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judy smith Dec 2015
In every tribe and culture, a wedding is cause for a celebration. And all of those celebrations involve some degree of negotiation among the couple, their families, their cultures and their traditions to make the experience meaningful and powerful for everyone.

Rabbi Adam Greenwald, director of the Miller Introduction to Judaism program at American Jewish University, said when it comes to Jewish nuptials, even born-Jews will have differences. Is one a secular Zionist and the other Modern Orthodox? Reform and Conservadox? The combinations seem endless.

But, for Jews by Choice, there is the added wrinkle of following Jewish practice while making sure beloved non-Jewish family and friends feel included.

When Jazmine Green, who went through the Miller program, and Jeremy Aluma started planning their Jewish wedding, Jazmine’s Catholic mother revealed that she had always dreamed of watching Jazmine’s father walk their daughter down the aisle. The Jewish practice of having both the bride’s parents walk her to the chuppah and remain there with the groom and his family throughout the ceremony was unfamiliar and she resisted it.

Greenwald, who each year officiates at the weddings of 15 to 20 couples in which one person is a Jew by Choice, often meets with non-Jewish families early in the preparation process to talk through these issues and answer questions. He recognizes that, for some parents, there is real sadness when a child chooses a different faith.

“I try to honor those complex emotions and assure them I only want to help create a special, meaningful day for everyone,” he said.

He suggests couples create booklets to explain Jewish terms for attendees who may not be familiar with them and that they make sure the officiating rabbi offers a few sentences of context before each stage of the wedding. These can range from a word about the Sheva Brachot, or Seven Blessings, to explaining to a Christian family that a traditional ketubah is written in Aramaic, the language spoken during the time of Jesus, as Rabbi Anne Brener, professor at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California, has done.

Of course, the wedding itself is not a classroom. Jazmine and Jeremy Aluma kept their printed program informal and friendly with questions such as, “What’s up with the circling?” Their explanation of the ketubah concluded, “It also puts a monetary value on Jazmine’s head so she can hold it over Jeremy for the rest of their lives.” About the glass-smashing, they wrote, “If you’re a Jew, you know that as a people, we’ve overcome adversity and make up a thriving global community. Being torn apart encourages us to grow and gives us the opportunity to come back stronger and more resilient than before. We break a glass as a symbol of this natural process.”

Des Khoury, another student of Greenwald’s, and Moshe Netter found a way to recognize many of their families’ traditions in their ceremony and afterward. They were married by Moshe’s father, Rabbi Perry Netter, who explained to the guests that the chuppah, which symbolized the house Des and Moshe were creating, was open on all sides to indicate that everyone was welcome.

Des is a first-generation American. Her father is Lebanese-Egyptian and her mother Armenian; her family’s faith tradition is Catholic. Her wedding program included ways to express congratulations in Hebrew, English, French, Arabic and Armenian. And after the ceremony, Des and Moshe emerged from yichud, or their moment alone, to the horah, followed by an Armenian song and folk dance, and then an Arabic tune. By that time, she said, everyone was dancing.

The material of the chuppah itself can be inclusive. Brener said she once officiated at a wedding beneath traditional Ecuadorian fabric brought to Los Angeles by the groom’s Catholic family.

Music, explanations and words of welcome are nice, but when it comes to actual participation by non-Jews, every officiating rabbi will have his or her own halachic opinion. Because the marriage liturgy itself can be completed in about 10 minutes, many feel there’s room to add appropriate ritual. The mothers of Des and Moshe, for example, lit a unity candle under their children’s chuppah.

Jessica Emerson McCormick, who was born into a Jewish family, researched clan tartans before her marriage to Patrick McCormick, whose Catholic family is Scotch-Irish. Jessica and her mother found a festive blue, red and yellow pattern, and had it woven into a length of cloth and made into a custom tallit for Patrick, as well as special kippot for him and his father to wear at the wedding.

Along with that plaid tallit, Jessica and Patrick’s ceremony included several rabbi friends reading the traditional Seven Blessings in Hebrew, followed by members of Patrick’s family reading English translations. Both of Jessica’s children from a previous marriage were on the bimah, and her son wrote and read his own interpretation of the seventh blessing.

Rabbi Susan Goldberg at Wilshire Boulevard Temple said having non-Jews read translations of the Sheva Brachot is “a nice way to include friends and family in the ceremony.”

Because all translation is a kind of interpretation, Greenwald said he also approves of participants riffing on the basic idea of a blessing to create something that especially speaks to the couple. He finds that the needs of the couple can get lost while they’re making sure everyone else is happy, and sees one of his jobs as helping them stay focused on what they need, how they can be kind and compassionate, but still have the wedding they desire.

“The most important thing,” he said, “is that the couple under the chuppah have a powerful, meaningful experience of commitment.”

Because the wedding day marks a transition to what Jewish tradition sees as a new life, many rabbis encourage couples to go to the mikveh before the ceremony. Often for Jews by Choice, it’s their first visit since their conversion and a chance to reflect on how much has changed since then.

It wasn’t clear at first that Patrick would choose to become Jewish. When he did decide, Jessica said, his family was supportive. Like the families of the other Jews by Choice interviewed for this article, his parents were happy that he had chosen to include religion in his life.

Des, who said she spent years searching for a spiritual practice that felt right to her, also found her parents accepting. “To them, it’s all prayer and God. They’ve even started looking forward to invitations to Shabbat dinner.”

Jazmine’s mother, too, witnessed her daughter’s spiritual seeking and was glad that she found a place that felt like home. In recognition of that, she even gave up her front-row seat and walked with her husband and daughter to take her place under the unfamiliar chuppah.

The officiating rabbi, Ari Lucas of Temple Beth Am, spoke to Jazmine and Jeremy about coming together with the support of their community. He reminded the guests that they were there not just to witness. Together, this mix of family and friends, cultures, languages and traditions would help — and go on helping — the couple begin their new life together.

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses
Were on  568 a. C., a gentleman who was passing by Magdala tower met and fell from his horse, he approached one of the famous Canaanite, children of Migdal and Afad. One said his name Sherom and other Moshe. The gentleman asked them to tell you about the story of a tower and supernatural properties. Sherom and Moshe smiled, beginning to narrate the popular version ...:

Sherom speaks ..."Once upon a time a tower that had many steps that anyone who enter feel one dizzying air, and would never come up to his last cell; it seemed the very wall of china endless wanting to arrive. She was jealous all night passers Magdala, ancient city of Palestine; Well, she was so high that resembled a tree to be an ant, and why the song that emanates from his high-rise building always orientated sweets steps that fear capsize and fall into the hands of an evil villain.

They flee ye fearful, as the ant when I looked at the tower, thought he walked toward her and so hurried his steps. Miriam was not the case, every night had to work through the dark alleys like hammers on the stones of a mysterious sculptor; strong sounded by the Siroco. Her walking with her soft feet, synchronized with the hammer sirocco, so it would be easy prey, --- At the moment, Hurián distracted a wild ... birds, --- and then continues Moshe ... :
Moshe ...: The mayor watched from near the tower, trying to figure out ... What did or hiding the backwater of her eyebrows ...? . And so, everyone would wonder that observe something similar....

still a sad day his father dies and is subject to funeral expenses, which luckily managed Míriam; every night emancipating the thirst of caravanners coming on route from Syria to the tavern Kvish Gadol. Here, they were giving their friends the final toast to his leg, then close the business and incorporated into the gutter furnaces buried lands. That same afternoon, before the massive help of their neighbors, basked crack open the stalled Afad time with smiles cover its arid cot and abandoned.

Nor they spent more than three days, when Míriam Rishon Lezion part in convoy, carrying by destination the sea. Sada stayed home Elijah; the spouse of his sister Hiram. The Mediterranean Sea front blew his hair; brown them stuck to your skin as auguring stay long.

Your face and his skin seemed toasted desert landscapes, which were mixed with the air and water. Back his rueful survive in Magdala; now by the time spring glistening in majestic glory stay near the coast. Jamal sleep at home, and then give their rich fruits contacts to work and pay the caravaneer Jamal, for their generous service.
Sherom stutters to continue, relax and continuous..:
Sherom ..: A cloudy afternoon when she walked down the beach, she found the dress of a man, she then watched a bather distinguished between horizontal nebulae waters. He descended from the sparkling water blocking the sun with his back, leaving some summer rays eyes walk the circular craters Míriam. She bent her back to her face left free, so you could see some sadness Jofat large tonnage carried her back...

Jofat ...How many times I'll see, if only today I just...?
Míriam grabs a branch of soil and writes ... Magdala...
Jofat ..: Hence you come!
Miriam..: This is what you see ...!
Jofat..: From the high tower, architecture brilliants eyes and sovereign Semitic structure ...

He took some water and washed his hands of Miriam, she tight her throat and muttered short sentences from a song of the earth; the sun suspended in the air kept the closest shade to protect the Migdal in your heart with its long silhouette, and sleeping in her skirt pocket. And so steep on his feet shackled with Jofat sea could be seen on certain days of the month, some of them not greet, but the events of each light would smoothness to the ways of Rishon le Zion.

Miriam worked hard so that one day could return. Luck was for Jamal, since their trade with Syria, Egypt and Persia as plenty of fortune, even Miriam, as a reward for their effectiveness powdered received from his hands, a radiant psaltery; which would occupy the glazing bars rubbing singing, as if he were to do with laggard itinerant sheep and dromedaries, waiting for an order. His singing is heard near the tower at night, pretending to be huge flows.

Moshe continuous ...:
Moshe ..: In Palmahim the surrender time genuflecting Miriam, going to the heights of the tower. It was so high that other two were built in the absence of the most beautiful image of Miriam!
In Palmahim with two children playing Miriam, nodding tired smiles to delight them with your company. Later, Jamal calls and tells them they boarded the wagon to go to Magdala, as the weather worsened giving sparkling  drops from the dark heaven. She takes children on his back and carries, while a voice call...
Jofat ..."Miriam ... human silhouette Miriam you lashed out in my consciousness stems filled with shattered by the voices of your tower, instead of spittle, threw on me ... sand ..."
Miriam ..: How not understand ... Already I go, Jamal comes next week, she goes with him to Magdala, Goodbye ...?!

