Try to Remember That There is Kindness in The World.

Try to remember that there

is kindness in the world.

Try to remember,

because it is too easy to forget.

Try to remember

the street named

for Waterloo.

Make it a memory

and stretch it like a sky,

buy for it stars

that they sell for cheap

down the street

that leads back home,

so that from there

you can start running again,

knowing,

that there is kindness

in the world.

Because there is kindness in the world,

you have to remember that
you have to try
not to be sad

you have to forget

you have to start
you have to cry

you have to try

to remember

that there is kindness in the world.

God of Rocks

There is a story told,
to kids who aren't that old,
that when Jacob, the patriarch, chose twelve stones for a bed,
the stones all fought to be under his head.

So God, who has mercy on rocks and twigs,
decided that this is one He needs to fix.
In a quick run,
He made all rocks one
and the problem was done.
Then with powers that earned him the title "Almighty",
He made sure that all the rocks were comfortable and tidy.

Then Jacob woke up
and raised a nation,
that worshipped the God of Rocks without hesitation.
And even when that nation was being tortured and burned,
God wasn't concerned,
because all the rocks in the world
were getting along.

House of Escher

I woke up and knew
that I will build my house,
based on a sketch
by M. C. Escher.

Everybody laughed,
like they did to Noah.
Only this time,
God was on their side.

The boys and girls
who kicked the sand castles of their youth
so that they can build pyramids
out of their emptied drinking glasses,
laughed to the beat of the newest music.
And the old man down the street,
who was the manager of Hilbert's Hotel,
scoffed when he saw
my Escher sketch.

But I dreamt on
those dreams that were mummified
in the drinking glass pyramids
that were collapsed into each other.

I started my Escher house,
Still following the rules.
Even Pythagoras would have been fooled.
And the guests from Hilbert's hotel
who came over to see,
didn't know what it's like to be
living in a house built
according to Escher and me.

Nobody counted my stairs
to check where it goes.
And the girl I met by the Mobius Strip
who stayed for the night,
and together we broke a gazillion rules of symmetry,
never asked about the extra flight
of stairs leading back to my bed.

And in the morning
when I looked at us
the other way,
I saw that the space between us
was the real image.

Because this is how Escher works and goes,
you turn a face upside down
and the eyes become a nose.

Conversations

I once met God,

we had a long conversation,

about all his short answers.

I once met a friend,

and we spoke for a short time,

about the long time that passed.

I once met a woman,

and we spoke a lot,

about our little things.

And once, I met myself,

and I spoke nothing,

of everything I knew and did.

The Library Collection.

I’m in the library

It’s where I want to be

Here I’ll find my bliss.

Between the walls lined with books

Whose covers I won’t kiss.

This place is scary,

Now that my librarian died,

I hide amongst the bookshelves

And shield myself with the stacks

Of never rebound books.

There is no Book of Life in this collection.

Just a library of struggle 

And a bibliography of attempts

And a useless reference work.

The catalogues can give direction

And the descriptions can be read

But they offer small satisfaction. Because 

the synopsizes are misleading

For those who are reading

The receding texts of yesteryear.

As I stroll down the isles

Judging books by their covers

My mind starts spinning 

In the google of ideas.

I begin looking for the illustrated version,

With the diagrams and charts.

Who am I kidding?

By scanning the miles

Of organized piles

For the Book of the Living.

Where are the writers?

The editors? The illustrators?

And where is my librarian?! 

Come be my guide, in those corridors

Of endless information.

Show me the route to my shelf

So I can see the text

That guides the perplexed

Out of this forest of scribes.

I’m looking for life

Illustrated and annotated

By the expert in the field.

But in the library nobody can hear you think.

If you ascended that ladder

You already sacrificed the matter

At the alter of blank pages and drying ink.

The smoothness of those sheets tickle my fingertips

The letters dance like a tango in rehearsal

And the books spines smile to me 

Like a lover in a dream that lasts too short.

