Before I could be taken to Mount Moriah
before a ram could be found to replace me
before I was a redeemed first born
the ram was left unsacrificed
the redeemed was lost
and the first born
became the last.

And all the martyrs who were lost before my birth,
are still lost despite it.
I have become a singularity
a new word in an old Darwinian lexicon
an irregular verb
without plural
or future tense
unique in every respect and definition
save all who would follow after
and not be of me
or ever could.

Another woman
gave me the gloves
of another man
and I now take shelter
in these gloves,
and in the hands
of a different woman.

And I think about that man
and the insanity
which drove him
to abandon his gloves,
and I think about
that woman
and the sanity
that drove me from her,
and I think about my hands
in their warmth,
and about that woman
without me or the gloves,
and I think about that man
with his hands in his pockets.

skin as soft as freshly washed sand,
the taste of salt upon my lips.
is it the same for you?
your eyes are the shards
of pale green glass strewn
along the beach,
wherever I go you watch me,
whatever I do you see.

like a prophet
wishing that only the best part
of his prophecy comes true,
I come to you, a faithful pilgrim,
head covered in the clouds
a galabiyya of air about my body.
I prostrate and entwine myself
with you in supplication,
like the finely knotted stitches
of a prayer rug
and I whisper that until you,
I had never been so religious.

your previous lovers
who cluttered their love with stone and mortar
will not be soon forgotten,
I who clutter you with words
am already,
like one breath following another.

all that I write on your skin
is washed out to sea
and returns on the wind
spread like the seeds of wild flowers
which grow among the rocky hills and ruins
like silent colorful pilgrims
up by the mosque of sidna 'ali
as the last remains
of a religion, and a memory,
and a love  and words.

She said a prayer
to which I was not an answer
and yet I burned
until I burned myself out
like a candle on Shabbat.

And the words of her prayer ceased
and her lips were still
like the surface of the salt sea,
and yet I still burn
like a wound exposed below
the surface.

And the words of her prayer
went unanswered
like the cries of my martyred dead
and yet I still burn
like the silence of a candle remembering them.

1.

The peace of the brave
gave way to the war of allegories
illuminating our world
like a medieval manuscript
with a confusing colophon
of indecision.

2.

Unstable religious fuels
and volatile political compounds
energize the endless human wicks,
that light many an unsuspecting
yahrzeit candle.

3.

And love which may have
been 'stronger than death'
is not so strong lately
as an army that's already dead
cannot be defeated
as easily.

4.

"the children come right home from school"
Yossi said,
'perhaps they've already learned too much as it is?'
I think....
Our home is our castle
and like a missile defense
in American mythology
its walls are semipermeable membranes
of security.

The soil covers your bare feet in a powdery gray dust
like you've walked through an old fireplace that hasn't been cleaned
in the days since the last sacrifice.

There's enough wood to keep us warm through the coldest winter
or burn heretics to any cold heart's content.
This land is full of burnt offerings
and lucky rams
where it doesn't even take the word of god to sacrifice your child
just the word of man,
imperfect as the path you walk back from alone.

Vor dem Gesetz steht ein Türhüter.
                                      --Kafka*


This is a day
like the many days I've spent

empty handed
among the shadows at dusk

that cast no reflections
in the reflecting pools

and hold no illusions
as to what really is illusive.

But on this day my illusions
are changing

imagining that for once my world is based
upon three things;

The rule of law

The five books of your hand

And you, the prophetess that wrote them.

And as required
I will build a hedge for you.

And if this hedge
should ever over grow,
I will then trim it
like a true guardian of the law

Allowing none other entry
and I alone will hold fast

to the five books of your hand
and the only other existing copy.

Today is my 60th birthday.
For milestone birthdays in the past, I used to leave the country from time to time.
At my 30th I went to Israel,
At my 50th Brazil,
And now, I can’t even leave my house.
I could have spent $100m and had myself shot into space
Though with Lily going to college in the fall,
Spending that money on anything else right now wouldn’t be wise.
Adventure is now defined as going to the supermarket.
Living dangerously would be doing that without a mask and gloves.
Though I’ve reached the age when I can now go at 6 AM
The modern equivalent of putting me out on an ice flow
Or an alternate to adult day care.
All for the sake of making my Neanderthal ancestors proud of
My Hunting and gathering skills.
I’d like to say ‘next year in Jerusalem’
But I’d really like to get to tomorrow first.
Ahem.