Sherom follow  ...:
Sherom ...: On the outskirts of the village, standing water get across quartz effects mirrors, together with scattered clouds that were separated from the elderly seeking true face having the concave dome, munificent joy of receiving the source of the roof on abdomens lichens Migdal Cemetery.

Phandle to the cemetery to see his father, sitting on long solar gloomy. From a snowy mountain peak bravely he attaches to his return, his spirit, part of the sleeping immaterial life; her daughter resting under his feet, returning to his waking body, from her home. This sees abandoned, comes directly addressing the courtyard, there is a tendency and sleeps the days he was not.
Miriam ...(In the dream) ... "Father yet I have you gone, sometimes you hear me come at night, slept more I thought you were not and you just saw it with my neighbors put your white shroud for your rest...
In the tour, kisses the earth and see the tower, climb the steep rocks without spilling any of his ancestors, in the cold stones seemed to portray their faces doubt. Heavy rocks taken from Migdal, from their own ancestors, as if each stone should appear the illusion of taking the petrified intra bodies. Reaches the top, and a gale brought Galilee praise in his voice came ... then interrupted a manly voice ... "From here started the silent sound that opened my ears to want your divine fire, as they came from Galilee, went to fetch a big challenge to Palmahim ... astral and spoke Jofat dominated by the silhouette of Míriam "

Then woman of Magdala returned where his family, with his tower that never stopped jealous of her, because it was so high ... that everywhere is watching him...
And thus the mayor twin towers built to accompany her and Jamal gave him work to generate music and accompany him in his last days with the burning heat on his forehead. Provided, Miriam take charge of protecting children with high structure, similar in nobility Miriam attentions.
THE SECOND PART
Michael R Burch May 2020
Existence
by Fadwa Tuqan the "Poet of Palestine"
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In my solitary life, I was a lost question;
in the encompassing darkness,
my answer lay concealed.

You were a bright new star
revealed by fate,
radiating light from the fathomless darkness.

The other stars rotated around you
—once, twice —
until I perceived
your unique radiance.

Then the bleak blackness broke
And in the twin tremors
of our entwined hands
I had found my missing answer.

Oh you! Oh you intimate, yet distant!
Don't you remember the coalescence
Of your spirit in flames?
Of my universe with yours?
Of the two poets?
Despite our great distance,
Existence unites us.

Keywords/Tags: Fadwa Tuqan, Palestine, Palestinian, Arabic, translation, existence, love, darkness, star, stars, orbit, radiance



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink meltingly into her fecund soil, to vanish ...
only to spring forth like a flower
brightening the play of my countrymen's children.

Enough for me to remain
in my native soil's embrace,
to be as close as a handful of dirt,
a sprig of grass,
a wildflower.

Published by Palestine Today, Free Journal and Lokesh Tripathi



Nothing Remains
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight, we’re together,
but tomorrow you'll be hidden from me
thanks to life’s cruelty.

The seas will separate us ...
Oh!—Oh!—If I could only see you!
But I'll never know
where your steps led you,
which routes you took,
or to what unknown destinations
your feet were compelled.

You will depart and the thief of hearts,
the denier of beauty,
will rob us of all that's dear to us,
will steal this happiness,
leaving our hands empty.

Tomorrow at dawn you'll vanish like a phantom,
dissipating into a delicate mist
dissolving quickly in the summer sun.

Your scent—your scent!—contains the essence of life,
filling my heart
as the earth gulps up the lifegiving rain.

I will miss you like the fragrance of trees
when you leave tomorrow,
and nothing remains.

Just as everything beautiful and all that's dear to us
is lost—lost!—and nothing remains.

Published by This Week in Palestine and Hypercritic (read in Arabic by Souad Maddahi with my translation as a reference)



Labor Pains
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the wind wafts pollen through ruined fields and homes.
The earth shivers with love, with the agony of giving birth,
while the Invader spreads stories of submission and surrender.

O, Arab Aurora!

Tell the Usurper: childbirth’s a force beyond his ken
because a mother’s wracked body reveals a rent that inaugurates life,
a crack through which light dawns in an instant
as the blood’s rose blooms in the wound.



Hamza
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hamza was one of my hometown’s ordinary men
who did manual labor for bread.

When I saw him recently,
the land still wore its mourning dress in the solemn windless silence
and I felt defeated.

But Hamza-the-unextraordinary said:
“Sister, our land’s throbbing heart never ceases to pound,
and it perseveres, enduring the unendurable, keeping the secrets of mounds and wombs.
This land sprouting cactus spikes and palms also births freedom-fighters.
Thus our land, my sister, is our mother!”

Days passed and Hamza was nowhere to be seen,
but I felt the land’s belly heaving in pain.
At sixty-five Hamza’s a heavy burden on her back.

“Burn down his house!”
some commandant screamed,
“and slap his son in a prison cell!”

As our town’s military ruler later explained
this was necessary for law and order,
that is, an act of love, for peace!

Armed soldiers surrounded Hamza’s house;
the coiled serpent completed its circle.

The bang at his door came with an ultimatum:
“Evacuate, **** it!'
So generous with their time, they said:
“You can have an hour, yes!”

Hamza threw open a window.
Face-to-face with the blazing sun, he yelled defiantly:
“Here in this house I and my children will live and die, for Palestine!”
Hamza's voice echoed over the hemorrhaging silence.

An hour later, with impeccable timing, Hanza’s house came crashing down
as its rooms were blown sky-high and its bricks and mortar burst,
till everything settled, burying a lifetime’s memories of labor, tears, and happier times.

Yesterday I saw Hamza
walking down one of our town’s streets ...
Hamza-the-unextraordinary man who remained as he always was:
unshakable in his determination.

My translation follows one by Azfar Hussain and borrows a word here, a phrase there.



Biography of Fadwa Tuqan (aka Touqan or Toukan)

Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), called the "Grande Dame of Palestinian letters," is also known as "The Poet of Palestine." She is generally considered to be one of the very best contemporary Arab poets. Palestine’s national poet, Mahmoud Darwish, named her “the mother of Palestinian poetry.”

Fadwa Tuqan was born into an affluent, literary family in Nablus in 1917. Her brother Ibrahim Tuqan was the most famous Palestinian poet of his day. She studied English literature at Oxford University and won several international literary prizes.

Tuqan began writing in traditional forms, but later became a pioneer of Arabic free verse. Her work often deals with feminine explorations of love and social protest.

After the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of 1948 she began to write about Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. Then, after the Six Day War of 1967, she also began writing patriotic poems.

Her autobiography "Difficult Journey―Mountainous Journey" was translated into English in 1990. Tuqan received the International Poetry Award, the Jerusalem Award for Culture and Arts and the United Arab Emirates Award, the latter two both in 1990. She also received the Honorary Palestine prize for poetry in 1996. She was the subject of a documentary film directed by novelist Liana Bader in 1999.

Tuqan died on December 12, 2003 during the height of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, while her hometown of Nablus was under siege. Her poem "Wahsha: Moustalhama min Qanoon al Jathibiya" ("Longing: Inspired by the Law of Gravity") was one of the last poems she penned, while largely bedridden.

Tuqan is widely considered to be a symbol of the Palestinian cause and is "one of the most distinguished figures of modern Arabic literature."

In his obituary for "The Guardian," Lawrence Joffe wrote: "The Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan, who has died aged 86, forcefully expressed a nation's sense of loss and defiance. Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general, likened reading one of Tuqan's poems to facing 20 enemy commandos." In her poem "Martyrs Of The Intifada," Tuqan wrote of young stone-throwers:

They died standing, blazing on the road
Shining like stars, their lips pressed to the lips of life
They stood up in the face of death
Then disappeared like the sun.

Yet the true power of her words derived not from warlike imagery, but from their affirmation of Palestinian identity and the dream of return.

"Her poetry reflected the pain, loss, and anger of the Nakba, the experience of fleeing war and living as a refugee, and the courageous aspirations of the Palestinians to nationhood and return to their homeland. She also wrote about resistance to Israel’s injustices and life under Israeli military occupation, especially after Nablus fell to Israeli forces in 1967, heralding Israel’s long-term occupation of the West Bank, which remains to this day." - Zeina Azzam
The Apocalypse is unleashed in the contiguity of Patmia, seeing the two antlers that protruded from his forehead emerge from the front of Moshe, shining on the Aegean Sea, and submerging to great depth. The circles on the sun were importuned with dissimilar spherical forms between the same axis of the shank that united it on the matron, who was dependent on the target. So when leaving the Water the Leviathan could not resist the attacks of the antlers, Wonthelimar appeared with his Kératas similar to that of Moshe as he was hanging with the ibics rings of him. The stratagem was to hinder the invasion of the Persians who were already on their way, just as they yearned for the work of Saint John the Apostle to ****** him from Patmian land in the concelebration of the child Messiah. The need arose to warn Vernarth that he was already in the Bay of Skalá, and it would allow him to bend his efforts. and to be more prepared with the terrifying scenes that the idolaters of Darius III intended, knowing that the force of Leviathan had been fused with them.

