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.”

On the bottom of the shoe
Overlooking all the poo

A weird figure shows on up
All this poo is from my pup

I look over to him
He looks back at me

This dog is crazy coming from me
His eyes are red with evil stares

Reminds of the scary scares
I walk away from the dog

He chases after me in the fog
I trip on a log

I'm dead


The End

To see the light of memory
reduced
to but a wisp of smoke
to hear the burning candle
at the end of its wick
extinguish itself in a hiss,
is to experience for but a moment
ancient death performing its work anew.

"I cannot see, I cannot see!"
says the soul of its diminishing
diminished light.
"Illuminate me, O God,
make me to shine like the light
in a child's eyes,
allow me to walk again
along the edge of creeping darkness,
like a carefree youth
no longer afraid of the dark.
But I'm still afraid, Oh so afraid
that if you close my eyes this once
I will not return to burn with sight again
for the fire that now fades
and hisses
is but ancient death performing its work
anew
rendering a disserve to my being
by reducing the light of memory
in the hearts of each succeeding generation."

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.

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.

Between the summer
Sky pouring rain and mosquitoes,
The pious still calling on God to provide dew.

Between the heat and flip flops,
Frogs and bugs in chorus,
Nights that arrive after bedtime.

Between the days that should never end,
And between the days that should never come,
But stay for six or seven months
With snow and cold under a grey ceiling.

Between the sweaters and flannel
Unable to resist cold's ice.
Manufactured heat cracking the skin.

Between the days of breakfast and dinner eatened in the dark.

I sit in a Sukkah on a quiet afternoon.
My fleece playful in the light breeze.
Thin clouds riding a blue sky.

A moment of living.
Autumn is the here and gone.
A moment between the warm sun and the mere light.

The room of the Sovereign's palace
In which I gladly wait.
Sorry for what is gone; in fear of what will soon arrive.

God's crown sits on a maple.
My prayer is only for today.

Until I lose my voice
and no one listens
the unsaid words of love
will accumulate
inside me,
and will appear on my face
like the flashes
from an electronic sign
whose bulbs have all blown
except for two or three
intermittently appearing
like a code
that no one but you
understands.

Until I lose my mind
with no one's help
the unthought thoughts
will accumulate
and be sacrificed
like my greatgrandfather,
an Isaac who wasn't spared.
And I, an Isaac who was,
was born under the sign of the ram,
to be sacrificed in other ways.

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?

While Abraham was binding Isaac
to Mount Moriah he was interrupted by
a knock at the door.
         "Who could this be?" he thought.
         "We don't even own a door," he cried.
So he continued binding Isaac to the
altar. Again, a knock that could make
the deaf hear. Abraham had to stop
and look for the door.
          He yelled, "Leave me alone, I'm doing
God's work!" and returned to continue
the akedah. And again a knock interrupted
him, and again, and again---Abraham
did not know what to do, whether to laugh
or to cry.
           And then he thought: "This will be
the history of my children. When we will
be doing our work or God's work there will
always come a knock at the door to interrupt
us...whether we own a door or not." And
it came to pass that the history of the Jews
is a history of interruptions.

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.