The deaf blacksmith
Rendered in silent iron the wagon wheels
that they now walked behind
with ever larger ruts
that would eventually hold the whole village.
It’s the shabbes of comfort
When “the rugged shall be made level,
And the rough places a plain;….and all flesh shall see it together….”
He never heard the one that hit him
Hearing wouldn’t have helped they say,
“all the flesh shall see it together”
And all did that hot day, thick with mosquitoes and flies
And a pestilence of lead.
The winds blow through the fallow fields
Tearing at the roots of the waving grass
Though grass is stronger than the winds that whip it
And the many blades hold firm defiantly
We shall not be moved again!
*“all flesh is grass
And all the goodliness thereof is
As the flower of the field;
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth;
Because the breath of the Lord bloweth upon it---
Surely the people is grass.”

Your complexities
are compounded by my simplicities,
and since
you came to me
like the alphabet of a language
I cannot read
you will,
when you leave
depart unchanged.
Whereas,
I will be changed forever
like a root verb
which is built upon
to express
a more complex idea.

Perhaps it's my memory
which troubles me
when I carry it around
like a chip on my shoulder,
waiting to have it carved
into a marble bust of Justice
in the hope that
something good would come of it.
Although in our time
the only thing it becomes
is its own caricature and nothing more.

Perhaps it's my memory
which doggedly trails me wherever I go
even when I wish to lose it in the hills.
I carry it
like a credit card
without an expiration date,
with a limitless line of available credit
extending back through the centuries,
to be summoned
at a moments notice to pay off any debt
no matter how ancient
for a pound of flesh can no longer
be considered good collateral for any loan.
Flesh has become cheap
as has life
and the interest rate is never
high enough to sustain
the sanctity of either anymore.

Lily's lips are blue
it's time for her to read
on a beautiful day at the beach
while elsewhere scientists
are waiting with baited breath
for a landing on a distant world
in the search for something
that's taken for granted
here in the surf.

When you said "I love you"
it was like a room that was built
on to an already finished house----
always an afterthought.

When you said "I miss you"
it was like drinking coffee
from a teacup----
it never made a difference

But when you made
the mountains we had built up
into valleys
I asked "why?"
And you said
"Erosion".

There are many days
when I wish
that like Joshua,
I too could make the sun stand still,
and there are many nights
when I wish to do the same
with the moon
to allow us subtle darkness
just a little while longer,
and there are many times
when my voice
is only its own echo....

You say,
that like a fossil
which went through its changes
at an earlier time,
that now
I too am changing.
I am no longer like wet cement
where the things
which I'm to remember
are inscribed
like someone's initials
upon the wet surface,
but that I am more like the things
I've forgotten
those things
which distress me---
crabgrass and weeds
growing up through the cracks
in the face of my soul.

with a hole in my heart
I have to take care
not to let all the love spill out
desiccating a young heart before its time,
even if borrowed and not returned before it's due
whenever that will be.

don't tell life's librarian
even if it's overdue
there are things I'd still like to see
places I'd still like to go
so I don't feel like I'm waiting for the hangman
to finish his merit badge for one handed knot tying
which will take long enough
if not forever, I hope.

though stumbling up the gallows steps
I will have been to several mountain tops
and will have seen several lands of promise
and though I will not make it elsewhere with you
you've filled the hole in my heart
long enough
for me to get this far
though it's never far enough.

Between the songs of the Nighthawk
and the Mourning Dove
the sound of apples beneath us
and sirens rushing  between
life and death,
we lay together in the darkness
like two blind people reading love poetry.

I saw a portrait of Uri Zvi Greenberg,
it showed an older man
perhaps twice my age,
with no recognizable poetic traits in his face,
perhaps had they shown a young man
it would've been different?

I saw a portrait of Miklos Radnoti
he died as a young man,
with no recognizable poetic traits in his face,
and I have nearly lived his full life,
perhaps if they had shown a child
it would've been different?

