"mitzvah" poems
left my phone unlocked
on the taxi’s back seat,
won't be the last time
called it a few times
finally, the driver picked up
he had a fare immediately after mine,
and was now headed way downtown,
and would call later
when fate returned him nearer my office
and so it came to pass,
very shortly thereafter,
we met on the street,
he rolled down the window
and with the greatest smile of pleasure,
as if he had won the lottery
beaming,
handed me my phone
I had two $20's to cover any expense he might have incurred,
neatly folded in my hand
and offered it right up, right away;
but the driver repeatedly pushed my hand away
as I insisted,
saying:
*"No sir, no no, not necessary!
Allah sent me a fare
that took me soon back close to you, so,
no loss of time did I suffer,
so your offer is kindly unnecessary!"*
to which I replied,
*"exactly!
Allah sent you to me
so I could reward you!"*
and with an equally, beaming smile I continued,
*"our ride and meeting today,
together was pre-ordained it was*
Inshallah!" ^
something he could not dispute...
or my knowledge thereof and it’s
proper pronouncement,
nor
his amazement,
to disguise!
we parted ways
each believing,
each receiving,
a heavenly check plus,
each, credited with a mitzvah^^
on our
respective trip logs,
our humanly divine balance sheets,
kept by the
single
supreme taxi dispatcher
Jun 20, 2018
Jun 20, 2018 at 1:33 PM UTC
The Jewish brothers in Defiance were definitely tough.
One wanted to **** many Germans, the other to save many Jews.
The German soldiers were expendable, unmarried, unremarkable.
Each little death was very little, a little spittle in a big wind.
Fast forward to my friend's son's bar mitzvah or daughter's
coming of age ceremony. Food is abundant, the music frenetic,
the rabbi paid. Gifts generous but not obvious.
Wealth does not obviate death and we know it.
Here too we have natural leaders. Youth basketball coaches,
school principals and, again, interpreters of prayers. When
violence comes to the neighborhood they are who we'll first look to
for governance and guns. Unless have you read The Admirable
Crichton?
Boredom, boredom conflated with loneliness, may be a sign
of good luck. To live a good length or light year away from man's
bad breath, allergenic perfumes, sickening flatulence and shed hair.
But you are drawn back into the debate about perfection by your own
********
While teaching at the old city jail I have learned this: only meditation
upon the periodic table can save your soul. From itself.
Imagining the world without the self will make you whole.
What else is there to say. Do less until one thing's done well.
After the war the brothers started a small trucking company
in the Bronx. Grateful for such peace, the accounting
was relaxing. They thought back to how they met their wives, naked
before the bombs and bullets. How they lost and found themselves in
what happened.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 4:19 PM UTC
at 9, my father took me to confess.
i crossed myself and stepped into
the closet-like space.
"bless me, father, for I have sinned."
at 10, my mother took me to church.
baptist. southern. the pastor spit venom from his pulpit.
they taught me to fear god
and live my life through christ.
at 15, my friend took me to her synagogue.
i sat with her family as her sister
recited text from the torah.
we celebrated her bat mitzvah. held her high on a chair.
at 17, my best friend took me to mosque.
we washed our feet and dressed in tunics
and prayed towards mecca
and recited words from the koran. we were placed behind the men.
the same pattern was played,
over and over again.
swear to whatever god owned
that shrine
that you would give your life for him.
and make no mistake, because by divine reason, it is a him.
and always,
always,
always,
get down on your knees.
and pray.
i remember thinking every ********* time
that prostitutes and disciples
seemed awfully alike.
and then i thought,
"they're probably right about god being male."
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 6:58 PM UTC
When Mother Teresa
Saw the Leaning Tower Of Pisa
She Knew that Julius Caesar
Would renew her visa.