Yeah, life was an open book, once upon a story

Then it became an unfinished piece of work

And now it’s a project that still has no name.

I promise to write, I promise to read.

These commitments only made sense before I came.

The library day ends at the start of the one to come

That still gives me few hours 

To search the towers

For the Book of Life

I know I won’t find.

I hear people in the cafeteria

Caught in a laughing hysteria about milk that spilled

They will never understand;

They never met

The librarian I killed.

A Girl Named Desire.

She's young like me
we met in a parking lot
filled with two-passenger cars.

I told her my name and asked her hers
and like Jacob's angel, she refused to tell.
I tried to see what I can get out of her
as she was standing with one foot on the ground and one against the car wall.
She wasn't like Jacob's angel; she wouldn't even give me a bruise.

Form.

I worship form with all my soul.

When I walk down the street I see forms
molded yet folded in the whirlpool of groups.
Forms fresh and old rising and falling
with the material of it's composition.

Material and form are together a pantheon
from where gods leave and worshippers enter.
In and out, surrender and escape, in an undefined search;
closer and further away from the shape.

Form is a Godless pantheon.
The aesthetic of the shrine
makes you believe that inside
is a God confined
Who in return for your sacrifice
will redeem your mind from that which led you
to the configuration of He

Materials are in the streets waiting for a composition,
to be confined to the lines
of a music sheet.
Materials burst out of mountains
in the eruptions of volcanos
and harden at the bottom of fossil layers.

Form can be a limited God
of Material and Mind,
endowing the bushes with a fire
and the anatomy with an allure
to get to the leviathans to climb a mountain
and enter the frame that promises only its enslavement on the outline
of the shore of structure.

Material is man's alley,
Naked and soft, just part of a whole
A single member of the choir.
Materiel goes on the alter of fire
polished and cut sacrificing to the goal
of an outlinning plan.

Form is no prison
you're confined when your outside
and the mistake is in your sculpted eyes
pointing to a prism whose rainbows deny the original white light.

Form is Mind and Mind is Me
I stand before Forms everyday watching as if
it's a tombstone with words to tell the by passer that which it frames,
or perhaps like an architectural feat
telling the story of the house
and the people you'll meet
inside.

But Form doesn't go so far
It tricks and licks your cheek
while stroking your back
In a storm of adrenaline.

Form is Mind
Mind is Me
formed by material
and materialized by form.

Human Like Me.

They lie about the truth, 

they lie about you,

they lie about proof,

they lie about lies too,

They are not ashamed of behaving like a tamed

animal in a farm, eating the shit

the farmer has to spare

from the work of his hairy arm.

Not all who tell lies are liars,

some are just the liars goat

jumping off Azazel's cliff of pointy stone

to jump on to the boat of firefighters.

They lie about me, whatever they say.

The stories and gossip for those who chew the cud they dig,

the tales are endless, feeding cattle that is 

cloven hoofed like a pig.

And they tell me about abominations.

They have a whole list of don'ts and do's.

One of them being the renunciation

of their animal chew.

Why do they slither on the sand

like snakes without shoes.

Tell me, does everything taste like earth?

not to me, 

I can taste so much

including the apple on this tree.

When will you see the odor of the fodder

you are being fed.

A cow is not just for the udder that supplies the butter

for the rich in bed

Don't wait till they slit 

your esophagus and trachea,

At the hand of a perfect knife

perfected by generations of shechita

Be like me

the human thou shall not kill

and walk on water before Moses splits the sea and hits the stones,

surpass the calfs of gold and ride along the mill

march with me to the valley of dry bones.

Bask in the sun like Jacob, before Joshua stops it mid sky.

Enjoy the shade like Jonah, before God sends

a worm to let the tree die.

Enjoy bathing in water like Bat Sheva, until Elisha turns it into oil.

Listen to Saul's musician amidst your mental toil

If you can throw stones like David

and shake pillars like Samson

do so in front of a crowd.

Not in a spiraling journey through the desert

hidden behind a cloud.