I saw a portrait of Anne Frank
whom all the world knows.
I am twice her age,
it's not different
it's worse
peace comes regardless of age
it begins for the living
at the expense of the dead.

I saw a portrait from when I was a child,
like the opening lines of
the epic poem I am becoming,
I will not be a national treasure
like the Kalevala
or Shahnameh
I will be immortalized
like all the unnamed citizens
of Uruk
remembered merely because they lived there,
whose names are unknown
like those
who did not leave a diary,
or a notebook of poems,
and like sheep to the slaughter
did not live to my time to read them.

What of empty words
like love without feelings
a currency without a bank
to back it up,
words expressed but not felt
spent in amounts
exceeding their value.

What of love
felt but not expressed
deep like a vault
where the most precious possessions are kept,
or deep like a mine
where the yawning veins
provide only hints of their great worth
a little bit at a time.

We are growing an economy
and between us we can pass
Assignats or Continentals
to our hearts desire,
and yet when our hearts yearn for more
it will only be the shining coin of the realm
the pearl of desire
that is assayed between us
and only then will our economy stand or
fall by what is backing
our promise to pay the bearer on demand
and redeem ourselves in return.

A book of poems
from a dead poet
living words
that keep on living
remembering a life
that has a ghost of a chance
at redemption
but every word redeems
a little something
of the soul that produced it
and in turn
redeems mine
in this life
where there's no certainty
of a next.

This time of ours
Reminds me of all that I have
And all that I have lost at the same time,
The many-faced memories
Flow like tears
That come more easily
And unexpectedly now
Like the ghosts of loved ones
In a fever dream.

The flower of womanhood.

You are like no flower,
you are a snake.

A cobra
with your head *****,

ready to strike.
And stricken was I.

The apple of my eye.

Out of reach,
bittersweet

Like the honey-apple
I've never tasted.

But when in reach
you are still no joy,

for your taste is forbidden,
and cast from the Garden

was I.

for RFG


You told me of your love for London
and I, of mine for Jerusalem.
And we speak of our second homes
and our first loves,
and how those memories
should be left for the archaeologists,
and how we must for the time being
carefully avoid the subject
each of the other
like diplomats
in London or Jerusalem
busily seeking
positive signs,
in one and the other
or those things
we love elsewhere
and wish we could have
here at home.

...and when I finally showed up
and went into my mother's last room in the ICU
as the fluids were still clotting in their tubing
and the machinery of life was silent,
the necrosis lingered.
Her knitting was sitting to one side
with many loose ends
unresolved.

Your voice on the phone
is a provocation

Your appearance in the doorway later
is an incitement

It's not your fault

You merely exist

But it's too much for me to handle

So I ***** a wall
and even that is a provocation and an incitement
for I can't escape the knowledge of who's on the other side
with all my concentration
I redirect my thoughts away from this evil inclination
to ****** a secret peek that can't be secret
and I recoil in my guilt
asking forgiveness

from whom?

My love talks to herself in her sleep
commanding an enormous kitchen staff
preparing a meal from what dreams are made of.

"GaaaaarlicK! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"
"Cheeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
"Mor­rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre"
"Cheeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
S­nore "sages ...Morrrrrrre...." Snore "sages"

Then a simmering silence for a while,
and just before I fall asleep myself,
the kitchen boils over again with activity.
Now the helter skelter pace is incomprehensible,
a mumbling crescendo then finally some silence.

And I am left to dream
my dreams
in a full and satisfied sleep
leftover of a day
that wasn't so crummy
though slightly flaky and not worth repeating
without a healthy supply of zantac.

The views from Qing Xiu Shan are very nice
and I am feeling better than I did this morning
the Yong River winds through green fields
the breeze fills my lungs
my thoughts rustle like bamboo leaves
a southern tranquility rises in the distance
covered by the opaque morning
this is what my mind's eye sees
as I rock my little girl to sleep
kissing the forehead
that will never be without a kiss
until my lips are still
like the peaceful day we yearn for

Upon seeing the new dining room chair;
that is the one reserved for me,
I am seized by a lordly desire
to one day sell it
so that later no one would say
"see, that was his chair"
or "these scratches and stains, are from
a time before,
this emptiness, from a time after."
I want it to be sold or
given away, before it's an alteh zach
or before I'm an a.k.
afraid that someday someone will say
"all he does is sit and stare all day....
Nebech."

