Not a Poem

Comments, thoughts, and constructive criticism are very much welcome (and may inspire a new draft or a new poem!).

Some have commented that my writing seems intensely personal - and it is in many ways. However, writing for me is also about relationships. It is about the relationships within what I write, and also between myself and those who read what I write.

If you have something you want to say, and it's thoughtful or constructive, please do!

We Will Keep Planting Trees

If stands
bearing the weight of the world alone
until you
but who am I,
crouching here near the ground
and then
should,
an expectation
what right does this have
to expect anything of me
why would I
happen to have
like an accident
unplanned
when
I chose this planting
selected this spade, wore gardening gloves,
and picked up
a sapling
deceptively fragile
resilient as a secret
in your hand
the saplings in my hand
are of no concern to you.
when they tell you
why would I believe them?
they are not here planting saplings,
they are lazy, lack faith,
and are not to be trusted.
the messiah
what is he besides late?
has arrived
unlikely.
there is nothing the messiah would be
more concerned with than
saplings.
I am with the saplings.
had the messiah arrived,
he would be here with me.
first finish planting
but I will never finish planting.
there are always more saplings.
I will go out and greet no one.
If the messiah ever does arrive,
we will know because he will be kneeling beside us.
We will keep planting trees.

We Never Buried Her

The rabbi told me, I drop everything for a funeral.
It must be within 24 hours.
No one forgives a rabbi who doesn’t show up for a funeral.

For the family,
Saying kaddish after the burial,
For seven days,
Or thirty days,
On each yahrtzeit,
It’s the most you can do for a person.
A kindness she can never repay.
A kindness you do expecting nothing.

But we didn’t bury her.
And a funeral,
We didn’t do that, either.
She is on my aunt’s mantel.
In some kind of vessel.
In ashes.

In nine years I have often forgotten her yahrtzeit,
So I make sure to say kaddish for her
On our birthday.

Unburied

We didn’t bury her.
And a funeral,
We didn’t do that, either.
She is on the mantel,
In some kind of vessel.

In nine years I have often forgotten her yahrtzeit,
So I make sure to say kaddish for her
On our birthday.

When One Equals Thirteen

Thirteen at a table, a bad omen.
Last Suppers,
Betrayal.
The harbinger of good tidings,
The number of God
Aleph, chet, daled
When one equals thirteen.

The Day of the Dead

We never buried her.
I’m sure you’ve noticed by now;
the news does not tell the story of the living.
It is the stories of the dead,
and the not-yet died.
Human nature?
Or
just
nature?
A rabbi once told me, you drop everything for a funeral.
Even a bris is less imminent.
Funeral within 24 hours of the death,
but a bris on the 8th day –
the day of miracles.
People don’t forgive a rabbi who doesn’t show up for the funeral.
Burying people, saying kaddish.
It is the most you can do for a person.
It is the kindness she can never repay,
the kindness you do expecting nothing.
But we didn’t bury her.
She is on my aunt’s mantel.
In ashes.

Good Times Bar, Jerusalem

gulps of biting juice and
i saw moss green

What is this
nervous
O.J. and vodka
You were thirsty

I am still thirsty and I just drank my lips numb
i actually meant thirsty
i spread my toes for balance

Well
Yeah

The guy didn’t rape me you know, he just tried
there must have been pictures of naked women or
maybe cowboys in outer space
on the wall behind my head
There are no actual marks on my body but
I think the police believe me

the glass door was all swagger and bravado
closed - open
open - closed - open
closed - open
closed

Where are they going
To find him and kick his ass
she sounded more IDF than bartender

they don’t know what he looks like
the counter was grey
the sky was blue
alone again and
I’m still thirsty

purple-brown eyes touched my face
the room-warm water slid down colorless
i walked myself home.

Tashlich

If I could get it written,
the pages would fly,
but now it’s getting early
and someone is coming.

I’m on my knees.
Not to pray.
I’m on my way up.

I was lying there in the dirt in the broken day,
wanting to hit the road.
Thinking of going places I’d never been
where nothing really belongs to me
but will.

It is still me behind the wheel,
driving myself out of the beds I made.
Never wanted shotgun.

Nothing but pavement ahead.
I’ll eat the highway.

I’ve come to touch you.
You planned the streets to make a crossroads for me.
Weighted to loan prayers and reasons,
I could almost hear the promises break.
Where do I go to see my own perspective.

Salt, dice, sacrificial fire.
It doesn’t matter in the end whether the eye is of God or man.
I can’t keep getting back what you keep taking away.

I’m not sure I really meant it.I was just playing some stupid game some stupid kids made up,
and you were just talking to yourself anyway.

Troubles fill my pockets.
My hands are empty.

I’ll never get it all down, there is too much to write.

Climbing under the barbed wire fence, by the river,
I toss what I have aside, and it swallows you whole.