Eating curried pizza
At a bar called Mitzvah
With ex-scrooge Ebenezer
And the Mona Lisa
All three did concur
That nothing defeats
Or beats her.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 7:30 AM UTC
*It is the Sabbath, and I am pleased to fulfill this high mitzvah and lead you to Paradise. It is the Sabbath and Shekinah Queen floating over you waiting to take you. It is the Sabbath and your beautiful ******* distil in my mouth honey of your secrets.
Tent of all Mysteries is your magnificent body. Your skin is my scroll and your follicles as the letters that God wrote on your magnificente skin and your belly adorned with my kisses. Hieroglyphs are your tattoos, sphinxes puzzles, the codices of the angelic scribe, the Angel of the Face, keeper of all secrets.
Destil out the liquor of your illuminated Vergel and feeds my world, like dew dripping morning. It is the Shabbat and your river flows now from your Eden to water my spirit. I hijacks thoughts your perfume. It incense aroma of your garden.
It's the Shabbat and already prophesies thy mouth the voices of Celestial Academy, whispering in my ear your high pleasures at the apex of your ****** revealing your messiah, your hidden light, creator of all my miracles.
It is the Sabbath and your Tantra connects the earth and the heavens, as a mystic linhame fabric with your esoteric moans. It's the Shabbat and you are the my highest mitzvah, the most sacred precept.*
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 10:44 AM UTC
(09/19/11)
I was always taught that JESUS CHRIST was a Jew.
Then there is a question that I must ask of you.
If he was a Jew- did he have a bar-mitzvah?
Or was he just put on this earth
So Christianity could give birth?
At the age of twelve he sat down
with rabbi’s and teachers
For this was the way that he would reach us.
His cousin JOHN THE BAPTIST
Was baptizing people with water.
Was this the first step of GODS orders?
Questions such as these will always arise
But I know he’s always by my side.
Christianity was born on blind faith
Most get it early - while others get it late.
This blind faith is passed down from
Generation to generation
This has become our salvation.
Unlike scientist who only believe in what
Can be seen and what can be proven, they ask
How can blind faith keep one moving.
Now JESUS is but one man
Yet his face is in every land.
There is not one person in any religion
Known more than CHRIST.
It makes you think - not once but twice.
This is how fast Christianity has spread
That he is known world wide
And on blind faith we do rely.
As for GOD there is only one
And he gave us his only son.
Sep 20, 2011
Sep 20, 2011 at 9:33 PM UTC
A live oak, grey suit not moving,
“He’s dead,”
The strings inside him broke.
She loved mysteries so
That she became one.
-
Tonight, darling, to right
Wrongs and wrong rights
with zero dollars and zero cents
and bat mitzvah money.
-
Orlando was pretty well lit,
A LEGO set sunk, a paper town
That’s uglier close up – dementia,
Paper-thin, paper-frail fox-trot
All the way around to slow dance
And finally, “I. Will. Miss. Hanging. Out. With. You.”
-
Highlighting “Song of Myself” opens the door of your mind,
Not poetry, not metaphor, clues the size of my thumbnail
Couldn’t help but smile half straight edges and half ripped
Paper towns, you will come back.
-
If only I walked like I knew how to kiss
Guthrie sang to Whitman as Walt read of doors
And maps of mini-malls leading
To graffiti messages and skipping graduation to drive,
“Though life can **** it always beats the alternative.”
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 6:32 PM UTC
The things that threat me
Never seen, but my back
When they shall see
The face of Caesar
They
Are vanished
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 2:02 PM UTC
When life's not going right
Guess you could say it's going wrong
Do what it is I always do
Pick up the telephone
Dial my favorite number
They've never steered me wrong
Of course that number is
1-800-Not My Fault
In any situation
At any given time
#1 on my speed dial
Connects me directly to their line
I seem to call it often
Not giving it much thought
My fingers know just where to go
1-800-Not My Fault
Missed your anniversary?
Or the twins Bar Mitzvah?