There were countless ships of Darius III, resurrected by this incoherent feat when the reasoning for the tasks they brought by taking revenge against Vernarth and Alexander the Great, who until now were with their demiurges reviewing the astrology of the twelve tribes that hung from the constellation that was it posed in the aquarium house, very extensive covering the hazy night before the Battle of Patmia, under the submitology that could be a spectroscopic binary. Where the light Zohar would carry the seven veils of the night to shine them in the spells that Vernarth and Alexander the Great conceived praying together with Saint John the Apostle, from where Orion also lined up towards the emotionality of the Animalia with this affront, disenchanting with all the crudeness of the pagan rites exercised by the Persians to avoid wandering in Patmian land, adverse to what they could not exercise in Arbela. There were seven hours of waiting which was equivalent to seven minutes in the decision-making process to rob the aggressors by assault. Considering it from the constellation of the Dragon or twelve tribes that were programmed with Vernarth in the twentieth of Aquarius, for later in the late one. The numerical value will be 4,561,092, which is the value of the gestation numeral of this retaliation when the apocalypse began in this celestial military grievance between two states. Vernarth created the 38 chapters up to this instance of 4,561,092, the sum of all the numbers indicated 27 from 4 to 2, making the circular from 4 to 2 and vice versa, restarting at zero which would be 24 being the circular of 42 of the origin of the lid in Patmia, which would lead to the illumination of the heavens 24 times 42 = 1,008 until the prophecy of Alikantus of this work, on page 108, indicating 24 x 37 = 888, representing the triplicity of the infinite omega-three times vertical in the sails of Hestia:

Prophecy VII -. "Second, Alikanto Aion, Quantum"

"Kalymnos, and his golden tetra steed Alikanto, were grazing under the metallic moon ...
he walked in his quantum ..., with his golden legs ..., in the four golden domes he was a super host being in Apoika Andros next to the villagers, commemorating the comparsas and adventures…, Heraklion next period, anniversary celebrant, bearing progeny of Kanti Cretan, with nearby cycles of the sacred fire, in the domestic and private environment of his zeal ... a hidden cult funeral ..., streets in a family home with sacred fertile women ..., pregnant totalized **** ... the longevity of productive and harvests ..., family Apoika
and next successor belligerence ..., in his funerary plexus ...
cultured predecessor ..., readable treaty and imprecation of law, subject and religion in a domestic scene, in a family civic servant ceremony.

Goddess Hestia austere, head with eight dressed sacred candles;
Olympus lacking without gods ..., the only embargo of Goddesses!
Female Hestia Domestic goddess, female stench with an oval to ovulate ...
Pritaneo, decree with the axis of political harvests ..., exchange grains to be mintedMonetary bag of Athens ... Pritaneus rising ford, rising ford ...Aion ... hesitant dart in the raid of eternity,
Perpetual Aion Alikanto ... Speak with both hands
synchronized and the tongue bent ...
stutters and swallows saliva, in six sinuses,
full of sparkling foam ..., Internal voice saying with her saying ...
what makes sense to feel and what does not turn off ...
sleeping voices in the poison of love igniting
intra-Vernarth love ..., billing the poisonous holy blood
in the methodical coupled time ..., Gaugamela with his bronze leg,
of a lost leader ... of a Gained leader!

If I had to run to rewrite retro poems Adhoc and chosen Trova,
of shy Trojan verse, I dare today if I kissed her in front of me…, Her! she would jump from the sky-hyperesthetic ..., in the inhuman to the world, Aion Celestine aurora, bleed your star in great defiance today In herself She ..., fetid condemnation of sweetness and aura in between her ... just be, same be, supported be ..., Oh ... Goddess Hestia against your leg disarmed appendix, meadow and vein braid ..., attacked by lost love and thirsty written everything tempts ..., everything wields obscurely if I take you to our Olympus ... at night loving you whole .., emptying everything with no other hand.
singing in the vine and the cleft of her intimate company, may she be exterminated ...

Love it if it were a nailed stake ..., it hurts by nailing ..., with stakes hurting ... exhausting the supra lips,  supra yours ..., the start of silica, I continue writing fully to her ... point of sword and blood made blurred, secret written maiden mythology, sword letter…, cyclamen balm made whole if I had you!

To the loves of the world, I say ..., cover your ears mushroom of boredom, your torn ears waste to hear rather than sordid to say ...
my blood kills, my blood revives! I **** my blood and I **** everyone with your blood scattered, and their ***** blood scattered ...?

Do not leave me alone until nightfall ... I only ask for holy water,
emptied from your mouth Goddess Hestia who flies with tons over me ... I only ask for a Xiphos sword with its sharp, ******, and scattered romantic blood ... to write to the wars of love that I have lost ... and the wars of love that I have conquered ... "

"... Alikanto says:" remember the Hoplite commander in Gaugamela, remember how with his head he dodged arrows so that they would not hit his body or chest "From the present moment that he falls by surrendering in his memory, he goes down to a stream and is imprisoned in the Vanitatory quagmire, he continues on his path reaching a jealous lagoon, he drinks sacred water and when he drinks again he manages to perceive the image of it in the mirror of the water of Aion… calling him from Patmos! Law that reminded his master of how he died for everyone in the world, just as the world would not let him bring more to die for him, because there was no more space ... "

Following Alikanto clenched his jaws too hard, all his incisors falling off, he asked the Gods in front of Hestia to restore them to him fifteen days before arriving at the Ekadashi on Patmos where his master would love all the lives of the world, as well as the hidden cries behind doors hiding the power of God… laughing at the flashes of irises and sighs for mummified lives that were left!

Vernarth, from Patmos, was calling him so that his eyes would look greenish like hooves of gray-green and vanadium fire, with humorous staining and with a clean predictive table in the near prediction. AlIkanto says goodbye to Kalimnos by sprinkling hyper-odoriferous chestnut flowers with Apoika in Kalimnos, loving from above, flying very close, loving everything so much that he forgot to fly. Sometimes he would fall hard but he would recover re-tried as a young steed in the womb of a mother and of a new species to be born! ending in the proportional one that would arrive at the residual that is the result of 24 by 38 = 888 of the Cirio de Hestia.

From this position the planets revolved around the brightness of Selene, linking to this numeral pattern in the zodiac house of de Reuben, 'boiling with water, which is Aquarius, who holds a vase or a cup and pours the waters of the New era. This is where Vernarth again takes the Gordian knot and throws it over the Matakis that was holding the world of both, where Saint John has to strongly support both of this tribulation, for the concepts of knowing how to cope with the parapsychological solar day of Vernarth, going back as it is with Alexander the Great 11 days before the Ekadashi, or half a month of the consecration of the phenomenon astral plane that would happen in the lands of Patmia. The Dragon's tail became spasmodic as it was unable to consecrate the agreement of the Over Being that found itself with the twinned identity in the twelve tribes when the bags of water fell on the Matakis, where the reverence would come from the departure of Reuben, and the blue-violet thekelet that perched in a mega rainbow over the roadstead of Skalá, turning the midwife's bags when she was going to give birth, carrying an infant with an ultraviolet Thekelet in the immediacy of Vernarth's Aquarium in its date of bi birth, and that of the leap-year that refers to the house of Capricorn with his beloved and faithful companion Wonthelimar, and the concomitance Simeon with Reuben, the latter being legitimately from the house of Capricorn.
Moshe's Kérata
Michael R Burch Mar 2020
Fadwa Tuqan has been called the Grand Dame of Palestinian letters and The Poet of Palestine. These are my translations of Fadwa Tuqan poems originally written in Arabic.



Enough for Me
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Enough for me to lie in the earth,
to be buried in her,
to sink meltingly into her fecund soil, to vanish ...
only to spring forth like a flower
brightening the play of my countrymen's children.

Enough for me to remain
in my native soil's embrace,
to be as close as a handful of dirt,
a sprig of grass,
a wildflower.

Published by Palestine Today, Free Journal and Lokesh Tripathi



Existence
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

In my solitary life, I was a lost question;
in the encompassing darkness,
my answer lay concealed.

You were a bright new star
revealed by fate,
radiating light from the fathomless darkness.

The other stars rotated around you
—once, twice—
until I perceived
your unique radiance.

Then the bleak blackness broke
and in the twin tremors
of our entwined hands
I had found my missing answer.

Oh you! Oh you intimate and distant!
Don't you remember the coalescence
Of our spirits in the flames?
Of my universe with yours?
Of the two poets?
Despite our great distance,
Existence unites us.

Published by This Week in Palestine, Arabic Literature (ArabLit.org) and Art-in-Society (Germany)



Nothing Remains
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight, we’re together,
but tomorrow you'll be hidden from me
thanks to life’s cruelty.

The seas will separate us ...
Oh!—Oh!—If I could only see you!
But I'll never know
where your steps led you,
which routes you took,
or to what unknown destinations
your feet were compelled.

You will depart and the thief of hearts,
the denier of beauty,
will rob us of all that's dear to us,
will steal this happiness,
leaving our hands empty.

Tomorrow at dawn you'll vanish like a phantom,
dissipating into a delicate mist
dissolving quickly in the summer sun.

Your scent—your scent!—contains the essence of life,
filling my heart
as the earth gulps up the lifegiving rain.

I will miss you like the fragrance of trees
when you leave tomorrow,
and nothing remains.

Just as everything beautiful and all that's dear to us
is lost—lost!—and nothing remains.

Published by This Week in Palestine and Hypercritic (read in Arabic by Souad Maddahi with my translation as a reference)



Labor Pains
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tonight the wind wafts pollen through ruined fields and homes.
The earth shivers with love, with the agony of giving birth,
while the Invader spreads stories of submission and surrender.

O, Arab Aurora!

Tell the Usurper: childbirth’s a force beyond his ken
because a mother’s wracked body reveals a rent that inaugurates life,
a crack through which light dawns in an instant
as the blood’s rose blooms in the wound.



Hamza
by Fadwa Tuqan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hamza was one of my hometown’s ordinary men
who did manual labor for bread.

When I saw him recently,
the land still wore its mourning dress in the solemn windless silence
and I felt defeated.

But Hamza-the-unextraordinary said:
“Sister, our land’s throbbing heart never ceases to pound,
and it perseveres, enduring the unendurable, keeping the secrets of mounds and wombs.
This land sprouting cactus spikes and palms also births freedom-fighters.
Thus our land, my sister, is our mother!”

Days passed and Hamza was nowhere to be seen,
but I felt the land’s belly heaving in pain.
At sixty-five Hamza’s a heavy burden on her back.

“Burn down his house!”
some commandant screamed,
“and slap his son in a prison cell!”

As our town’s military ruler later explained
this was necessary for law and order,
that is, an act of love, for peace!

Armed soldiers surrounded Hamza’s house;
the coiled serpent completed its circle.

The bang at his door came with an ultimatum:
“Evacuate, **** it!'
So generous with their time, they said:
“You can have an hour, yes!”

Hamza threw open a window.
Face-to-face with the blazing sun, he yelled defiantly:
“Here in this house I and my children will live and die, for Palestine!”
Hamza's voice echoed over the hemorrhaging silence.

An hour later, with impeccable timing, Hanza’s house came crashing down
as its rooms were blown sky-high and its bricks and mortar burst,
till everything settled, burying a lifetime’s memories of labor, tears, and happier times.