The enemy, like god is all around us
And god lifts not a finger to stop it
Or answer the prayers of any supplicant
Sacrificed
Like Nadav and Avihu
When ‘heavenly fire entered their nostrils
And burned their souls’*
Such fire burns hot and is unquenched
And we thirst for a salvation,
And though it is tarrying
We still believe,
That science will be our messiah
And god a luxury
We can return to
Once we can think again
About something other than survival.

Four

In this town in which I  was never born
and will never die, I will neither live
forever no love as long for life and
loves come to me like sleep to a mattress
or the sun through a window
to newly awakened eyes.

Two

Someday, you shall also speak.
Once it is realized that you can no longer.
Once it is discovered that those who can
listen now and should, did not listen before,
when your voice was much more
than mere memory.

Six

       He died and was buried in the hard ground
                         Of a January ice storm
The few people who came stood with a rigor vivis
                       Not wishing to be there
                    But having no ready excuse
                        For being elsewhere
                          On a day like this
                       Or for a man like that.

Eight

There's no perfect time to find there's
no time left to perfect. Even with a new
watch I have trouble telling what time it
is without you, you who run like clockwork
precise down to the second, though no so
precisely in my second thoughts.

Nine

Life has opened up for me
like the earth under the feet
of Korah and his followers
and it will remain open like a gaping hole
swallowing up everything, until life itself
closes like a store on *shabbes

Three

The night is young, but the day
is already old for it's age and
I am older by each day and each night,
as they roll over
polishing me like a shattered
clay pigeon in the surf.

One

Everything I have I've acquired
from someplace else, like a museum
in a country of little or no history
which displays the works of great masters
as if they were native sons.

Five

I know that the road which leads
to your door, also leads away from it,
and I stand at the crossroads
not wishing to lose my way again, knowing
full well that I won't be if the road
which leads to your door is open, as is
your door when I arrive at it.

Seven

Our future is like the hopeful light
emanating from the stars of our sky,
for like them, we have traveled
many years to shine here on this day
to appear like two words from a psalm
of David, which when spoken together
become like a prayer under God.

We humans used to live in colonies like Purple Martins
But now, if you come within six feet of us
We are skittish like the rarest Warbler.
In the future; tomorrow and the foreseeable days thereafter,
Our children will become people watchers
Cataloguing all the neighborhood types,
Like the Blue-bellied Mail Carrier
Or the UPS Driver with their brown plumage
Who drops packages like the old Cowbird, their eggs
In your nest.
More adventurous children will venture out with their “People Magazines”
Trying to seek out rare life sightings of the Sexiest Man alive
Or a common Kardashian, often without plumage.
The most cherished sightings occur when grandma and grandpa appear
On their nest cams, cozy and safe,  reaching out to hug or kiss empty space
While decorating their nest with a holiday table that won’t be filled with their
little hungry birds,  
As in other days, and different nights.
Selah.

If I never get a chance to say "goodbye"
will this be enough?

If my last breath goes unheard
and my last wish unfulfilled

To see you again
to feel your caress

To hold your hand
and watch the twinkle in your eye

Diffuse through a tear
it will never be enough

Just to feel the dusk breeze
one last time

Coming off the marsh
to hear the mournful warnings

Of the Killdeer and Plover
and from their heavenly reaches

The hungry Least Terns diving into the salt pannes
a hundred thousand migrating Tree Swallows

Clouding the road and sky
like final scattered thoughts

And the inability to sustain
all this beyond a last silence.

He was too lazy
to put pennies in his loafers
and too cheap
to offer a penny for your thoughts
nickel & diming
his way through life
until the pennies had no value
and the thoughts weren't cost effective
and the income was disposable
and the outcome was predictable.

