So sorry I can’t go to kibbutz Gezer today to see the exhibit with poems and pictures that include my own. Instead I am bedridden and kvetching.
But Ira was kind enough to send me the picture of the poem
that goes with a painting. You’ll have to go to the exihibit itself.
If Iran looks for me, it’ll find me under the covers.
This poem was supposed to go into Tikkun, but that journal is closing and i now offer it to you:
מחיה מתים ברחמים רבים
“In his great mercy, He revives the dead,”
Prayers shift their substance,
when the congregation is armed.
M-16s sling over folded tallitim,
ready for prayers, ready for battle
From the women’s section in the rear,
male backs are all I can perceive,
I mouth praise to the Lord
as I recall the flash of a girl
in a field of her friends’ corpses
begging to be released from life.
רופא חולים
“He healeth the sick,”
The soldier before me at the pharmacy
shrugs his weapon back on his shoulder
as he takes his prescription out of his pocket
and hands it over the counter.
Mahmud examines the paper and says,
“It must be painful, Dan, but maybe let’s try
a cream less extreme. Does it burn when…”
They drop their voices and move away for me
so their consultation is not overheard.
ומתיר אסורים
“And frees the imprisoned.”
I grasp my protest dog tag,
that says, “Bring Them Home,”
and want to say
“Let my people go.”
וּמְקַיֵּם אֱמוּנָתוֹ לִישֵׁנֵי עָפָר.
And fulfils His faith to those who sleep in the dust
Resting by the Jordan River
eyeing the automatic baptism chair
that lowers the penitent into the waters
and revives the newly saved into a new life,
unused now while the rockets fall,
I long to bathe, soak my hair and spring up
enlightened. Instead, I fulfil my hunger
with the shawarma at the stand of Al-Babur,
until recently known as the gourmet restaurant
of the village of Um Il Fachem.
a Tikkun Poem – 4.12.24 Read Post »
One of the ways I put myself in clothes and makeup and books in high school was babysitting. And there was a little boy down the street whose family paid more because the boy was still in diapers and unable to speak. I was with him a few times a week for three years. In that time I never learned his last name, nor how old he was but he was about 8 when I was informed not to come any more. I think he died, but the family moved away immediately after and I never found out. I only heard from gossip that the mother was forty when she married her sister’s widower and was punished with a mongoloid child.
And I loved him.
So today was very meaningful for me. We were privileged to visit the center for challenged children.
The Downs’ boy
His was my first unconditional embrace.
I’d walk in the house and his entire moon face
would open in a new awakening.
“Jeffrey! Jeffrey!” I would call,
and bend to where he sat up
from his crawl and opened his arms
to me. His frazzled, aged mother
came into the room as well,
wiping her hands on a dishtowel
to admire the warmth of his welcome.
“Jeffrey, Jeffrey!” I buried my face
In his soft white shoulder and listened
As he burbled his version of words.
There was no funeral.
When one day I wasn’t called
to care for him, I put my mind back
into my studies, unaware
the parents were ashamed
to acknowledge his life
and the relief of his loss.
I didn’t even pass his house
or call the parents I barely knew,
But I still whisper to him,
in our sweet secret way
that in some world,
we will always embrace.
I kept thinking how much longer and happier Jeffrey’s life would have been in such a wonderful place, how the children in Shalva have a wonderful pool and learn to become great swimmers with their moms in one of two magnificent pools, have learned to perform as singers, have learned to take care of themselves, to form relationships, to hold jobs.
The sense of joy and accomplishment was so palpable I urge you to take a look at: shalva.org.il.
Down’s Syndrome Teaches Read Post »
You think things are upside-down on Purim? I was walking past all the shops with costumes hanging on the street and thinking that only women get gussied up – or down – with very sexy outfits this year. Considering the way women have been debased from October 7, and have proven themselves worthy of defense positions in the army, I find it ridiculous that they are promoting sexual and not regal wear. And then I remembered the poem from Itzik Manger’s Megillah.
getting ready for purim – march 24, 2024 Read Post »
Almost nothing can comfort me in the past weeks. But making music with Ronen is overwhelming. Ronen Shapira with all the clamps and frets he puts on his piano can make any sound in any direction. He can sound Japanese, African, Western, Arab, and go anywhere in music. Today I had a chance to reconnect with this genius and it allows me to believe again in soul. Watch this space and I’ll figure out how to give you a taste…
music soothes savage beasts -march 7, 2024 Read Post »
Doug Holder, a mainstay of the Greater Boston poetry community, will be appearing on Zoom, hosted by IAWE chair Karen Alkalay-Gut, Sunday 10 March at 7:30 P.M. Israel time.
to register click this link
the US East Coast time will be 1:30 P.M.
new zoom on sunday Read Post »
No one can see the photographs and film of hungry Gazans without sympathy, and yet some of my friends disclaim any emotion. One of the reasons we are seem less empathic is the fact that we never mention the terrible things done to us in order to demean and debase us. Sometimes I mention something and nobody reacts. Like a few months ago I dropped a hint in an article in firstofthemonth.org. I said something about the fact that there were victims whose gender could not be identified at first. Noone asked me about that, and I am sure that the families of these victims are not going to dwell on it. But the mutilation of sexual organs was widespread on October 7, and the purpose was to debase and emasculate the men. Raping women here was not about sex, certainly not when it was done with a shooting klatchnikov, but robbing the men and all the country of all power. Making a fifteen year old girl into a sex slave might have erotic benefits, but when I saw the footage of her, with her brownstained cargo pants, being pushed into a car on that fateful day, I wondered how anyone could get sexual pleasure from making that terrified child into a handmaiden.
We don’t talk about the details, how the hostages of both sexes and ages are ravished daily – because it shames us. But until we talk about it, we cannot explain – even to ourselves – our motivation. Or regain our sense of moral superiority.
Our attempts to bring food into Gaza have failed due to their desperation and our diffidence. And when we remember how many Gazans were brought – by Israelis – to hospital in Israel for life-saving treatment, we are embarrassed we were such suckers. Look at how we treated them and how they treat us. It makes us feel even more foolish.
But we aren’t foolish – we’re human beings who were rewarded for our humanity with behavior unheard of in the animal kingdom. More of that behavior is unearthed every day.
Victims are always embarassed to talk. But until it all comes out, we remain victims.
Hopium – March 5, 2024 Read Post »
The Filly
فرس
She’s fifteen
and has been passed around
for a hundred and fifty days
from terrorists to teachers
who have learned to despoil
girls who look just like their pupils.
The Filly – March 4, 2024 Read Post »