Yesterday I saw Hamza
walking down one of our town’s streets ...
Hamza-the-unextraordinary man who remained as he always was:
unshakable in his determination.

My translation follows one by Azfar Hussain and borrows a word here, a phrase there.



Biography of Fadwa Tuqan (aka Touqan or Toukan)

Fadwa Tuqan (1917-2003), called the "Grande Dame of Palestinian letters," is also known as "The Poet of Palestine." She is generally considered to be one of the very best contemporary Arab poets. Palestine’s national poet, Mahmoud Darwish, named her “the mother of Palestinian poetry.”

Fadwa Tuqan was born into an affluent, literary family in Nablus in 1917. Her brother Ibrahim Tuqan was the most famous Palestinian poet of his day. She studied English literature at Oxford University and won several international literary prizes.

Tuqan began writing in traditional forms, but later became a pioneer of Arabic free verse. Her work often deals with feminine explorations of love and social protest.

After the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of 1948 she began to write about Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. Then, after the Six Day War of 1967, she also began writing patriotic poems.

Her autobiography "Difficult Journey―Mountainous Journey" was translated into English in 1990. Tuqan received the International Poetry Award, the Jerusalem Award for Culture and Arts and the United Arab Emirates Award, the latter two both in 1990. She also received the Honorary Palestine prize for poetry in 1996. She was the subject of a documentary film directed by novelist Liana Bader in 1999.

Tuqan died on December 12, 2003 during the height of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, while her hometown of Nablus was under siege. Her poem "Wahsha: Moustalhama min Qanoon al Jathibiya" ("Longing: Inspired by the Law of Gravity") was one of the last poems she penned, while largely bedridden.

Tuqan is widely considered to be a symbol of the Palestinian cause and is "one of the most distinguished figures of modern Arabic literature."

In his obituary for "The Guardian," Lawrence Joffe wrote: "The Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan, who has died aged 86, forcefully expressed a nation's sense of loss and defiance. Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general, likened reading one of Tuqan's poems to facing 20 enemy commandos." In her poem "Martyrs Of The Intifada," Tuqan wrote of young stone-throwers:

They died standing, blazing on the road
Shining like stars, their lips pressed to the lips of life
They stood up in the face of death
Then disappeared like the sun.

Yet the true power of her words derived not from warlike imagery, but from their affirmation of Palestinian identity and the dream of return.

"Her poetry reflected the pain, loss, and anger of the Nakba, the experience of fleeing war and living as a refugee, and the courageous aspirations of the Palestinians to nationhood and return to their homeland. She also wrote about resistance to Israel’s injustices and life under Israeli military occupation, especially after Nablus fell to Israeli forces in 1967, heralding Israel’s long-term occupation of the West Bank, which remains to this day." - Zeina Azzam
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2016
every single time, i'm like Ezra Pound at the end of
the cantos: may god forgive what i have made...
every, single, time... people i've known had
established families, had babies...
  and here i am asking to be forgiven having written
    an arsenal of verse... and asking to be pardoned for it...
the reason why world war II happened is because
the factions of world war I looked like they were cousins...
   they were! the reason why world war I happened
is that the powers at be were cousins,
children or grandchildren of queen ant Victoria...
all about-to-be-gouged-out fish eyed...
           world war I was a truly family affair...
don't know why it happened,
and i find even less reason to remember it
other than to prescribe monarchical power
for no power but mere pomp...
             i envision world war I as the classical framework
of warfare...
        world war II spelled out guerilla... a sort of thing
that didn't allow for state-visits...
           the great form of ******, that's what i call
world war I... world war II?
         a war of proxy... the Jews were the mediated
proxy ensemble...
              and i hate the fact that i can speak these
facts, or "facts", having the historical sofa...
  when saying such facts required a testy iron maiden's
worth of comfort...
                  the husbands of England...
charles I: beheaded... charles II: froliced having a libido
                                             of a fungus...
charles III: reigned for 24h...
            William IV: yawn... wish ***** Harry had
a shot at it... and by that time David Attenborough
was sniffing daisies from the roots up...
      while Clint Eastwood lived to be
                  one-hundred-and-thirty-five: spinsters of
the spaghetti ageing rhapsody for drawing evens
or 21 in jerking-jack.
               on the question of families...
we best look tailored as mum son and uncle,
father, grandad and auntie on the canvas of
a photograph... beyond it? ****** jokes...
       but then people who'd we wish to have interact
with also own about 20 chickens, a goat
and a barn that suggests we filter potato juice
against the hay for whiskey...
          but sure, sure, it makes sense...
    by urbanising people we feel not need to commit to
******... o with that barbarian practice of
selling Bulgarian brides at the cotton-smith market...
          i mean: apes inbreed almost everyday...
you see any spastics about? must be paradoxical,
hum-hmm-hum.       and that means:
barely any questions are needed.
                       but sure... world war I has a family affair...
i'll actually applaud ****** for doing away from
the monopoly of aquarium eyed inbreds that gave
us world war I... they were ******...
             back in Russia the Tsar looked like
the Kaiser of Germany, that looked like the King of England...
                     then some Serbian terrorist lit the sparkler
and all **** broke loose...
          cousin Vlad ****** tante Anne who in turn
            ***** the prudish third in line to the English throne
Beatrice...
            it only took, one blimmin' family to usurp Europe
and engage it in world war I...
               it took the same family to create the treaty
of Versailles and instigate the populism of alter
Marxism to craft the conscript papers for world war II...
but thankle gott for the Wehrmacht uniforms...
uber cool, uber zoo, uber zex... ßteit! prudence J. Austin!
          it only took one family...
and still world war I didn't invigorate the establishment
of Israel...
                      some say that was a worthy cause...
to have established Israel...
                   it meant the Jews disappeared from Europe
and we invited the Moshe Moshe mules of Ishmael...
                    sure... the Iron Curtain disappeared,
Pope John Paul II sold the harem of Eastern Europe...
and we became engaged in a new curtain... the ninja...
or what's already apparent the fluttering guise of
the ninja... the niqab... self-explanatory, in a sense:
no need to call it a curtain.
Tanner Bryan Dec 2012
Birthdays are for nostalgia
and Kings of the desert
Like Moshe, Jesus, and Xander the Great
who came and saw and tried too hard
to mend some ever important scar
that much too late had been
left too long
to settle in the pyramid of our sleeping parts

Birthdays are for reading Hart Crane
and in his fashion, an attempt to become
indiscriminate as the wind that turns the weather vane
atop the roof where snow may fall
in an imagined winter,
lethargically covering all
in it's bitter farewell to Fall
as its grave-site is buried
by the Winter who loved it most enthralled

Birthdays are for thinking about you
The voice that remains
inside and always before the lights go out
and it's the end of my day
It's there, indiscriminate and howling
just like the wind that turns the weather vane
or the imagined winter
that only falls on my nearest window pane
in the pyramids that sleep beneath my very veins
Goes to the cemetery to see his father, sitting on long solar gloomy. From a snowy mountain peak bravely he attaches to his return, his spirit, part of the sleeping immaterial life; My daughter resting under his feet, returning to his waking body, from her home. This sees abandoned, comes directly addressing the courtyard, there is a tendency and sleeps the days he was not.
Miriam ...(In the dream) ... "Father yet I have you gone, sometimes you hear me come at night, slept more I thought you were not and you just saw it with my neighbors put your white shroud for your rest...
She Turns, kisses the earth and see the tower, climb the steep rocks without spilling any of his ancestors, in the cold stones seemed to portray their faces doubt. Heavy rocks taken from Migdal, from their own ancestors, as if each stone should appear the illusion of taking the petrified intra bodies. Reaches the top, and a gale brought Galilee praise in his voice came. Then interrupted a manly voice ... "From here started the silent sound that opened my ears to want your divine fire, as they came from Galilee, went to fetch a big challenge to Palmahim ... astral and spoke Jofat dominated by the silhouette of Miriam "
And the a woman of Magdala returned where his family, with his tower that never stopped jealous of her, because it was so high ... that everywhere is watching him... and thus the mayor twin towers built to accompany her and Jamal gave him work to generate music and accompany him in his last days with the burning heat on his forehead. Provided, Miriam take charge of covering the children with high structure, similar in nobility Miriam attentions.
Since then, would come as a faithful Jofat sent to tell what made this high tower in his heart, as if the glowing words premonition glad to Miriam. To Migdal Jofat had traveled with a caravaner, a week after Miriam left.

      Then arrived was found that was prey to night, from home to tavern and from there to the tower, where he went with his black veil, to comment to family getaways immolated in the Babylonian regime. I was telling her trapped perennial faults and virtues.
and this way Jofat tells us of his life, and that Palmahim saw her back by a circular faces that invite to help those in need.
Jofat...: What faces ... they ask me anything and not to do them living in your back ...!

Sherom and Moshe speak very distressed ... Sherom finally ends.  Sherom..: Jofat lived twenty years in Magdala Miriam beside the washing their hands as they that day at sea. She sheared his sheep and shepherding their flocks. Until one day came to the villa at night and found a body that assembled at the edge of the tower; He said fear approaching her name and sheep surrounding his body, knelt and prayed Jofat in silent, then climbed to the top floor and shouted to the wind ... "Wind will not see ... for once ... bring it." Jofat germinate saw her pale face in the sky and then disappeared falling to the mortuary ritual. To next day, the funeral fell into the strong blows striated by the Sirocco, right next to the red earth, in the rest of Afad.
    
Jofat fathered two children, one named Saul him and she Magdalena, some vicissitude by the people they lived. Jofat for many years lived in Magdala and her children went up to the lofty figure in spring to see her mother's face ... Miriam, coming down the Palmahim beach with a stick in his hand and a brown dress. Jofat behind them, saw the whole family of Migdal  live ...

Moshe and Sherom  embraced the gentleman outlaw who treated them kindly and paid them generously. The after going to their chores, returned where the Canaanites and told them he was called Hurián, son of the brother of Afad. Moments later, the colorful sky Inked his walk to the house of her father's brother. He came and saw Jofat, Magdalena and desserts Saul dined later prayed and asked the Lord, so that nothing is missing them and had a good year.

