It all depended on a word

it all depended on a no
no not again and again and again
naively cast into a vortex of ego
the riposte drips from a caustic pen

no not again! and again! and again!
all i had earned since my first Hebrew word
the riposte drips from a caustic pen
my place in history thus interred.

All I had earned since my first Hebrew word
The highest placement in the eye of all,
My place in history thus interred?
Your lack of skill in things political,

The highest placement in the eye of all,
Leaves you unsuited to participate
Your lack of skills in things political
Give me the joy your talent to berate.

Leaves you unsuited to participate
in the movement that seeks God's Face, calls God's Name.
Gives me the joy your talent to berate,
To cast aside, grant you a life of shame.

The Movement that seeks God's Face, calls God's Name
Treats slither-smiling icons as the ones
To cast aside, grant you a life of shame,
A fatwa on your leadership, you're done.

the same stories in a different hand

touched, my mind replies,
"I've read these stories elsewhere,
in a different hand" - after Bernice Bricklin

this pandit spoke of being
Surprisingly Happy, surprisingly jewish
tales of alte-bubbies marking
the moment of departure with
a salty stream a lake made of women

folding up her seventy years
in a serpentine posture
her body teaches a pathway
of yogic mastery from the womb
the greater to shock with the word sober

the wax impacted in my
ears doesn't block the pathway to my
brain as these words trigger
the same story I read somewhere
someone some context some same

spiritual direction from the stories
in dialogue with my own drash
the pandit rabbi's silejnce speaks
like a spare neuronic spark interrupting
mindfulness like the "j" in silence

a teacher transforms by touching
by being

didn't isaac bashevis singer say that
did i read that in english
did a jew write it being buddhist
did a bu write it being jewish
so much more modest this time

the young, broken divorcee
brought two toddlers to a minyan
eight feet tall in her tallit
Woman manned the pulpit
chanting and reclaiming
the ancient men's text
the ancient men's rite
the ancient men's story

in forty years she would be that
woman chatting across generations
woman folding into a skater's spiral
woman finding the origin and pulsing
power through the periphery of time

a dikshit whose journey becomes
my own as I walk her path with unstable man's feet
my ninety year old friend comments
i so enjoyed these stories
when i read them when they first

came out over nine times ninety
years ago
or was it only
April, 2010

beautiful, alone

"A beautiful man,"
she cannot conceal her pleasure.
beautiful, alone - April 24, 2010

thanking her for the compliment i wonder
for who for what
the havdalah candle glimmers off her
iris the window her iristhewindow heriristhewindowiris
havdalah means separation

i am kind yes and i
dojuslylovemercy
and walk with God but
did Micah mean more
Micah was married

so was the speaker
who Micahs very well thank you
and says havdalah at the end of every
sabbath. If I celebrated separation,
would it hurt so?

Ice is

the opposite

of separation

Gossip in the Middle of the Night (for Carolyn)

in the mind
in the spine
a call is made
a lyric blade
the ace of spades
scratchy overdubs
speech cut at the nubs
indicts the jack of clubs
Ace: the chick who held the camera
on you and Shivananda
beneath the jacaranda
says you need to work on tantra
from the clumsy artless way you let him mount ya

say it ace
to my face
do more damage
with your frottage
at the cottage
where the boys line up
each with coffee cup
lacking just to sup
all the bone grind on the bone meal that you want to schtup
Ace: pervs like me hide in plain day
while poor priests are nabbed at play
but did you hear our mate Clay
and the boss's son today
damn near tore apart the carpet with the Man away

why is this
so amiss
to ace jack scoffed
a little boff
with cameras off?
Jackie lit the fire
mucking in the mire
according to the wire
service in the sanctum of Talent For Hire
Ace: That's not all did you see Charlie
nose red eyes bloodshot pearly
crystals streaming down gnarly
matted whiskers quite surly
twitching like a loony? he left early

how i wish
i could dish
like this spade ace
bearing false grace
such a fast pace!
rued the outdone jack
knife behind his back
pointing out his lack
of slat-toungued comebacks leaving his jaw slack
Ace and his suit can read minds
their ilk the jacks leave behind
in the race to trap and bind
fools who end up as their find
with all positions partners powders pleasures publicly mined?

I'm Looking at the MF in the Mirror

hey motherfucker in the tie
did you see me when you looked
in the window at your reflection
at the Rich Slob Bank on Rittenhouse Square?
ties werre invented to accentuate
dicks

did you perceive the buckle
that swashed as you swished
through crowds never cresting
always cracking where you create
turbulence and trauma in the
crevasses

did you see my life in that Big Bank
Window did you see my love my
longing my lot as liminal to my fellows
did you cognosce my cavil
as a cover for the caravan of broken
promises

were you too obsessed with the fall
of your tie the crease of your trousers the
pop of your shoulder pads the sheen
of the sun on your slammed-shut
briefcase, carry lives embossed in every
brief

rich fuck did you even
feel my breath heavy on your silk lapel
vibrate to the rhythm of my too great
flesh bearing the scars of surgery and
sickness in stuff and spirit pirouetting its
escape

did you even notice that you'd overrun another
man with a vision that you occluded
with your stumble to prominence, blind
to any obstacle, least a middle aged teacher composer
poet in jeans on a workday, fighting for equitable
distribution

one day you too will be a castoff
the next young lion will rip off your mane
and hand it to you "as a hood ornament"
the next Amazon will rip from you client after
client until your partners lose their sense of
history

one day those steely blues will turn ice
cold as crows feet gather beaks will peck
until your cold gaze chills hearts no more
your buckle will have far too much to do to swash
that cloth penis will fray and point outward
and you will know the man before you dodging, imploring
pardon