Where I Sit

Where I Sit

November 25, 2016

Where I sit, the air is cold

winter is here.

The air is dry as dust.

The ground is forgetting its warmth.

But elsewhere, the sea is warm

and the cold air touches the sea.

Elsewhere, the air is wet

and the warm air gathers to me.

And clouds are forming

it’s winter for me.

The snow is falling

and melting away.

The colors are hiding

falling away

ground cloaked like a baby

from every display.

The drink is coming

I wish I could stay.

I lift 

a precious drop

of water to my lips

a long-thirsted song

on how the water drips.

We are 

not alone

whether or not

we like it.

We are

who we are

and also

who we are not.

The sky

and the sea

what is cold,

yet what is hot.

(inspired by Elad Nehorai’s “Jews Are United, Whether We Like It Or Not”

and by Aryeh Kaplan’s Sefer Yetzira:  The Book of Creation in Theory and Practice.)

—

הורים — הרים — מקום קיבוץ השלג.  מקום המעינות.

The Prince of Gems

The Prince of Gems

Burn like a candle fierce.
And when your foes the tzaraath pierce
shed the sister's slanderous lies
lift each vale, and each disguise
prove the sage's words were true
and that the gems turned into you
with kindness turn the clock anew

(centered on a story from Rabbi Nachman, by the same name)

Soul

Soul

 "Your bloods are red," I have been told.

"And over top them rides the soul.

Forever bought, it's who you are, whether shy or bold."

But time and again, I feel like gold.

I am neither slaughtered, encouraged, nor stilled.

Forever lost, never bought, forever sold.

I am neither recognized nor roled.

"Alone" is not even the word.

Not a soldier, forever a sword.

Drawn across time like a cuckoo bird.

But then I closed my eyes, and all I have seen went red...



(updated 6/24)

from freshman year (late 2012) in reaction to a school shooting...sadly there have been enough that I don't know which

School Shootings

The blood of the fallen is scattered. 

 It calls from the hearts of students and a teacher standing in the schoolyard. 

 It screams from the tiles and from the ground beneath. 

It burns in the eyes of a country.

The eyes of the fallen are closed now.

They do not see what a witness saw and they fail to take in the schoolyard.

They stare back at the years woven, the parents who made them.

A pluck broke the strings, strings of time

The tiles clean, the soil hidden from view.

Under the yard where hopers breathe abandoners air

voices from above shout all mistakes and breaking human mind.

There isn't any music.

Buried in metal that is witness to nothing

And it all seems so simple, a world displaced from a world

or an item moved from a store shelf

a lie transferred, hand to hand

and the soil ironed with a sprinkler.

Falling lead, the sound of nothing

the collapse (very old poem, ca. 2011; maybe even 2008/2009)

The collapse

I threw myself, hurtling, out of the dark cave

Where I had been hiding, imagining flights

And asking questions about a strange world.

There outside the cave, I found a set of books

Each striving to fill my brain, to prevent

Any other book from reaching in.

But I wouldn't have it.  I kept them all out.

I kept their knowledge where it was, and

I opened them when I needed to.

And what seemed like hours became days,

And what seemed like days became months.

As I became filled with the knowledge

Of what each book could tell me

And of nothing else.

One day, I grew bored of the books

And descended back into the cave.

here, let's type some stuff

I won't act as we've seen, I'm not like
the person who did it, I saw
and won't dare to say "because I'm not like you"

that person is not you
he is not like you

I don't know he is a person

you are not like that
you are better

you aren't that person
you wouldn't do that

there is something unseen, I am certain

Money (poem)

Money

There is this funny number
that shows up in the inbox every week
a reminder from the bank
they want me to be responsible

it says how much I can use others
who would rather not be used

or maybe they would, but if it were me, they would not
they'd have something else better to do.

Money, I hate you, I need you, it seems
because I am confused
because we are confused

because I don't know what the other wants
or if I know, and maybe I do
(some days, not up to me, nor to you)
my heart won't admit it.

I think it's my heart, at least
and I don't know how to show what's true
to the other, the world, my heart
without being cruel