Hurian greets and sits silently beside him. Jofat takes the tools; Saul his staff for sheep and Magdalena stays at home to knead and milked the cows.  Hurian thought of taking his horse from Jordan to restart it left but a warm sea air caressed her face, staring putting their eyes on the tower.
Hurian ...: Jofat I stay ...!
Jofat approaches him and hugs him tightly, so does Saul leaving the cane. Magdalena in the window, smiled thanking above the illuminated tower.

" Although many centuries later Migdal was taken by Pompey in 63 b.C. and became a Roman province, never razed the supernatural Migdal’s  Twin Towers. Sand that a centurion and his military company entered the Migdal trying to desecrate the ancient tower; rich in precious metal objects, but jumped reddish sand in their faces. In addition, it is darkening leaving an asphyxiating atmosphere.

Few has lived with reddish sand ... Afad, which like a giant ant hills between excavates the desert mountains, throwing sand to the whimpering tower to hide her tears. So Sirocco ally with the early rain of blood, bathe the Roman heritage and sanctify the true legacy ... the soldiers and builders Migdal ...as well as The Kalebi...!.
PREMONITION  STORY ANTICIPATORY FALL TWIN TOWERS IN NEW YORK - 1997  CHANNELLING LITERATURE
Ellis Reyes Oct 2015
Gethsemane
Butterflies, fawns, the quiet trickle of a nearby stream.
Apostles argue.
Again
Some want pizza
Others teriyaki
A few want pastrami from Moshe's Deli in Nazareth

"Brothers. Time is short," said Jesus quietly,
"Let us not argue. I have brought a potato. Let us share."

The Apostles look at each other in dismay.
A potato?
What is this another f*cking parable?
They were hungry and impatient.

"Look JC," said Simon
"You're the Messiah and all, but we were hoping for something a little
more substantial."

"I bid you peace, Brother," said Jesus, covering the potato with a plain cloth.

He began the customary blessing for this type of food.
The Apostles bowed their heads respectfully.
One by one they closed their eyes in prayer
Sanctifying the simple meal that was before them.

Minutes passed
Stomachs growled
Apostles began to fidget.

Without warning Jesus shouted,
"Chabada Kedavra,"
and lifted the cloth, revealing a whole roasted chicken beneath.

The Apostles clapped their hands in delight at Jesus' latest miracle.
"Faith feeds us in many ways," said Jesus.
"Amen," said the Apostles in unison....

Completely missing
The KFC bag

That Jesus was sliding
under the table
with his sandaled foot.
I cannot forget...
אני לא יכול לשכוח

©  STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
12 Shevet 5778 / 28 January 2018
revised:
3 Iyyar 5758 / 28 April 2018
19 Iyyar 5778 / 4 May 2018
20 Iyyar 5778 / 5 May 2018
21 Iyyar 5778 / 6 May 2018

Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan' (1964):
'Forget the dead you've left, they
will not follow you'

W.G. Sebald z"l (1966):
'And so, they are ever returning to us,
the dead'

I.

the Path / derekh is silent,
a vacuum,
resonating with the
footsteps of tzaddikim, whose
teachings transcend(ed)
the Kingdom of Night...

where there was no longer
kefitzat ha'derekh
shrinking of the road
jumping the Path
teleportation.

...un die vvelt hot geshivign,
taught Reb Elie Wiesel z"l...
& the world remained silent.

not existing for themselves,
the tzaddikim speak with the
Shekhinah from their throats,
and the mar'ot johanna
visions of johanna
are witnessed by breslover
chavurot on desolation row,
murmurations of starlings
overhead.

listening to them, we survive
to walk / dorekh
the Path, with kabbalists z"l,
R. Chiyya & R. Yose,
the chevraya kadisha
the holy companions,
a derekh through the sea,

away from the energy vampyrism
& relentless phantasmagoric
cyberstalking of
the phantasmagoric Queene,
who engages in quacker
cross-contamination,
while prising her mindfully
plagiarising lips (a mirror image
of a death's-head hawk moth)
for a crucifictionist wafer:

a tax-deductible, copyright charity
deduction for ontological delusions
long after midnight,
clutching her cossetted Yehu'di
hatreds like
a perforated osculatorium,
because, שמח בחלקו.

    ****

Reb Uri Tzvi Greenberg z"l, 1923 [trans.
Michael Weingrad]:
'For so long there has been no water
in the wells. Only curses. ...& suddenly
the icons scream in Yiddish'.

II.

Light is the absence of Darkness,
to acknowledge Rav Rebecca
Newberger Goldstein.
& the holy slow train moves
(when it does)
sideways across flat earths.

consider the post-Auschwitz dilemma for
an opus dei natz'ri  who cannot grasp
the etymology:

prae / before + posterus / coming after
praeposterus / reversed, absurd.

did Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan' influence the
teachings of R. Yitzhak Luria z"l ?

III.

memories are stalking & ambuscading,
& as you said, Reb David Meltzer z"l,
'the Yehu'di in me is the ghost of me'...

& now the hourglass is invisible...

the windows of perception
to be peered into,
not out of,
as hairline fractures
develop in the retinas of narrow-ruled
yellow writing tablets masquerading
as frenetic mirrors,

never glimpsing tzefiyat ha'yeshu'ah,
the expectation of salvation.

& we are here,  
witnessing cyberian corpses
erecting three-way mirrors to their
obbligato and  mindfulness for girl
children...the mantras of a white
supremacist ****** ****** trained to
effect genocide  at a distance, his
audible hungering  for the  rapture  
of an endloesung in his drive-by
dark carnival, having no
farraginous self to say farewell to.

Lilith, the Midrash teaches, ate the
'bones' of Her enemies, but the
****** uses prayer beads as
majong ***** fired from his cap gun.

IV.

'she' stands on the bamboo porch,
thinking the lotus leaves floating by
are a reflexion of 'her' crumbling
totenkopfverbaende phantasies.

long after midnight, she shrieks to
a cyberian Mytilene, her mind so narrow,
thoughts are forced to crawl through her
fossilised ***** majora, which she identifies

as a personal luchot ha'edot, the glass
**** molded by her proboscis tongue,
as it fabricates yet another delusion
of a 1967 that never happened.

'she' turns, stepping onto an
embroidered nationalsozialist
matt,  'her'eyes a frail ambassador
of demure malice.

it is a moment such as this, when 'her'
desire of wanting to have been an
Auschwitz  Aufseherin, cannot be  
masqued  as a playful Latrodectus mactans.

ephemeral fabrications cling to 'her' --
an unbroken dance of impetuous
mirrors, as 'she' remains on the
porch, clutching 'her' 'we' aliases,

thinking, somehow, they are 'her'
aharon ha'bris...



V.

interlude / הַפסָקָה

Kafka z"l:
'I am divided from all things
by a hollow space'

Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan':
'I felt that place within, that
hollow place, where martyrs
weep, & angels play with sin'

Rav Yitzhak Luria z"l:
after tzimtzum,
the withdrawal of
'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh,
there came to be
halal ha'panui,
'the hollow space'

R. Shabbatai Sheftel ben
Akiva Horowitz z"l, 1719.
Shefa tal [Frankfurt edition]
3.5, 57b [Hebrew]:
'Before the world's bere'****,
'ayin sof withdrew into its essence,
from itself to itself within itself.
It left halal ha'panui within its
essence, in which it emanated
and created' [emended from Reb
Daniel Matt 1995]

VI.

sh'ma...'mir veln zey iberlebn, iberlebn, iberlebn'
(Lublin Chassidim z"l, 1939)...
hear: 'we shall outlive them, outlive them,
outlive them'...

why did R. Moshe Sofer z"l teach
'Chadush aser min ha'toray' / 'What
is new is forbidden in the Torah'?

the trolls here & what they call 'poetry':
collections of letters on a flickering
moon-glow  computer screen behind
a suburban curtain,
letters having no glyphs or sounds,
all encased in Sho'ah denial...

and yet. white supremacist sock monkeys
cannot silence the memories of the
thousands of Yehu'dit children z"l
burned alive on pyres, June-August 1944,
in the holy natz'ri village of Auschwitz,
in october country.

לעולם לא עוד לעולם לא עוד

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...with thanks to my akhim / brothers & poets,
D.J. Carlile & George Dance & Will Dockery
for reading previous drafts...
...and to the memories z"l of David Meltzer 17 February 1937-31 December 2016
& Anthony Scaduto 7 March 1932-12 December 2017...chaver'im / friends
& for the 'or from R. Paul Laderman z"l &
R. Meyer Goldberg z"l

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
לעולם לא אשכח



IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark
Ken Pepiton Feb 2023
You can say that again, later, it is -time
lace up the daily bag and pass it
for all private interpretation
removal, from the rumen, to the next
- gaseous we, Huxley called us, 1957

No, this ain't show business, this
is living, made in a made up mind,
being finished doing, just
living.

Making up reasons to dispute liars.

Maybe not a good living, but it's free.
Or paid for, any way.
Bought with a price
my grands won't be forced to pay.
- divided attention makes
- ads obliviate into the mercantile
- classification, in attention econ 101
It's free - this living
in the way well fed children do,
in America, outside the cities;

Joy pursued and grabbed in happy
fistfuls that fill laughing memory bubbles
to store for when these become
the olden days.

No, this ain't show business,
its sacred duty,
work of a thing,
made from a boy who looks
into flies eyes, gazing up
from the bottom of the cup,
a little glazed, perhaps,

owing the fly an easy escape, look away

Tricae,
tricae
"perplexities, hindrances, toys, tricks,"

The collections of thoughts,
the access to held thoughts, knotted
messages
to you
private moments,
time alone, as a mortal human being,
humus built, auto-repairing thing being

being, eh?
One-like, only, or
on-like, only going on and on and on,

becoming fruitful
becoming useful
becoming less and less useful, but
becoming more and more curious
becoming full enough to become superfluous.

Lay preachers can create cushions
for lazy wishers wishing to be comforted,
but the weighing of the worth of comfort,

lay preachers seldom do, to my knowledge.