Be human like me

Ask a question with out cheating

at the writing on the wall.

Speak to your friend

before a heavenly wagon comes to a halt.

Look back and learn

before you are turned into salt.

Walk the earth before it opens it's mouth,

Enjoy the Nidachat town.

Make your home outside a lion's den.

Until your Jericho walls go down.

Be human like me

And discover the list 

that doesn't exist

at the top of the mountain

or the bottom of the sea

see beyond the floods and plagues

and pursue the days

of jubilant plays

by the kids of Amelek and Zion.

The faces of four can be your affair

take the legs of your chair

to tell the story you want to hear

not the symbols that bare

the eagle, the ox or the lion.

Morph out of the animal in the mud

stop eating sand while crawling on your belly

pretend that the sea hasn't turned to blood and

take a stand in the midst of Eilah's valley 

Be human like me.

My World Used To be an Ocean.

My world used to be an ocean

with sea levels above the ground.

All I had was the surface of the sea,

and the sun above

reflecting the world,

and me.

Oh, those images on

the rippled sheet of sea,

these were scenes I won't forget

the reflective sailor I used to be.

In and on the sea

I saw the story

I wanted to tell

the world of sea men.

When my world was an ocean

there was the unchanging sea

wearing the face I put on that day.

And behind the horizon

there was always a mermaid

sitting alone

waiting

while singing a serenade

behind an embracing

sky and sea.

Then the sea levels dropped,

revealing some opaque soil

and solid grounds.

First was a light house

to tall for me to climb,

along with islands

whose language I don't speak.

Then the grounds were revealed, with their

inhabitants who speak so loud

and the mirror was concealed

by a sun blocking cloud.

And the few who take to the ocean

do so to swim, not to reflect

on the sheet of reflecting reality

they have just splashed.

The world of soil reflected nothing

of my face, but the sand did

get in to my eye.

As I trotted along the shore

of forgotten horizons

that shared a sun.

On dry land

the sun only burns

the face that looked up,

while searching for a clear plane

amidst the chaos of sand.

On the ground it's either human or fish,

and the sky and sea never embrace.

While the dropping sea levels

increase their pace.

And the sailor sits on a bench

under a shadow casting tree,

while with his shoes

he writes in the sand

a thought that will be washed away

by the tide of a low level sea.

Blood.

I turned my blood into ink
and spilled it on a vienless sheet
and I sent it to through the bodiless
channels called mail.

I peeled my bruises and
shaved my scars
and put it into an envelope
with no sensory glands
as I painted my burns
on a sheet drier than bones.

But it will not satiate the vampire's hunt
For not all blood is equally blue
and not all ink is equally red.
Not every burn sits on a plate
and not every scar can be fed.

I prepared a meal,
to serve the Beast
that worships pain.
I told him of the journey
where I started with baby skin.
And the road that made me hairy
and rouged, till I lost
the soft flesh of infancy.

On the table
the one who dines gets to choose,
which bone is worth the cut.
That one will get the gift of the oven
and the height of leavened bread.

But the competition
that measures fruition
is not fair with its count.
For the ease
of taking the disease
assumes that all was peace
before the start.

For some
the scar is skin
and the flesh is a sin
that isn't told.
And the ink needs first
to become blood
that runs under the scalp.
And the bruise is the body,
and the face is a burn
of the first degree.

For those, the peeling skin is whole
and the broken bone is complete
And the pain is felt
when the limbs melt
to become like an infant child you see.

But that kind of pain
doesn't make a meal
for the diner gets to decide
which sorrow is real.
A broken bone is something to show
while a whole body is something we all know.

So my vein's ink doesn't dry
and the surgical procedures I endured
are no story to tell.
For scissors that mend
are not like scissors that cut.

All that is left is the corridor
with the feast to its right,
and its reserved seats
for those
whose blood is white.

The Wind.

Every city has a cemetery,
towns have 'em too.

The cemetery is flat land
surrounded by gates,
and dead bones
unsurrounded.

