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Nat Lipstadt Sep 2013
How I Observed the Day of Atonement

If you are unfamiliar with day and its observance,
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur

In a place of perfect solitude,
No crowded synagogue within to hide,
No cantor to intercede on my behalf,
I spoke words of mine own creation
To my creator who wisely empowers me
To judge myself, for knowing, none harsher,

We two,
Old travel companions,
Upon worn grayed, adirondacke thrones,
We overlooked,
A natural prayer place,
Bay and breeze, white-clouded and sun-laced.
Only the full time inhabitants, the animals,
Grayling butterflies to match and contrast,
Eavesdropping on our Greek dialogos, in this,
Palace of Perfect Solitude.

Amiable did we chat,
I of family, this and that.

He, wearied from recent travel,
To Syria and India,
Was glad for a day off,
For he had little to do,
But wait for twilight,
To then close the books.

For us no formality, easy the going,
No prosecutor no defender in residence,
For we exchange these roles intermittently,
The incriminatory, the penance, all deeds displayed,
No adult games of winking eyes, and
Hidden heart, secret chambers,
Rabbinical or angelic intercession.

He does so love his Bach,
Adagio on strings,
My soothing gift to him,
This music more than divine.

He returned this courtesy.

Warming sun to expose my chest,
Cooling genteel breeze offsetting,
The bay emptied of wayfaring skiffs and yachts.

A cooling beverage proffered,
But sighing, he said that he had yet to find
A beverage that his kind of thirst could slake.
For his eyes, tho shining, did not effervesce,
As when we shared this day in years past.

Too much killing, this year,
It tires me so to tabulate human excess,
Spoke not a word, for my critique would
Comfort him less, if at all.

Thanks for Kol Nidre, he plainted,
So I too can disavow,
The best intended oaths I took and take,
For each year, I fail more than the year before.

If only I could sit with each,
As I do with you,
Where what needs saying,
Is said, understood, undisguised as praying.

A schooner to the dock did appear,
For him it attended, for him, it waited,
Sails, both black and white.

He stood to depart, my arms-grasped, taken, he graphing,
Measuring my fortitude, my strengths, my divinity.

I do so love this day in your company.
I shall sit with you again one year on,
Bach sweet when next we meet, please.

Soft spoke, as almost I should not hear,
Your time is nigh, no thing I create is forever.
He spoke with such sadness,
For well I knew, the intent, his meaning.

He, for-himself, saddened, for he loved
Sitting  beside me in this manner,
Since my inception, never deception,

Only He resting easy, when he atoned before me,
And I gave him his absolution conditional,
As he gave me,
mine
September  2013
Ken Pepiton Mar 23
Diametric opposites, polarized,
me assured,
I am

at this point,
on this given day
in these taken chances

using my time just fine,

to breathe,
and find my bearings,

things assisting painless turnings,

near perfect spheres, bearings,
in this same race, each have
being same round and round

behavior, thinking between letters,
letting the rivers
of white
in justified
machine set
type leave impressions
of meandering,

I have a sister lost
in dementia, me and
her, we have a marvelously rare history.

She became
to be come quite old, and happy enough,

some old pains, quite old, local shames and such.

Pain at personal scale, old.

Told. For thinking about old mindform we wore
uniformly joining
by invitation any weform reforming

after that atom bomb blew our mind's
and religions hell's
was apoppin', bells was a rangin' rage,
rage against,

the very mechanics of mental advancement.

Mental agreement, mind join agreement,

binding by my back ups in the may be book,
whither any idle word uttered
in conscience confident
all cons are gamers
with science
used as ware
under tortuous line
by line life's values re-exams
- so, once examined,
- then what, Socrates?

the plight
of the navigators
on Life's trial
of those dabar logos

whatsoever we agree,
any we we form, as such
weforms agree
to begin
to make a way, such as

lets any
with the tech, translate
with some hand jive,
letters writ
in mud, since Enheduanna had an influence,
letting ready readers write esoterica,
worth, cost, price,

coded clay tables, writ
in plain text, secure, safe, sound.

Your value lies in knowing the code.

-worth, cost, price, reason - one up

Reading the runes
per uses of rue, in rue the day,
Kairos came into rhetoric class, as warez
laughter
after pain, not
at pain, hoh-eee, here
woe, was so woeful just a while ago
freeverse universe uniformly recognized, here

per usage ritual usual
occupation, aging grace ag on

push me now,
ask me how

I came
to know, okeh, enough,
dabar
to say inspire is spirits, pluralable peaceably so

slow breathe, pearl diver mind,
slow think, thunk,
sunken

thens
whens
those
there
they the others
whens
thens

Zappa, with no acid, just was aware
informing any with an ear, hear,

you are the other people, too.

Yeh.
So.
Take a measure, think a thought through, then remember, there are others.
We make peace when we take time to think at ink speed. Read at any speed,
Ken Pepiton Oct 2022
There's a warrior Robin, I do
not remember, I would, I do
remember lines
from movies,
from long ago, seems, I'm something of a latchkey kid,
first generation with television,
however, with TV allusions, legal as Donne.

and I got Bub, in My Three Sons, old, with all my wits,
and more, older and wiser, I say to my friends, yada,
you know, you know,
that's a burden in itself. All wrapped up for Christmas,
what a gift,
the pain, all worth the whole, total pain involved
in growing old and otherwise, in terms considered
magic,
as magic is an art, to tell a truth once, that
is easy,
twice, not cliché, you know, the cultural humor,
bher with us,
we exist,
voices, in the head, the fullness, si, the godhead,
embodied, did
that happen to you is a different question than
did that not happen to you, you comprehend, you

get
it, getting is, being is, and getting, being gotten, is.

Essential. Al re al ized. Simple enough, not, too,
Sublime,

seems asking too much, a million lines, you read,
this is flowing, funny, dialogos dialectic, neither
mean much dia, means through, piercing, passing

logos is just all we ever think or ask, before we think to.
Lectic, lecture. Elect to ask a friend, I dial my AI,
hey, I wanna be a gazzilionaire,
and your my phoney friend, AL
laughs, misspells itself in untter actual- ize on TV,
people believe, AI Got the answer, feed me
old Jeopardy questions, topped with Melvin Bragg,
and his guests
at BBC 4, In Our Time, the whole trip… with these folks,
and we never knew we knew such things,
gifts to all our children, learn to not have enemies,
really, let them have their hate. We won,
our bits past.

Fini. For now.

And that was live from the Jeopardy Memory Awards,
live from the Del Webb Sun City near you, digitally.
Was it fun, That's all, the whole truth, learning it, living so long... you wonder

— The End —