To avoid all the yelling and crying
Do it out of love
Remember this time around
You won't be doing it for naught
So pick up the telephone
1-800-Not My Fault
Cooking in the kitchen
You set the house on fire
The one time you do laundry
You throw your wife's tight jeans in the dryer
Fired from your job a month ago
For a month you've been hiding that with lies
Just so it is you don't get caught...dial
1-800-Not My Fault
So my friend remember this number
If your ever in a jam
Just excuse yourself a moment
Dial as fast as your fingers can
Age it does not matter
Neither being a woman, child, or man
No need to be distraught
Come on now...you know the number
1-800-Not My Fault
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 10:21 AM UTC
From the moment you were born,
People crowded around you to celebrate your birth
From your first birthday,
You smacked your hand into the cake,
From your first day at school,
You looked around nervously,
From your first bat/bar mitzvah,
You couldn't chose what to wear,
From your first job,
You didn't know to act,
From your last job,
You were happy,
From your death,
People cried bitter tears,
And kept their only memories of you,
All this...
Determined who you were,
And your impact...
In this world
Apr 6, 2012
Apr 6, 2012 at 10:13 PM UTC
Lost a few pages in the book of life.. noticed,
When trying to bind it all
Lost friends to the earthly cycle,
Who were with me through sins and bar mitzvah
Lost the love of my life to eternity,
Why did I stay back, for more experience?
It’s time for me to surrender to a world of emptiness
Where I can see faces, but, can’t make out who they are
Did I lose myself in transit OR is the transit lost on me?
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 8:34 PM UTC
IN LIGHT of new technology (but mainly the failure of the old)
we the people have decided to place
a ban upon these ridiculous beliefs of
kosher music and **** food (maybe it’s the other way around?)
AND BECAUSE we are so influential and such a
bona fide group of Republicans (in which the likes you will never see again)
we’ve also decided to show mercy upon your own religion
(even though it is far less substantial than our own,
and just PROVES that you’re a terrorist)
and we'd also like to accept your nomination
for presidency
AND IN stark contrast to our earlier comments
we'd like to let your garage band play at our son’s bah mitzvah
(even though we’re a bunch of self righteous catholics)
and please, tell your sister when we said
“you’d never amount to anything”
we didn’t mean
“you'd make an awesome stripper.”
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 4:55 PM UTC
One thing I'll delight.
Poetry is challenge
Made constant.
unnerving unwordy
pilfering deposits
on surety.
there is forever an
unfound to unveil.
But only if/when
Fright is kept inside you
whilst writing or wiling
In every day.
Not fright meaning scares
Or terror mined despair.
In its stead adopt a fealty
To the unknown unknown!
To not knowing what
exactly or even a glancing
What unknown which
We
Just
Don't
Know.
So Seek Servitude
in unsolvable.
Embrace imalleable
Modern mystery.
Absolved of any certainty
completes an unintended
Courtesy.
Our lack
of knowledge
is the only solid
Peace of Knowledge
we can grasp.
To (not really) quote Biggie Smalls
you don't know what's unknown
It's a Mitzvah this thing
Our one our only blessing
Because truly this
is what compels
And Coerces
A need to create.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 5:28 PM UTC
The mailman dropped a letter in our box
for Mrs. Tovia Durkan who has not lived
at our address for forty four years
and is now buried in a small cemetery
surrounded by a black wrought
iron fence and glorious mums,
we are now the caretakers of
a letter sent to a Jewish widow
leaving us to feel responsible
to attend the Bat Mitzvah of
12-year-old Sophie Bravermann;
do we bring a gift?
Sep 13, 2016
Sep 13, 2016 at 6:25 AM UTC
Yesterday is much clearer
As the future is drawing nearer.
The histories we have rehearsed
Over time have become reversed.
It should make us very sad;
What was good has become bad.
The bad guys were the Indians
And the good guys Caucasians
And they were always right
Because they were always white.
The Red Man was a villain
Because he was an Indian;
And that was never corrected.
The name an invader selected.
These were people born here
Defending land they held dear
Because they had hunted
And were never really wanted.