The wind flies freely
above the dead
Uncaptured, unconfined,
Untrapped.

Back in the city
The wind struggles through
the walls and gates
of societies fruit.
The wind has to fight
until it reaches the nostrils
of Adam and Eve
running up a stair case
of a sky scrapping tower.

In the city,
the wind bangs and roars.
Unlike the cemetery,
where it quietly floats
above those who let the wind out.

The wind hovers
above the cemetery's field.
For there amongst the dead
the secret is told
that the night is old
And the wind holds its surprise
for those that rise
at the early hours of the day
to the crying sound of the wind
swimming through the obstacles of
civilization.
Wrapping towers
as it hugs the glass
that just kissed the wood
of the windowsill.

The wind runs through the narrow alleys
that barely have room for two.
And the holes in the walls
let the wind run through
and chill the bones of a child
as the wind whistles it a lullaby
of free flying winds
under blue skies.

Brick and cloth
all keep the wind out.
Leaving it to wiggle the young trees
whose leaves fall
into the hands of troubled winds
who have traveled through cities and walls,
choked by the scrapers in the sky.

Back in the cemetery
the wind flies freely
amidst those who lye in sand
easily blown by the wind.
The wind doesn't whistle or hymn
and there is no glass to hug and kiss.
Just space for wind and wind for space
above a sheet of soil
hiding those who have become like wind
themselves.

Hypatia

I admire your intelligence,

I really do.

All your philosophy, and thought.

all your names.

I love to discuss them with you,

I love to play those mental games.

Oh, how your ideas

blind my minds eye.

I want to hear more

I really do.

And did I mention,

you're the most beautiful person I know.

Sorry, for going off topic,

as far as your ideas go.

But I can't help but notice,

your tender eyes,

and waving hair.

They are real to me,

even with my minimal vocabulary skill.

And your gentle hands

that turn the pages 

you read while you lie calmly

under the eclipsed sun.

I notice that too,

even though

I can't formulate the question

it's supposed to respond to.

I am juggling thoughts

or perhaps I'm rotating

minds.

Listening to Athena in your voice

and Aphrodite in your eyes.

Can I worship more than one Goddess?,

Or maybe I can just do one sacrifice.

I wonder how many pantheons I can call my place,

As my thoughts and visions grow to proportions

I've yet to learn to embrace.

 

I like to stick to your ideas

and your intellectual feats. 

Directing my attention 

to your novel claims

and accomplished tasks.

I hear what you ask,

I have an answer,

but I can't say it.

Because my planned explosion 

has just imploded

in the frontal cortex of my juggling brain.

If you would slow down

I would follow you 

to your windowless room.

And I'll look out through the

crack in the ceiling I just made.

And I'll also read some of your books

I know you are mentioned in quite a few.

I'l try to concentrate on what they say,

if I manage 

not to get distracted by you.

History Stones People

History stones people.

They stoned Moses, David and Linclon,

history did that for all to see

Marbel and cement,

that's all it leaves behind

of a long changing life.

Great heroes of time,

fall under the mercy

of the sculptor's knife.

History stones faces,

in a way that would make

ecclestias cringe.

History stones feet,

in a way that would make

piligrims cry.

History stones life

to always stay fresh,

yet, what is life without

the sins of the flesh.

All the radical kids

get stoned

and never change'

or even move a muscle.

All the sword raising warriors

history stoned

without blood in their veins.

You can see all the victims

that history stoned

when you walk in the park,

they got kings

and queens

hell, they even got Gods.

They are there captive

in history's stones,

never to be again what they were;

wilting flesh and

breakable bones.

People look up at them

they are victims too.

History's stones fall far,

even on to you.

Those stoned to live

are like the ones stoned to die.

enslaved to the search

for the frozen smile.

Life is a burning bush

that doesn't get consumed.

not a dead rock

or a statue of history.

It's a fusing wind

of happinnes and misery.

An exploding volcano

of courage and fear.

