it’s a planet of limitless horror
governments massacring their own populace
neighboring tribes bombing each other to oblivion
school shootings inspiring other school shootings
and on top of all that
italian restaurants and wine
are overpriced and unashamed
someone had to say it

there's only one way to be right
but so many ways to be wrong
you have a lot of freedom
it's entertaining
as long as you keep it to yourself
no repercussions
keeping your mouth shut rules
and if you overcome adversity
you can drink to your great victory
your strength, skill and awesomeness
as long as you don't broadcast it
everyone has a heavy load
everyone's job is a pain in the ***
everyone has to get through the day
nobody wants to hear from you
"that whiner, he thinks he's god's gift"
well maybe you are
you're not a whiner, you're a winner
you can step to your own parade
in silent celebration

another day of israel
digging its own grave
their strategy of dead kids
is a real winner
of course
hamas keeps insisting
it wants to wipe out israel
a handy excuse
for more dead kids

we make plenty of mistakes in our belief
intellectually we know these things are not true
but a deeper part of our brain is certain they are
we’re going to live forever
we won’t
we’re the same person we were when we were young
we’re not
our employer gives a **** about us
he don’t
our social media activity counts for something
not in the least
the president is more important than the first grade teacher
nope
he’s just some ******* who won the lottery
all these certainties swirling in our brain
gently nudging us over cliffs of absurdity

"you are what you pretend to be"
works
because you are not you
"you" are a suit of clothes
that may fit just fine
but you can slip out of it
and as you get older
you might grow out of it
the good news is
you can put on another suit
which might fit just as well
or better

an optimist calls this a sunny sunday morning
coffee, cats, colson whitehead’s latest
a pessimist ruminates on gaza
the ukraine, sudan, republicans

we older american jews relate to israel
we were indoctrinated as kids
israel good, nazis bad
israel good, arabs bad
why would those bad arabs attack israel?
the palestinan problem is that they existed
before israel, unless you go back ten million years
and they’re still here to get pounded
israel doesn’t make it easy on the jews either
it’s so insistent on being a jewish state
that saying anti-zionism is not anti-semitism
does not compute
we’re gonna get smashed in righteous fury for eons
for this particular genocidal moment
like we need a new target on our backs
it’s like learning your uncle is a serial killer
you make excuses
you remember his good side
and there was plenty of good
but that dang serial killing…