The invaders called them savage
Their women okay to ravage
Because they didn’t have Jehovah
To issue them a binding mitzvah.
There were so few invaders
So at first they were persuaders.
But after putting out some feelers
They chose to become stealers.
They declared the natives sinners
And thus became the winners.
The natives hadn’t learned to read
So the invaders ignored all their needs.
The invaders were prepared to fight
To deny the natives their rights
So, the invaders created paper laws
Thus natives couldn’t tell what they saw.
Suddenly the noble savage was a crook.
The invaders gloated over what they took;
Stole native’s possessions from their hands
And declared it all as the invader’s land.
This is the Danes and Angles back when
And the story happened all over again.
But once the battle victory is scored
The native’s birthright is not restored.
The invaders cover up the tragedies
With inaccurate tales and call them history.
Jan 21, 2016
Jan 21, 2016 at 5:42 AM UTC
I miss you something terrible.
I can't go ten minutes without
thinking about you.
Painfully perusing the
Could've beens, would've beens,
should've beens.
You would have celebrated my
adulthood at my bat mitzvah.
You would have given me advice
about high school and
Navigating through love and the
weird puzzle of self identity.
You could have read my writing.
You could have appreciated the way
my taste has developed.
We could have talked horror movies:
Stephen King to Alfred Hitchcock
I think I could have talked to you
about anything.
The way I feel vastly alone and
empty
Like I'll never truly love someone.
Did you make me this way?
My family compares us a lot.
They don't compare you to anyone else.
Just me.
I miss you something terrible.
You'll never see me graduate high school.
Hell, you never saw me graduate
middle school.
You'll never help me pick out a
college
And then listen to me cry to you over
the phone when I'm scared I won't
make friends.
You'll never see me get married
To someone who I actually care
about.
My memories of you won't last
forever.
I miss you something terrible.
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 5:17 PM UTC
I've got a Bobble Head Buddha
That nods on the dash
Some guy named Gideon
Whose Bible rides in the back
Rainbow covered Rosary beads
Hang from my mirror with ease
I've got all the bases covered
As pretty as you please
Have my cassette of Hindu chants
Where I hum along
Shaved my head for Hare Krishna
In case I get it wrong
Holy water in my reservoir
So when my windshield wipers wipe
I have that added protection
Never knowing what might
A Yarmulke from a Bar Mitzvah
In the seat next to me
With a case of Watchtower in the floorboard
I pass out for free
No cigarettes or coffee
Like a good Latter Day Saint
In case Jesus comes back a third time
Who's to say that he ain't
With all my bases covered
I feel pretty safe
Guess I can now crank the engine
And start out my day
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014 at 8:11 AM UTC
Just yesterday
We were 12 years old
Plagued by acne and awkward physicality
Attempting to conquer middle school and everything that comes with it
******* too large for our scrawny figures
Pale skin
Freckles painting our faces
Yesterday we were 12
I swear we were just
Giggling about boys between slow dances at whatever bar mitzvah was that weekend
Smiling as they stared at awe at our changing bodies
Sticks blooming into carved wood
Futures as tall as we were hoping to become
Although I myself never made it past 5 foot 2
It was the promise that kept us going
The promise of straight teeth and symmetrical eyeliner
The desire to have boys' hands on our skin
Craving the rough callus against our delicate thighs
There were no cages back then
Our stomachs were filled to the rim with butterflies
Free to do as they please
We never thought twice
Only did
Immersing ourselves in adventures
Back before excitement moved to glass bottles and late nights with crowded rooms
Back when
It lived in our backyards and the mall down the street
The other day
We were 12 years old
But today I just feel old
Feel strange
Feel like I left a part of me back home
I am miles away from where I was at 12 years
But it feels so close in time
Feels like I can still look in the mirror
To find us in poorly applied makeup
In Ill fitting pants and hot topic t shirts
Neon pink accessories
I find it hard to believe
That these people have been gone for six years already
And that for the first time since meeting
They will be apart
We have been through it all
The good
The bad
The disappointing
The awkward and embarassing
All of these years in my life
Have already passed
So why do I feel like they are still stuck to my skin
Why do I feel like nothing has changed at all
I know
That change is inevitable
That time goes on no matter how many times we hit snooze
That we are older and that this is real life and we don't get to choose whether it's easy or not
That we have to face it head on
I know we're going down separate paths
But they have to connect somewhere
I know they will someday
Someday we will look back
And say
Yesterday we were 18
Where the **** did time go?