It is the stem of the flower

struggling through the seasons

to stand and bloom

above the drying soil.

Life is the fighting wave

you see at sea

forgotten and denied

by the stones of history.

The Mountain Top and the Soccer Field

Dear Mashgiach you said it a million times,
and had us say it at least one hundred times after you.
But I only said it once.
Just once I used it to make a point,
maybe that was the problem.

Right there, on the top of that mountain
you told us, in a tune, that all is vanity.

At the bottom of the mountain was a soccer field;
We used to hear the roars of the crowd while we tried to focus
on the long text.
Its vanity,
a bunch of people running after a ball.
It's vanity,
screaming because you got someone to fall and trip.
It’s vanity.

But you know, I once went down the mountain;
I needed a cup of coffee, to keep me awake for a night full of studying.
I passed the soccer field
when the fans were emptying out the stadium.
Someone was carrying a cup and others were gathering around him,
applauding.

Did you know there is a score board at the stadium?
they write the scores there of every team.
They change the score throughout the game,
then someone wins.

Did you know that someone wins in the end?
they get a big cup
and a chance to compete again
with a better team.

But you know, Mashgiach, most people do it
for just an hour or so every week.
The rest of the time
they live their lives through comparison to the game.
For only an hour or so a week they have a controlled world
amidst the chaos they leave behind.
And find power and strength
by calling someone’s name.

They roar for an hour or so.
then they face their quiet homes.
They cheer for an hour or so,
until they get back to their silent laments
that are bigger than the whole stadium,
bigger than the whole game.

And when someone from the crowd
succeeds during the week.
She remembers the game She scored,
even when her success is smaller
than the shouts of the fans she heard,
for an hour or so last week.

The game last for an hour or so a week,
than the fabric of the crowd
falls back in to single threads
lost in a hay taller
than the grass of a soccer field.

But, back on the mountain,
the roars of texts lasts all week.
We never leave the stadium.
Nobody scores, nobody falls,
nobody gets called by name.

Nothing gets referenced to nothing,
they shaved the grass of the whole field.
You live and die running
to kick a ball you can't see,
and to live a metaphor you can't construe.

On top of the mountain the game lasts a whole week,
and the fabric of the crowd is never pulled to thread.
You don't see a guy leaving with his cup;
for there is no cup,
there is no leaving,
truth is there isn't even a guy.
There is just a crowd cheering,
cheers that can only come from a crowd
who never tried a lament.
Cheers that have no chaos
to contrast to.

I see the soccer field
It is vanity,
for an hour or so every week.
I see the mountain top
It is vanity,
for ever and ever.

Thoughts

Thoughts are like butterflies in the sun.

Blinded by the light,

noticed by their color,

admired for their flight,

avoided for their flutter.

If You Dream.

If you dream....

Tomorrow it may be lost to fantasy

or to oblivion

tomorrow it may be lost to heresy

or treason

If you dream.......

Tomorrow it may be found with disturb

or rust

tomorrow it may be found with perturb

or disgust

If you dream...........

Tomorrow it may be hailed as a desire

or plan

tomorrow it may be hailed as a fire 

Yes we can 

If you dream................ 

Tomorrow it may be the wished for act

or the clear path

tomorrow it may be the blatant fact

or the simple math

Tomorrow it may be,

if you dream..........................

 

Valley of Despair

If I go down the Valley of Despair

What will I find?

Will I see the bankrupt bank

Will I find the general in the rank

Will I find the gun and the tank

Will I find that the statue shrank.

What will I find?

Will I see the meadow of

today and tomorrow

Will I see the seeds

Will I hear the rings

or just the sorrow.

What will I find?

I see my brother

exhausted

claiming he faulted

in getting the meadow

exalted.

Is this what I find?

Dreamless sleepers

on dark nights

in dry prairies

No speeding of time

or sufficient funds.

No path to the palace

where the horse runs.

No feeling for

the urgency of the now,

only gradualism

roaming around

O' valley of despair

why am I still here?