Terminus gnosis, all I know, my bubble of knowns;
this is it…
a thousand stacks of sensible lines, atop precepts,

strewn beside the trail.
Heavy
heuristic heretical how-to do as I dones,
published by faith in the thousands, litter
the little hills the psalmist asked,
why they writhed and twisted,
as in a dance of anger wishing,

clear channel, me and the truth, today,
just/instance, this/ now.

Free am I, by the faith in me, but you
already
knew that,

don't you?
Don't you know, there is a musing mind,
we wear to bed, some nights,
we lay on memory foam, some nights.

Thinking sorted thoughts, untying lying links,
links to educated guesses fed you as new reasons

to be ever vigilant, ever ready to defend the faith,
the laughing faith of a child, leaping
into the sky

- my grandson, I just learned,
- asked for more math.

No class common man, that is what I am,
on the cusp of next, looking back,
at the mess I left, like a cyclone,
randomly distributing seeds of kindness, specs
by which an idle word can activate troves
of ancient autoresponders, each guessing
what if, what if not,
what if, what if not,
what if, what
if
not now, when. Pop.
Bubbles of been, leave go, go on, think it

through, and passed through, into
the now
where we formed, letters, letting words wait,
sit still, ready
for the reader, ready
to steady the quivering fearful thing,
lost in thought,
stuck in stacks of holy orders, hearer only,
only ordainded doers do the trick,
intricate, folding to make not a paper swan,

too, easy. Make a protein. With no model,
just the idea in the word applied to science,
proper pose, super knowing, proto-life-ish thing,
that is digestible using an infantile nourishing node.

What tricks do you know?, the magi aske Moshe.
Snake from a staff.

From the crozier of goatherd, sure,
we can all do that. What else?
---
Allusions to ever knowing, knowing as old
as knowledge given girls at their flowering,
as old a mystery as any orphaned mother may tell
her great grand daughters,
nobody told me any thing,

but I took it as normal,

As the patient potency prefecting
effectual
fervent
prayer, dramatized, made big as all
art
any
bubbled artifice holding essences,

essential bits of the daily grind to gloss
the leading intellect's reason for being
so shiny,
Klimt golden, as that one kiss I recall,

yes, a facsimile, a memory evocation,

a kiss, golden in that moment, infected
with a feeling
dramatized to be offered to all who see,
intricacies,
khipu twists and loops and bundles and beads,

accounting for dues,
instructing kaballah, pass it on

Excuse me, are you in the right realm,
we feel pluralized,
but you don't fit,
we are uniform,
uninformed,

excathedra, listen up, all eight billion now living, are destined
for certain death,
it is a matter of time, dying once,
can happen anytime,

and if there is a second death, so far,
I never saw any body do it twice,
once truth makes what I am free,
we stay free,
amen,
reception accepted kaballah, et al,
take that greasy grace, feel it,
as the oil ran down Aaron's beard,

and there were no poor denied
starship rations,
until the comet hit and all
but a single mind
blew, into this
a complete fiction,
or another compleat guide to fishing

Imagine the magic of the sailor's accounting book,
envision the magic of levers, and pulleys and cogged
wheels feeling the weight

ping
2023 Gravity driven or gravity powered, is it
one
or the other, when it come be to inspire
first fears
to frame wisdom pools,
at depths we learn
to believe,
prove each participant,
worthy of keeping,
the secret.
Salt of the earth, deep down dehr dat
Caribbean Sea,
shore line fracture,
follow the riverwise road,
any thing you think you must bear,
don't blame,
sometimes it pays, to bend.
Grasshopper Locust practice, for the mind
of an ant.

Wisdom harnessed the fear of God,
put it down,
in other words,
when there was nothing
but E, mass and time being assent
esse, sentient, in sentient and ex
insentience, sapient over lay,
- honeycomb tripe pattern, say
- why not ruminate enclosed
- in a beauteous inner digestive
- recluse-exclusive-sub-science con
ified, tied ligously, fi,
to witty means, and ways we prove
gravity is our friend, driven power for all life,
strong as earth itself, but, we are

in the burning phase,
let me bring you down,
cause being accused, does that
to a stranger
being
entertained, or entertaining, on an aitia
let me
reason,

have you come for more, or do we have
too much
of too many things
to make too much
sense
of any particular reader/writer ifery algorithm,
if then,
else is this, current, slow, nodding, flux,
capacitance
loading axially,
if each mind thinks right once,
today, we have enough,
let's save the world.
- that easy, eh?
global restoration, Christ, yes,
that is the plan.
As the planet was.
Prior to Peleg's days.
Intended to have a single
dry land mass,
Wisdom pushed
for plates meeting
and using ice
at the top
of the world, as seen polaris up,
spinning
in a slow wobble
through four
seasonal positional hot-cool-cold-warm
gyre drivers, saline liquid epicycles, sisters
of the four winds
as a flywheel effect
in the telling times… a little imbalence leaning helps
with the wobble,
in the event,
slim to none,
the odds, but,
Don't Look Up. It could
reoccur, and shall, if
Nietzsche's epicycle

has wheels. Graham Hancock, on clocks…cosmic

Mindspacetime, the elite flight,
secretshitistic, it is, most certain, it is
fantasmic imagining
E not equal any thing, mere words
-jello-timingoooisht
between me and thee,
no point, not one, between the we
we become,
in the final analysis, if you wish,

might
you wish,
long, lazy river readers, re-mind
their lost selves, how innocense felt.

The worth of an unsold story, given
as a gift, as a poor artist might
attempt
a portrait
of their daughter's children

- "that little thing"
Done. As best he could, he believed,
at the time,
as it is
with
everything being as is when we arrive,
we adapt
or become the insane opposition,
to anything,
just
be the counter weight on the pendulum,

keep things swingin'

feel time slide
into the real deal,
at the crossroads
in the wayback seat,
sayin' honey, you ain't here
after what I'm here after,
y'gonna be there, after I'm gone, as  asong
that was
once a joke ended you gonnabe here
after I'm gone, but

seemsayin' eye
squint, see,
way back
when,
we were otherwise involved, affirming
sacred oathes, we swore as children learn
IT being life, whatever,
it don't mean
nothin'
is not a joke, it's ahint, to readers, ready
writing is key to reading,
vertical eyed
qwerty keying is learned,
phone wide,
natural, feels familiar
style adaptation
as cuneiform once was,
years of hearing the same words,
said and resaid, story after story stacked
in
time, measured by stargazers, called, by god,
eyes like eagles, these minds expand, and see
the order of the cosmos,
and the chaos of the collective sub-science

locked by a generational curse on oathes
under the God those kids had in mind,
September, 1954, first day of school,
all across the Wyatt Earp of Nations,
each child not religiously exempted,
stood, right
hand on heart and repeated, as a national
student body, K through 12, a pledge,
local time 9 a.m. nationwide,
not unlike
a true Tenant's pledge of fealty,
as recorded in
The Compleat English Copyholder:
Common and Statute LAW of
England, relating to Manors
and Lords of Manors Et c.
- buzz nod what instance… seven seconds
Sorry, Under God, was added to the pledge
that year, that affectionizes those exposed,
we meander under god, think it not strange.
It’s a legendary trait, we'll all be remembered a bit.
- default modemod is always beguiling temptation
- for temptation sake, win a game, get the rush.
of chasing hares
to where the conies hide,
feeble folk, but they live among big rocks,
reason enough,
use what you know is right,
hide from things that eat you,
that evolves
in nations
with no elders, constant defence mode
peace makers seem
feeble folk,
who knew,
and fell away, impossible to renew,

whoah, zeke play me that riddle,
'bout scrublands being humbly blissed
so long- wayback, anchoring the authority
17
that's me, I
fiddled around
and blew the clearwater revival
to kingdom come, Muddy Waters, aight
and there was hippies, ever whar, swanee,
so I do, I swan no no no no mo
lie like the devil for the sake of church heritage,
holy warrior sworn, heart torn, tears shed, tongues
spoken.
You know, when gravity is taken
in, your weight, sunk
into the reasoning
swung wide
in progress, no aim, past the cloud,
for crying out loud, this is louder than ever,
listen, no
silence
all that
noise, is natural
to persons genitivally, ok, cross
shadowed animus anima imitation,
in your cultural genes, cowgirl
seeing the world a yingyang thang,
with gravity and the E-magnetic shields
allowing systems to com-uni-cate locally,

scarey
indeed

too much,
the scope
of any thing one might think
or ask,
as in what was that rule
of LAW once?
I read
Compleat Fisherman's Guide U recall led
to , yes, The Compleat English Copyholder:
Common and Statute LAW of
England, relating to Manors
and Lords of Manors Et c.
is on Google books, masterfully typeset

Feel free to learn all you will, 'tis all in the Common.

as, by now is much that may have been, otherwise,
in needier times,
less riches, more sorrow,
less sorrows, more riches, peace.

Made that my after all battlefield task,
no mas win or lose.

My side, on the scalar models is gravity empowered,
heavyweight, ancient concept,
gradient slopes
with long lazy loops
on the downhill side,
listening
to kids make all the noise they wish,
two chalk walls away,
in the bubble we all breathe.

To this day, whatever it took, it worked.
Life gets as good as you can make up a mind

to accept, as
this is it,
this is my bit. My close up. To the exact point
where I breathed that bubblierised wedom-opinion

opinion opinion opinion okeh, settle years ago, okay
we all say okeh here, holy ground,
entire collection of recollection on that victory alone.