I don't know where it did
But until we find it
Let's just breathe
Take it in
Go slow.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 4:09 PM UTC
you would never say about a Kandinsky: where's
the Mondrian?
luckily we have enough information
about Goldberg's sardines,
without asking another poet (other than O'Hara)
to sniff out Billingsgate - and so too:
if Burroughs said: all writing limps behind painting
by 50 years - enough said,
hence came speedy Gonzales
with his shotgun and his canned paint...
and i know just as much as sardines in
see-through tins -
well: it was worth a joke,
someone was bound to **** into a champagne
bottle at some point, and celebrate:
in abstract - or to the point:
in concreto - ecce artifex!
at least enough
humility would be worth the same dosage -
specialisations are such:
demanding concepts as aboriginal
in anthropology -
likewise anthropological:
schizophrenics in urbanity - after all...
a concrete jungle - like any half-wit
and butt-naked in the Amazon...
applause for
comrade Gagarin and Laika -
and if Darwin wrote in
cyrilica - then it too would have been
Mohawk and Brain - salutations and applause -
and if ever in doubt:
call it versailles - to denote all forms of
luxury -
i know: versailles better hides luxury
than the hermitage -
or as King Duck could say
being a burden on the Vavel Mount -
even the Vavellian
dragon died from laughter, even though
he was given a sheep stuffed with sulphur -
and drank the Vistulla dry...
but only when King Quack was laid to rest:
and the volk - the naród said:
Katyń 1 - Smoleńsk 3...
and there was even
a composition by wojciech kilar.
so then... 50 years lagging?
disorientating? muddled, spaghetti loops?
well, as the introduction already mentions,
painters can't write - suddenly everything
has to have geometry!
any geometrical instrument
in an art's class is seen like a Sunni in Iran -
or a Buddhist, at a Bar Mitzvah:
boom-town slap-head -
choppy waters, brightly illuminated
by the polished
cranium sheen.
so why except a Mondrain from a Kandinsky
?!
what a brain-drain!
Jan 7, 2017
Jan 7, 2017 at 3:18 PM UTC
you found me
in a second hand store
on Lincoln Avenue
you bought me
for nine dollars and tax because
you thought I was a mandolin
you told Tryone, the clerk
who would sell me into slavery, your
wife always wanted one
you took me home to your
twelfth story apartment; I discovered
your wife was gone many years
but her photo on the living
room wall got to see me, and hear
your lament:
you wished you would have
found me seasons sooner--but my
strings were rusted even then
my last song played at a bar mitzvah
before your hair turned white, before
your wife's many colored regrets
you played me but once and didn't
like what I had to say--you tossed me
from your balcony to the street
I made the same flight your wife did,
landed in the same spot; yes, I suspect she was
more a disappointed music lover than you
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 6:52 PM UTC
I've got a Bobble Head Buddha
That nods on the dash
Some guy named Gideon
Whose Bible rides in the back
Rainbow covered Rosary beads
Hang from my mirror with ease
I've got all the bases covered
As pretty as you please
Have my cassette of Hindu chants
Where I hum along
Shaved my head for Hare Krishna
In case I get it wrong
Holy water in my reservoir
So when my windshield wipers wipe
I have that added protection
Never knowing what might
A Yarmulke from a Bar Mitzvah
In the seat next to me
With a case of Watchtower in the floorboard
I pass out for free
No cigarettes or coffee
Like a good Latter Day Saint
In case Jesus comes back a third time
Who's to say that he ain't
With all my bases covered
I feel pretty safe
Guess I can now crank the engine
And start out my day
Mar 3, 2019
Mar 3, 2019 at 8:24 AM UTC
Ezra Schwartz
Oct 1, 1997 — Nov 19, 2015
The dice of terror
Was cast that day
Young Ezra’s life
Was taken away
He went to Israel
For his gap year
To study at yeshiva
And volunteer
During a Mitzvah
To feed some soldiers
The van was ambushed
By Jew hating ogres
It mattered not
They knew not him
Or that his heart flowed
With Simchas Hachaim
To those you touched
You were a young Mensch
To all who knew you
Your loss is immense
Young Ezra Schwartz
I’ll never know you
For they took you away
For being a Jew
But what they don’t realize
You’re still here with us
You’re everywhere you smiled
And in everyone you touched
Nov 15, 2018
Nov 15, 2018 at 12:35 AM UTC
(With apologies to Dr. Seuss aka Theodor Seuss Geisel)
Green eggs and ham is what I pick
I like my poems un-iambic.
