to go 
while Jess is reading the one about Mary Shelley from her book
Yours, Creature 
and then the one about Frankenstein’s large muscles 
and the Yid is out of his mind loud 
Das gute das gute
and Jess stops reading one poem about midwifery 
about to go into another poem about motherhood 
and I yell across the room, Hey Buddy at the bar,
even though I want to shout, Hey Yid, 
and the room gets quiet 
and I get up and cross the floor, 
You need to shut the fuck up 
and get outta here
so Jessica can read her beautiful poems about monsters,
and that’s when everyone gets up to assist him out
and floating around my head is this:
they used to escort us into the ghettos 
and out of our homes 
and onto the cars
and into the gas
and Jess’ poems are banging off my cortex at the same time
and I want to listen to more of them, 
all of us do, 
this is not Stalin’s Russia, 
this is not Hitler’s Germany, 
this is not Trump’s New York, 
no Putin’s moldy gulag,
this is KGB on the Lower East Side of New York City. 
I’m a cop, he yells, as I approach, don’t touch me
and everyone laughs,
and I have my hand behind him, 
not touching him, 
so he can feel it, the energy of it,
like I’m some super alien force field KGB bouncer, 
but I’m not,
I’m just a 59-year-old broke Yid poet 
trying to get my drunk ass Yid brother 
out of the bar 
so Jess can stand up there at the mic 
and read her poems about Frankenstein
and that’s why poems are so das gute, 
they make you fall in love with monsters,
even the little drunk ones at the bar who have no mercy.

ART IS STUPID

El Greco, he was that Greek dude who painted View of Toledo. 
It’s in the corner somewhere in The Met 
somewhere in New York. 
That’s what happens when you live in NY and visit The Met. 
You get lost in corners and alleyways. 
I stood in front of it once for about an hour 
and thought about darkness and the color blue. 
How long can someone think about darkness and the color blue? 
I might have been in love or I might have been out of love.
 El Greco was definitely in love with darkness and blue. 
There was a little Spain in his Greek heart.
There was a little New York in my New York heart 
and in that hour 
all the rest of the walls and the paintings and sculptures of The Met disappeared. 
I thought, Art is stupid. 
I thought blue and darkness are not stupid 
and then I went outside and bought a hot dog from the Sabrett hot dog guy. 
I got it with mustard, sauerkraut and caramelized onions, 
the way my father ate them, 
all the way from Brooklyn, 
where you could see Spain from Ocean Avenue
if you were dark enough, 
if blue was your color.

Matthew Lippman is the author of 7 poetry collections. His latest collection, We Are All Sleeping With Our Sneakers On (2024), is published by Four Way Books. His previous collection Mesmerizingly Sadly Beautiful (2020) is published by Four Way Books. It was the recipient of the 2018 Levis Prize. In 2027 his next collection, Cry Baby Cry, will be published by Four Way Books.

Back

ISSUE Four HOME