Okeh, is still the proto voice model, ok.
If you like it, I'd love if you shared it in whole or in part, it is a whole chapter in a novel form of literature, native to the internet age,
type set for vertical receivers
The bastion of deep bellicosity begins, which would interview the strengths of benevolence in the ranks of Darius III. The Greek polis was reborn from Halleniká in the shady V, from the seventh necropolis of Messolonghi, with the equerry that was landed by thousands of ships that were from the date of Philip consolidating the Hetairoi that would be reborn again to fight this peremptory battle in the lower Macedonia, which brought the allied cavalry on titanic folds, which this time will be commanded by Vernarth with legionaries at their disposal, the very light weapons were made from the candid glow of the Katabasis universe, since the bags of the matron's guides went to the parapet in the unevenness of Skalá, very close to the Katabasis or vortex of the Diadochi, when they were abducted by Wonthelimar. The turkeys were already described and difficult to observe, and less to hear them, so the Matrona or Oikodéspoina would purify the little Messiah mentioned in the Apocalypse chapter twelve of Saint John the Apostle, to ascend to the Over Being and then receive the Trinitarian light as far away from the Hades or Katabasis that Wonthelimar would understand very well as a predecessor of the Ultramundis. Thus, the placenta of the Oikodéspoina would increase the free fall and the recovery of the crystallized space, in such a way that the maternal figure would give the first busilis of the outbreak of the Battle of Patmia, before she can rise to the surface with all the spilled blood. . Vernarth in the tent next to the panoply observed Lazarus permanently rising next to him, and all the burned doubts of winning or dying by the edge of destiny. Vernarth gathered the Phalanx formed into a soldiery ecosystem of men armed with the Faith of the Mashiach who had descended together in the rows of syntagmas, and of enough men who multiplied a hundredfold each time the Katabasis ascended to support others who made the Pivot in Hades. . The large-caliber metallic iron and bronze weapons with Xiphos, Dorus, Sarissas with hopes of winter who dressed in spring with Persephone who always carried them in the atrium of a Persephonic Hoplite. Assault turrets over forty Euclidean meters exceeded all the numerals of Pi, through the glasses towards the empire, where the shutters released huge oblations from the pulpit of the theater of tragedy that was rising from the stalls, inoffensive crossbows that would burn the missions of Zefian with the fourth Sagita, catapulting fences that in turn disintegrated into thick destructive ridges. In this instance, the Corinthian League became evanescent with more gangs with Thracian or Tribal troops, although they were foreigners, they joined the mercenaries. With the same figures of 42 thousand troops of Falangists, 5,500 of Cavalry, with some Hippies that Kanti and Alikantus arranged. The mercenaries and tribals fringed the 5,000 contingents in the ghostly spectrum, which made them almost impolitic, a Magento Calypso sea was joining the Thessalians that surpassed the armor of 1800. Vernarth while absorbed in the fabric of the stall saw a Lazarus as he walked barefoot, from where he still asked for help when he felt his feet begin to burn.

The colonnade escaped into the Argentinian waters of Selene that flowed outlined by the gloom of the draconian Persian hierarchy. They subdelegated a Satrap who would bind the components that would confront each other beyond the warning threshold of the Katabasis. The Persian countertops reigned in other adverse lands where Patmia was the law of the Trinitarian Decalogue, in the invocation of the On Being that departed from holy languages that were Christianized in holy oils that flowed through the fascinating musks of war won, and with weapons that would surpass physical forces, by resembling in Iranians that were ruled by the coppery ten thousand assets mediated by the Persian palfrey, and satrapies such as Bactriana and Sogdiana. Behold, those who were once thousands against thousands revived in the disquisitions of other reasons that were not obvious, before a mystery that becomes inapplicable but was noticed in the directive of the enmity of the nations, with their own human components making them of an Infant Mashiach, who really was in the wills that are perpetuated in the siege of continuing to be protected by his Oikodéspoina, which shielded him from all latent threats before an almighty who lavished on them in the fords of the mistakes of a past, and the glorification of eternal life. The spectral of sacrifice was outlined with the same base that emerges from a sensitive parchment, to be rewritten in Vernarth's Katabasis, applying sentimentalities corresponding to the fire wagon of the cremation of the nubile destinies, sacralizing the excessive intemperance of those who envision and they deteriorate in the middle of a ploy that has never been finite.

The Oikodéspoina took refuge in burdensome intraterrestrial lands, arguing that the lands would tremble and the crown of her head would fall to her feet with Selene, relieving herself of her troubles by humanity in the birth, which would be designed by the Kératas of Moshe similarly to seven more than they were replicated in the tertiary night of the red blood cells, who conferred with the Necromancers of Vernarth and Alexander the Great, that God self-climbed on his throne to watch the scene of the Katabasis on Patmos. The blades resounded with great and pristine sounds of angels that made them ring, for a quadruple duel of Hellenes and Persians, of God and Satan, adorning themselves with their appropriations and the authority of those who hold the staff of the Áullos Kósmos. The rams ran in terror through the mountains and the eagles mounted on the small golden hills, because the Messiah prayed to them night and day, because the hour of truth had descended from all heights in the quadruped rams, and the inhabitants of the earth would testify that there is no time to decide, for less time of what or who will survive among you, because as long as the ground plug exists, it will have to be done with open hands to the one who supports the sky after being born from a Gerakis, and of a river that makes of being a chamber with great sieges to awaken the inextricable king, who has to unite us and not divide us with his chalice loaded with Apoika wine, from where they are ****** on the hooves of Alikantus, when the men raised their hands to greet, and to confirm that they already had the Xiphos in their hands, to give birth in half the time of Kairós, who snatched the life of the snake in its ovule throughout the region of Dod Ecanese, being the faithful two-dimensional earthly sheet of the constellation of the Dragon with the twelve houses of the zodiac, trying to contravene the seals of divine light and the shed blood of the Savior.

The testimonies stated that Lazarus had already vanished from the Vernarth store after these visions of necromancy, after the Ekadashi confirmed the error of heavy material that would be taken for those who fly over the salvation of all the rest, and of all those who are dragged by the puffs that illuminate the uncertain empty spaces that remained to spread the Christian faith, for those who want to be swept away by their sleeplessness and survival of a Lazarus who has to grasp the staff of light, to scare away the red blood cells of the serpent that wounds with his spitting, and that he signs from his jaws imitating good intentions that are not infallible to exempt himself on the basement of Olympus, The dragon with the rune of a Basilisk trying to attack the vanguards of the Hoplites of Vernarth.
Katabasis
השואה גוססת...the Sho'ah is dying

©  STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
30 Sivan 5778 / 13 June 2018
revised:
1 Tammuz 5758 / 14 June 2018
2 Tammuz 5778 / 15 June 2018
3 Tammuz 5778 / 16 June 2018

I.

and cantillated poetry -- memory being
automatic editing -- may not be enough.

what was not a reality
may never be a reality,
may never be a memory. soon,
survivors will be silent, and
the concierge of film and tape
and books will whisper
in library corridors.

the villanellesque windows of
constantly chanting 'disaster' and
'master' are shattering,
an amphigouri of shadows and
mirrors...

II.

I stand on the balconies of quantum
strings: Auschwitz made my
forebears more Yehu'dit than Moshe.

No one
bears witness for the
witness.
-- Paul Celan, 1971. Speech-grille
& selected poems [trans. Joachim
Neugrosche] (E.P. Dutton), 1-255 (241)

the horizon is grey, in
Poland 2018, the ash still creating
a haze, specks on the leaves,
the shoulders, the watch face on
my wrist having no hands...

III.

how is the memory of a paternal
relative kept 'alive'? she remains like
a flickering match growing fainter
in what will be a night of
receding possibilities,
shadows be-ing alongside
my own. I have one colour 1941
photograph of her.  like salt held
on the tongue
she is carried in my mind.

she would not, a decade later in
Rosemead, speak of the
Kingdom of Night.

one of the fading blue
numbers stamped (not tattoed)
on her left forearm in 1942 was
a four.

she would stare intently into
my eyes, turn her arm over,
the four becoming a chair...
it was Garcia Lorca in 1928 who said
'verde que te quiera verde'...

she loved green, even the green stained
gargoyles she was painting in Paris...
on a sidewalk caught up in a christianist
SS roundup 16 July 1942, the Rafle du
Velodrome d'Hiver, her painting
fingers crushed. soon she was on a
rattling box car in August 1942, sent
to the East...

she was gone in 2006...but her dreams
are still in me...

IV.

teaches Reb Ya'akov Glatshteyn...

Like a tiny candle over each grave,
a cry will burn,
each one for itself.
'I am I' --
thousands of slaughtered I's
will cry in the night:
'I am dead, unrecognized'.
-- Ya'akov Glatshteyn / Yankev Glatshteyn
/ Jacob Glatstein, 1987. 'I have never
been here before', p. 111 in: Ya'akov
Glatshteyn, 1987. Selected poems
of Yankev Glatshteyn [ed./trans. R.J. Fein]
(Jewish Publication Society), 1-215
[Yiddish & English]

V.

let us compell trolls among us
to remember that, at its peak,
their grandparents' vaticanist
Auschwitz was burning 12,000
of us every 24 hours...

when it was happening
sound still reaches us in 2018.

and yet.

when it was happening,
few were listening, but now it is
bashert / inevitable my soul
hears nothing else.

the 'orderly' minds of the
trolls among us are well-tended
cemeteries without
gravestones.

the fire escapes are covered
with psilocybin spores.

long after midnight, when the
darkened carnival is awake,
there are survivors at the
seder table awaiting the
Missing One return with Her
Sefer haZohar, pick up the
empty cup.

the underside of every leaf
is fear, shadows gathering
at the foot of our beds,
transforming gristle into haze,
made real by Hebrew letters
and syllables.

TO BE CONTINUED

'When I am in the darkness,
why do you intrude?'
-- Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan', 1978

*****



STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT

IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark
Anthony Pierre May 2020
I'd dreamt of Moshe's fall
In the arid land of Kadesh
And I wondered; how sweet
were those waters of Meribah?

Then, I woke up from sleeping
and was greeted by a nightmare

Rising under an Ethiopian cloud
The Grandiose Renaissance
To tame the mighty blue Nile
To free the wild hearts of men

How I pray tensions fall
In the fertile lands of Africa
as I ponder; how sweet
are these waters of Meribah?
Ryan O'Leary May 2021
You're being watched Israel,
the world's beginning to see.

Your vindictiveness is O.D.D.
Oppositional Distain Disorder.

It's juvenile man, you are acting
anti semantic, it's totally illogical.

Nationhood is a state of community
and in many cases, a shared territory.

You not only looked the gift horse in
the mouth, but you pulled all its teeth.

Despite the fact, that "Moshe Dayan" is
the only one of you to have lost an eye.
I (a lapsed milquetoast) experienced
a head splitting hellacious hangover.

