Barbequed veal poor excuse for a meal that your rabbi will bless with a loophole, no less
When words become gods granted power to bind Beauty is slaughtered behind fences confined
2. Services
Standing in Rockports® my Jew feet still ache duped by the branding Where is the comfort as I bow in this game of praising Your Name
3. Oscar’s Date
Did you ever feel the eyes of an admirer tickling the back of your head?
No wonder Oscar’s date is in a giddy fit stripped naked for massage by a million million focused twiddly orbs gawking while she giggles on the pedestal divine
4. Computer
This machine is an Apple with a bite My eyes are burning in the light infiNet by click of digit Oh, Your Power in this Widget all for $19.95 a month
5. Rock Stars
To a million million worshippers of Beatles, Stones and other bands The Stars do Rock God Incarnate We bow down low The Fans
6. Me
When I was high and paranoid with all the Answers in my head Then You were Me and I the One Living God You were Dead
7. Movies
Cinematic molten calves Move Ease eyes bring ohhhs and ooze the tears and fears that tease More please We all Do Bow Down Low for Thees
8. Television
Oh plasto-box with glowing screen electro-guts and cable link Marcia Brady, Elmo, Barney Wolf Blitzer, and Game Show Wink My eye at You Forever true Tuned into God on Channel 2
9. Professor
Your beard was full of knowledge crumbs That spilled from your mouth in a lonely feast unintelligible to anyone standing beyond the edge of your field Your breath reeked in the stench of self love Master of your Universe Baiter of hooks designed to snare a wide eyed co-ed and reel her up to your academic tower where she would nibble the scraps from your lips With dreams of publication in your Book of Life
10. Genetic Engineer
Corn puffs infused with salamander skin dipped in guaca-pollywog with a side of worm crossed pear Tomorrow’s menu served today Chef JuggleGene, extraordinaire Surpassing God, Oh Servant, “There’s fly in my soup with curly green hair!”
11. Goddess
Systolic pressure drops vacuum sucks my breath away heart shrivels in the fumes of pheromonic force I do not choose to turn my head but this Image tempts me from my course
Merely a Symbolic Frolic? No Matter ruled by God’s Design
What can I do but drop and kneel taken hostage by her sex appeal
No doctor, guru, pills or salves can repel the Goddess with the golden calves.
12. Flight
All you Idols hound and peck, mock and tempt as if I’d always break And until now perhaps I have But here I burn you at the stake
You melt away like dying snow your toxic smoke dissolves in breath released in speech of your demise my Phoenix rise upon your death
One True God looms beyond this tapestry of words in flight
weaving in and out of meaning I ascend into Your Light.
Tears of Light (Mind Dust II)
Like particles of dust trapped in a room whirling through a window filtered sunbeam So the shimmering souls descend from the heavens in a spiraling ballet of witness borne.
And with the projected reflection of this Angelic Spectacle, God is weeping Tears of Light into a world drenched with the sobs of the suffering.
And with this prayer of Remembrance Let the purest Light of Martyred Souls be refracted through the flood of teardrops into the light of the Covenant Rainbow:
Let us meet at Rachel's Well where holy love was born on wings of water let us rise from depths of loss beyond all words of hope
Let us meet at Rachel's Well to let the waters flow and slake the thirst of those whose desperate prayers moved God to call upon an angel lamb in service of his Will.
I read this story about a little girl named Rachel Beckwith who asked her friends and family to donate money to bring water to African villages through charitywater instead of giving her a present for her 9th birthday. She was killed in a traffic accident before she had reached her goal of raising $300. Her story moved me to tears and I wrote this poem.
Holy Tears
for Madonna Badger, Matthew Badger and Michael Borcina
We look in on your tragedy
horrified
trying to make sense as if it was our own
The "if onlys" spiraling into smoky, blazing chaos...
Here,
Christmas Eve
Stockings over the fireplace
A late night of final preparations
towards the Perfect Christmas Morning
A well intentioned deed
to discard the remnants of the Yule log
before bed
but amidst the ashes
an ember
a rushing wind
and Resurrection
of the flame that still burns within
And Here,
the owner of Tiberias Construction*,
rememberthe Carpenter from Galilee
who tried to save the children
and Here,
the Santa with a real white beard
who fell through the roof
trying to save Grace
and Lily of the Valley
and Sarah our Mother
And who can hear their holy names
and not see Angels?
and Here,
Madonna
renowned for fashioning the Image of God
lost Everything
From where will she draw the strength to go on?
When all the world is lost?
Madonna
whose eternal tears stream from paintings and sculptures
and the clouds
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An old Hasidic tale relates that God created humankind because God loves stories
Sometimes we forget that amidst the fantasies and comedies
lie the tragedies
Sometimes we forget that amidst the dust and ashes
lie the embers
We who uplift and defile the Image of God
in ourselves and in others
are but dust and ashes
and holy stories are the wind
May the wind,
the spirit of all flesh,
resurrect within us a loving flame
to honor the memory of the lost
and to bless the holy tears of Madonna
From the traditional Hebrew liturgy:
Nishmat kol chai t'varech et shimcha Adonai Eloheinu, v'ruach kol basar t'faer utromem zichr'cha malkeinu tamid
May the soul, the breath of every living being bless Your Name, our God; May the wind, the spirit of all flesh, praise you always our King.