May poems

It is 4:50 a.m., so of course I am packing, so of course I am reading.

May 23, 2012 (12:29 a.m.)

(Shavuot thinking)

Overslept.
Just the most important day of my life, and I overslept.
Dreamed too much. Imagined all kinds of wonders.
Didn't want to appear before God with bags under my eyes.
I overdrank of rest. Didn't stay empty enough,
needy enough

Next time I will sleep with the scroll under my pillow
and wake up knowing it.


May 21, 2012

Why do poems/have to be true?

Why does this poem
have to be true?
Why can't you believe
that I don't really love him,
the one with the hair
and the sad smile eye dances?
Why can't I speak of God
and have it just be speech,
talk of sex and
have it be someone else's?
Why do line breaks
reinforce your faith
in my sincerity?
Why won't you let me hide
behind these words

KHORIKOS in Battle of the Boroughs!

(We won Manhattan! Brooklyn won NYC.)

My singing group, KHORIKOS, is in Battle of the Boroughs....
WQXR has also posted a video of our performance on YouTube that you can watch here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQmTn2obXTw&feature=plcp

In other news, my mandolin arrives tomorrow. In other other news, I leave for Maine on Monday in order to work at the Seeds of Peace International Camp for the summer. More on that soon.

And now we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming.

in 3/4. (Probably.) From Shavuot.

c--|e--|efd|e--|efd|e--|gfe|d--|f--|fed|dfe|d--|def|e-d|c--|---|
c--|e--|efd|e--|efd|e--|gfe|d--|f--|fed|dfe|d--|def|e-d|c--|---|
g--|gfe|egf|e--|egf|e--|gfe|d--|f--|fed|dfe|d--|def|e-d|c--|---|
g--|gfe|egf|e--|egf|e--|gfe|d--|f--|fed|dfe|d--|def|e-d|c--|---||

Tracy Chapman Time

Many thoughts this week. For now, though, a Tracy Chapman cover. I recorded a different version months ago, but that was before I could fingerpick consistently at 70 bpm. Progress....



More songs here.

מחיה המתים

You have returned
and the universe breathes

בוא נא בשלום
ממעמקי חלומות

Rise now to meet me
and sit down beside me

הרופא לשבורי לב
ומחבש לעצבותם

In naming the holy
the lonely find solace

The Yonahs

A few years ago, I started writing a story about two different Yonahs from Tana"kh: Yonah the dove, from Noah's Ark, and Yonah the Prophet, more commonly known in English as Jonah. I thought Yonah the dove would have much wisdom for Yonah the Prophet, but I have recently started thinking more about unsettled feelings and thoughts that the dove--as well as the dove-partner it presumably left behind--might have. And I realized that another Yonah should enter the picture: one of the lovers from Shir haShirim (The Song of Songs). The woman is called "yonati", but seeing as doves seem to come in pairs (which poses an interesting question for Yonah the Prophet), I figure that the woman's lover may also be classified as such.

All three share a fleeing, a leaving, a come-and-go relationship. The dove leaves the Ark and comes back, leaves the Ark and comes back, leaves the Ark and never returns. Yonah the Prophet tries to escape God's mission for him with regard to the city of Nineveh. And the lovers in Shir haShirim tear each other's hearts when a brief coyness results in the other's withdrawal.

I want the three to meet. For now, though, a drawing related to the one whom I, for now, label Yonah 2.

West 81st and Columbus, 10:05 p.m.

Light from two streetlamps
yellows small sections of each
curved metal armrest

The roads are still wet enough
that the cars are making rain sounds

People walk by at calmer paces
than during the daytime

Wind catches bits of hair, skirt
while the rest of me sits breathing
because that's all I have to do

Who will share
this God moment

Tunes on the 2/3 to Brooklyn

Nign 1

|g a b a |g aba |g a b c |d ded |g a b a |g aba |g a b c |d ded |
|d e f d |e gfe |c d edc |c edc |d e f d |e gfe |c d e fe|d cqa | (q=b flat)

Nign 2
Quick.
|----a---d-------|c-ded-c-d---a---|g---c---b-cdc-b-|a--ba-g-a-------| (unfinished)

Tefillin shel yad

I adjust the scarf on my shoulders
revealing a silent upper arm
A child stares deep into a book
as the nurse prepares the shot
A mother exposes her breast
to an audience of one

When Soap Runs Out

Seven pumps in rapid succession
result in a paltry piece of foam
that barely covers one fingertip.
Come on, soap dispenser,
can't you muster a little more?
Please? For me?

Here There Here

When years pass
and I don't write a letter
and I keep a necklace
in exchange for a dreidel
how do I write a poem

how do I write a poem

when I plan to send art supplies and don't

how do I write a poem

when a beret sits on my shelf

how do I write a poem

when I suspend my dedication
when we see other people
when I wear the necklace


when we sat on a seesaw
the impact of each landing
cushioned by rubber tires
and we searched for balance
in the garden dedicated to children

how do I write a poem
when a poem she sent
is on the wall that I see
when I stand facing East
and a note expresses
that she hopes that I find it
all right

when halva and half-eaten chocolate
wait in my cupboard
for me to get over my fear
and attend to them


how do I write a poem


it was such a dinky dreidel
drab yellow and plastic
although it was placed in my hand
by a professor with bold glasses
who is waiting with pride
for my first published collection

such a little dinky dreidel
stained drab green on the drab yellow
as if a vat of drab green dreidel stuff
had contaminated a vat of drab yellow dreidel
stuff
a dinky drab dreidel that compelled her
to remove the necklace from her neck


I brought here there
with a there dreidel



how do I write a poem
for a girl whose eyes
teach me what it means
when an author describes
someone's eyes
as liquid

liquid and smiling
dominating a face
whose lips smile
while drinking chocolate milk
out of a packet
through a tiny straw

whose eyes duck away
from a photograph
at a restaurant
in Jerusalem

whose cell phone alarm clock song
plays on my iPod
as I walk in Manhattan
to take me to a place
of calm and morning and waking up


how do I write a poem
when I should be singing the Song of the Sea
as she requested
the song sung by a little girl
in The Prince of Egypt


here hangs from my neck here
the here of there
the here of her