I tried to be part of Cool And Gang by being "bad"
to the thoroughly good bone, er...
which trend followed me till man hood,
whereby this bloke still a cad
plus the most
embarrassing older hippy dad
where a shaved pierced pate egad
seems to be the latest fad
boot this nonestablishmentarian
feels more content with himself and glad
though as a precocious

whipper snapper of young lad
did act like "Curious George",
which found me late mum
and then octogenarian
widower father quite mad,
especially when breaking
into the liquor cabinet in me ***** pad
and nearly escaped by a scad
dad dull when the hide o me buttocks
whacked more'n a tad.

Though in a ******* party
rock n rolling crowd,
I (a kung foo fighter
beastie boy) felt alone
yea, as this chap looks back
on them daredevil days
(with behaviour bad to the bone
as iterated above),
and dealt with pounding in ma head
that caused me to groan
which mental sounds

of jack hammers
found this current teetotaler to moan
like the ghost of Marley or a whaler, whereby
even whisper down the alley
or over the phone
also affected me skin tone
to become altered
into an unstoppable
red bullish twilight zone
tortured courtesy MALEVOLENT MENTAL Maelstroms -
doggone hounded me while in a drunken stupor

videlicet - I taste a liquor never brewed (214)
courtesy Emily Dickinson
1830 –
1886
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro' endless summer days –
From inns of molten Blue –
When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door –
When Butterflies – renounce their "drams" –
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –
And Saints – to windows run –
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the – Sun!

Fiendish and gruesome
phantasmagoric egomaniacal denizens
dwelt deep inside
subterranean uber vault
performed an evil contra dance
haunted psychic landscape
with imaginary (yet realistic)
gargoyle visitations that cast a macabre trance
nocturnal unconscious invaders of the lost Ark
cavorted and gallivanted
disturbed quiescent sleep
with devilish and sinister prance.

Apparitions crept stealthily
into peaceful slumber receptacle
repository, whence illusory landscape of dreams
took place to rejuvenate
exhausted body, mind and spirit triage
rented asunder blissful sleep with a startled fright
cold sweat drenched
nighttime garments and bedding
teeth chattered uncontrollably
heart pounded loudly inside chest
nightmarish phantoms
wrought an awful ghoulish sight.

Mushroom cloud anniversary
triggered frenzied gargantuan hallucination
seventy nine plus years ago today
inauguration into atomic age took place
one country after another sought
to acquire demonic and destruction devices
to maintain self-preservation
in this surreal atomic weapons race
impossible mission to escape the dark threat
that looms and threatens life on earth
one launched missile
spells extermination across entire global space.

No escape from humankind military machines
munitions march mean madness
death by a thousand cuts
flesh deboned courtesy knife
and guaranteed demise to all life
**** sapiens violent history
of bias, intolerance and/or prejudice
characterizes vicious warfare
and chronic species strife
legacy for future,
(and perhaps alien) archeologists,
who will sift thru civilization
debris with delicate as birthing a newborn
with assistance by midwife.

Artifacts buried in a heap
of pulverized and radioactive ash
civilization monuments and hedonistic symbols
gone in a blinding brilliant flash
irksome flotsam and jetsam
spewed into outer space
alien nations light years distant
collect miniscule bits and pieces
offer object lesson as extinction
for beings that become excessively brash.

As a way to bury wounded knees,
free guilt sans
being psychologically trapped,
and wrath of my strict parents,
I imagined awaiting an eternity
for my modified sentence
against being secular humanist
individualist, minimalist, nihilist...,

no way to dodge
fiat decreeing penal solitude
for this rambling future man,
who felt unready to kick the can
on account of violating ban
against abominable illegal mandate
with no way to commute death sentence
for the simple act of voicing opinion

against existence of heavenly gate,
nor hellish underworld
despite religious ****** decreeing penance
spurious pedagogical poetic rant
not the ravings of some half mad lunatic
carefully plotted recitation that springs
from combined teachings of Kant
and jolly old Saint Nick

charges ******* up
per this average don
purportedly flagrantly
decrying and blaspheming
Judeo-Christian paradigm
proselytizing devout believers
with disenchantment blind faith no more
equated with hill of beans upon,

which dogma erected epitomized
by complex edifices via grime
sweat and tears from slave labor,
where usurpation of freedom won
until outspoken spokespersons
risked life and limb
to invalidate the existence
of supreme deity who created life

whether for extra credit
or perhaps on a whim
Adam from whose rib cage
without anesthesia but razor sharp knife
sported Eve with a physique
quite pleasing and trim,
but rather than get lost
in the garden of Eden myth

final seconds of existence tick away
without intent to recant statements
solely acceptable to B'nai B'rith
prompting last words of mine as oy vey
with no regrets - deeming heart
of religion flimsy as pith
thing in the wind or house of cards
vulnerable to blow away.

Though ma mum deceased nineteen and a half plus years ago, and thine papa inching closer toward the inescapable clutch of the grim reaper (when these words typed – he long since passed October 7th, 2020), I revel to be a conscious individual despite the torturous road from those perilous days of yore er rather mine earlier formative pages when the strong armed lance of ignorance jabbed me with toad dull ambivalence evolving from the fusion of two cells after froggy went a courtin.

HANDMADE FROM (the genes of) BOYCE AND HARRIET HARRIS -
(free versatile poetry my atypical mode (modus operandi) at describing, introducing, and decoding myself).

How apropos and divine to stumble (merely by happenstance) across a chance to claim my (virtual) fifteen minute fragments of fame just in the click and nick of time.

Although gainfully unemployed (do to a series of unfortunate events that now finds me receiving social security disability), I can still vividly visualize utter despair and vouchsafe to acquire the requisite trappings emblematic of psychic misfortune.

Indelible, permanent and unfading abysmal damaging domestic dynamics got etched deep upon the memory of this erstwhile individual.

The general gist in the form of quick brush strokes (namely written) of psychologically traumatizing recollection now follows.

I can attest to malevolent mean-spirited objections by my father (and late mother) in regard to my grossly unacceptable attire, deportment and work ethic.

Nonetheless, a sense of righteous vindictiveness manifested itself thru attendant Pyrrhic victories.

Back in those days I (a married grown adult male and considerably past the age of rebelling against authoritarianism - and also their one and only not so prodigal son) poorly wore the mantle and staff of supposed maturity.

Lack of compliance and obeisance with regulations and rules of the Harris household (mainly thru being in constant denial to conform, maintaining emotional detachment and estrangement and evincing little or no concern for other family members) brewed, festered and lied dormant during prepubescence.

The pressure and tension between and betwixt genetic kinfolk (so palpable one could sense an indomitable barrier), would rank as successfully dysfunctional way before such nom de guerre became in vogue.

Fury and wrath became markedly and noticeably pronounced once exiting the storied four walls of high school.

The venomous barrage and fusillade spewed forth from off parental tongues at an exponential rate and on a par to feeling the stinging cudgel of a horsewhip.

Out of fear and timidity, I consequently and silently absorbed cruel treatment.

Neither the eldest nor youngest sibling bore witness against the tender spirit of their only brother.

A façade as of a hardened (statue) conveniently adopted.

This embodiment poorly served to fend off the onslaught of incessant anger.

This defense mechanism (identified as passive aggressive by mom) offered miniscule protection as I mentally dodged lobbed insults and affected defiance (in league like poisoned blackened bards and daggers hurled) of said threats and ultimatums.

No matter these bitter pills of blaring character assassination (mine), denunciations, fulminations, incriminations, intimidations, vociferous vocalizations (by said parents), I stood the shifting sands characterizing my ground at playing the deaf mute, which repression and internalization of emotional maelstrom only caused self contamination and manifestation of humiliation.

They (dad and mom) became further angered and inflamed per my total oblivious stance.

This reaction added insult to injury.

Deliverance per tough love lessons amplified to the tune of additional feats at becoming excoriated, ranted and raved against this, that and the other of my habits and nonchalant indifference to pursue work.

Those involuntary, unrehearsed and vicious family chats happened to be replete with heavily exploding and uncorked anger.

That (of course) would be a considerable understatement.

Dad (the de facto, elected and nominal spokesperson for unpleasant chest thumping exclamations - which conveniently took place no earlier than the stroke of midnight - emphatically swore (adrip with dramatic livid rage - like rabid beast) all manner of vulgarity and demanded from this insolent appearing male offspring immediate compliance.

Defiance and fatigue offered him that predictable and usual blank stare upon hearing the kind and lenient sentence to pack bags and GET OUT!

With the dreaded approach of dire and sealed fate (played out in this overactive imagination of mine with dad and mom fiendishly and grotesquely expunging themselves of any last vestige personal belonging), I most anxiously bided my time.

Those next couple weeks forced self-evaluation of Atheism, while I hunkered down in my bedroom.

The recurrent consideration of relinquishing nonestablishmentarian paradigm in favor and lieu with God, miracles and salvation seemed to clash with being this liberal thinker.

As indicated, the tempest and tirade quickly got turned back upon those who so masterfully tormented this second born, whose steadfast stoicism and subservience to a higher power perchance brought a temporary respite.

That hollow deadline, (which happened to be just one of many similar sputtering swearing valuations of love) blithely came and went without incident - no matter expletive filled intense oath to remove self from premises at 324 Level Road) continued to keep pulsating to remain an occupant with kinfolk.

What caused especial ire and wrath to fester (per this apparent ambivalence, indifference and nonchalance for me to take any job - even shoveling **** - particularly within the emotional bedrock and firmament of deceased mother) constituted remembrance and vivid reminder of her father.

My maternal grandfather (Morris - Moshe - Kuritsky) supposedly never paid much heed to regular and steady employment (to support his four children and wife) despite his skill as a harried styled swift tailor.

Hence my mother (Harriet) grew up and lived in utter destitution and poverty.

Mother subsequently reacted with ferocious vindictiveness upon witnessing a near magic transformation of near identical behavior in Matthew - the single heir to the family name.

I avoid alcohol
yet still have a ball
when the bell of inquisitiveness doth call
this mindful male toward productive pursuits
rather than fall
prey to temptations of vice only deliver gall
down the unmarked hall
of future time,
as likened to evade the maul
from some ferocious beast
or an urgent plight to retch
ideally within a toilet stall
perhaps faded splattered by stains on the wall
of other anonymous imbibers - good day y'all.

— The End —