To much pomp and circumstance
Has me gazing quite askance.
I ask your patience Sam I am
For poetic posing I must slam.
My poetry I like to rhyme
In simple form and simple time.
And have it held with just the same
Respect and even mild acclaim.
A birthday card I shall not ****
For that to me would be a sham.
Nor baptism or bar mitzvah
I just do not have the chutzpah.
No wedding notice or get well
Poetic arrogance we must quell.
Each greeting billet I shall defend
As one of our true brethren.
Yes poetry indeed I’ll slam it
No synecdoche* or enjambment.*
I’ll have no Haibun* or Kyrielle*
No Triversen* or Villanelle*.
Is simple rhyme anymore silly
Than didactic forms we praise so shrilly?
I do not like to follow forms.
I do not like these contrived norms.
It is the freedom of poetry
that first attracted me to thee.
And why can’t all poetics be
Of an equal equality.
Perhaps it’s not the forms I hate
But the pompousness they doth dictate.
I will not stand for Seussian abuse
I relish odes to eggs chartreuse.
And so I say to thee dear Sam
My poems are happy as they am.
© Copyright 2018 Robert C. Leung
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 5:40 PM UTC
to be honest, i trully, only remember four "things"
from primary school, the names:
danielle (brown hair, freckles),
michelle (a beauty from the philippines)
& samantha (goregous curly amber
soaked hair, and a slightly chubby face,
that only added to the exfoliating effect
for an added worth's of beauty),
kerri-ann (ice-skater in later life);
let's just say i began fancying girls,
a little bit early,
having started ************ aged 8,
without *********** any *****
oh... dar she blows!
and the catholic argument!
what was the argument?
where, ***** where baby, where
foetus, what?! now you're ******* ******** on me
with your quack quack quack... quack quack...
miracle of life, fake awe stance...
you ever ****** off and felt
the pleasure from the muscles tensed, being relaxed
and no ***** coming out?
i guess that's a no then...
you "matured" until you
got a ******* of phallatio from the opposite ***
so your argument, comes from being impregnated
by a woman's ego once she did some ******
act on you... applause! encore!
more! more! more! more of these useful idiots!
oh i'll rip this church to shreds, should i even have
to die mad;
teaching these high moral stakes to children at school,
and you think? you think? there will not be
a backlash?
how about you crucify them fake
like the jews tell their children to
sing at a ******* bar mitzvah? can you
hear the songs coming from cross of 13 year olds?
******* sadists.
oh no, you ain't having the high ground again,
you had your chances... you ****** up,
start the degenerate programme
escapade; start looking for your eyes
in your loved one's lost pair of spectacles
lying somewhere in a dark alley;
just fake victorian on me once, and you'll see
what happens when later desire to expose yourself
as "modern" with a sex-tape...
what a bunch of schizoids-anti-sapiens!
Jun 6, 2017
Jun 6, 2017 at 8:10 PM UTC