I expect the Messiah
and though he is tarrying,
I still believe----
But when I am expected,
I am never late,
and thus there are those
who have faith in me.

my heart has turned you
into memories;
my mind, into
a pillar of salt.
when I think of you
in the present,
or spend nights alone
with my dreams of you,
my mind rubs against
my heart,
like salt in an open wound.

my mind has tuned you
into a bow;
my heart, into
strings.
when I speak of you
it is in past tense,
though you are very much alive---
it hurts less,
as my mind rubs against
my heart,
striking a melancholy song:
shuvi, shuvi,
v'nechezeh bach!"
---return, return,
let us gaze at you!

The moon over Rio
is upside down for someone who's only
ever given it thought from New England,
so while in Rio
I hang myself upside down
like a perching fruit bat
before it goes on its nightly
raid of Senhora de Andrade's hummingbird feeder.

I hang myself upside down
to see the moon as I'm used to it
and the blood flows to my head
accompanied by Gal Costa
and I right myself
return to  my senses
and hope that the local kilo restaurant
is still serving, otherwise
it's hummingbird nectar tonight.

The angel of death wears a MAGA hat
And commends the work
Of his marketing and rebranding director
As they synchronize
Their Apple Watches to close
The circles of hell.
The charnel house market is about to boom and
He’ll offer the best capacity at top dollar prices
He’ll pocket the profits and stiff the contractors unless they’re stiffs already.
Even the angel of death might have an ethical quandry with this.
Our differences fade at the cemetery gate
Where we’re being processed like bottles at a redemption center
Where It means nothing unless he can pocket the deposits
And crow about his ratings
about how he’s the best
And if you look for salvation behind an artificial tan
You might as well be dead already
Like the space behind those eyes.

Let us sleep
like the staircase
that once led up to the Temple Mount
no longer able to carry pious feet to prayer,
but the well experienced cracks
over which they once walked
expose the heavy burden
of well worn memories
under which we now slumber.

Sunrise from Masada.
The view from the casemate wall
of Silva's camp below.
Shadowy ghosts
are cast and scattered
and given voice as the wind
shouts through the buildings ruins
L'-he-rut Zi-yon
and there is no reply.
Only the songs of the Tristramit
who mimic the voices
of every child martyred here, singing:
*Shalom al Ziyon, Shalom al Ziyon"
and there is no reply,
only the dreams of the interrupted
and the disturbed peace
of excavated ruins.

There was a time when I would've dutifully
left a note to my mother
pinned to the chest of my corpse swinging in the bathroom.

Then there was a time when I
wouldn't have left a note,
and finally there came a time
when I wouldn't have hanged myself.

There isn't much left.
That's the way it is sometimes.
You plan and plan
for the day
when there won't be any,
and yet you're still surprised
when there isn't much left
in the end.

My days are not like seven fat cows
or seven skinny ones.
My days are like veal.
They're slaughtered young,
and at night I feast upon them.

Some nights I can sleep contentedly afterwards..
And others,
I lay awake unable to dream at all.

Guilt keeps me awake.
I've become a kosher butcher of time!
Often my own.

That's the way it is sometimes.
There isn't much left.
So I plan and plan
trying to postpone the day
when there won't be any.

Given the chance
We would all help George to breathe

And Ahmaud to complete his run
And leaving a bird watcher to bird watch

In the hope that he sees that rarest sighting
That still remains to be seen,

A life uninterrupted
where he doesn’t have to be concerned about his next breath

or the weight of one-sided history
Bearing down on his neck,

Or a virus
Filling his lungs with poison

A cytokine storm of oppression
Cutting life spans short

Leaving us without viable treatment,
As It’s stated matter of factly  

“we might have to live with this for the foreseeable future”,
And four hundred years on

there’s still no vaccine  
For separate and unequal treatment

In an injustice system
That’s become genocide ad seriatim?

after Yona Wallach (1944-1985)


Let's have it!
I came for the show!
Strip the Torah
to its essence
where not one word can hide
caress it with your Yad
singing in a lovers voice
an ancient burlesque
and when it's done and dressed again
parade it dancing through the congregation
a fitting encore
to a fine performance
as we almost fall over each other
to touch it
slipping spiritual dollars into its belt
the temperatures rising
like a finished prayer
that even makes the Malachim sweat
in their heavenly heights.

Shouldn't he and his minions
all be referred to
as "afterbirthers" now?