;.cRetype of =gild 8/23/98 , Cf. =conox, =gildox, 
;.l1,2,64,66,1,0,10,78,192,2,15,25,127,10,0,
=2ox87
Retype from printout of =gild 8/23/87
incorporated into =conox
Saved for me by Alifa Sadya Meor Modi'in '92-'03
Start Retype
I'll try to retype verbatim, then append rewrites (sa 7/03)
I seem to have been more sensitive then than now.
Retypes/additions in [ brackets ]
 words I wish I'd never said in { squiggly-braces }
LL=65 chars; but to fit long lines I've changed it to LL=68
To fit long poems, I've changed TM=2, BM=64
single line = end poem
double line = end page (and a fortiori poem )  (mostly)


------------------------------------------------------------------

IN SEARCH OF THE OX WITH THE GILDED HORN:  
Selected Poems with at least some Jewish content

Stephen Benjamin Amdur , Tishrei 5746


=================================================================
.p

Lines written under the influence of Carl Shrager's Panama Red

Miraculously, the water parted
they passed through to Mt. Zion
To one
   (to whom the God once spoke
   in the silence in the heart of the fire in the veins of a bush)
the God spoke again
and the   W O R D
              of infinite delicate complexity
                                              was revealed as LAW
Blinded he returned
to seal his mountain-top tomb with the shattered calf.
It was hewn on stone tablets.

         Mendocino, 1967]
              to Susan Harrison

------------------------------------------------------------------


[Notes:  
The only poem in which I need font-size variation:
I imply a descending ontic hierarchy of WORD / LAW / halacha
`WORD' is:  'In the Beginning was the WORD,' etc.  Cf. 'Tao'.
and of course Cf. Heraklitus, Logos ]



=================================================================
.p

Hootenanny at the College Co-op

This wandering Jew
unshaven, pack on his shoulder
moving from town to city and country
no special pain in having no home
only the dull pain in knowing he can have no home.
(Others, 
{tranquil as sailboats in a dead calm},
[oy; sailboats in a shtetl?]

[not born to a quest]
X
laugh at him because he cannot laugh.
[or original, and better: 
'and laugh at him because he cannot laugh']
at week's end, gathered with is fellows on some bare floor
sad folk songs mingle with teh darkness.

                       Oberlin, Grey Gables, 1959 (reconstructed)


[Notes:  And not reconstructed well; needs rewrite.
Then and there, mid-West late 1950's, prior to the New Age and oldage Jewish religious neo-traditionalism, affirmation of Jewishidentity took a secular politicized form, '30's nostalgia; childrenof the (largely Jewish) USA Old Left awakening from assimilationistadolescence and beginning to fight back against the (largelyCatholic?) reactionary USA '50's; this then took in the '60's theforms of New Left and New Age, branching then into Jewish neotraditionalism, both New Age (neo-hasidic, chesed) and -- 'nonhasidic'.]

=================================================================


.p

The valleys are filled with mist
from each rise I find myself, surp;rised
still climbing the distant mountain.

                 (Lama Mtn., ca. 1969)

------------------------------------------------------------------

the ancient grape-vine
sparkling "wine of ecstacy"
crystal kiddish cup

                 Abode of the Message, 1981

------------------------------------------------------------------

Full moon on the waves
Elul, August; August, Elul
a seagull turning

          Penobscot Bay, Maine, 1982

------------------------------------------------------------------

Boddhisatva taxi-driver
longing to see everyone safely home,
how could you ever know where each one goes
and when?       

    		(Talpiot, Jerusalem, 1987)
    		[to Chaya Leiter]

=================================================================
.p

few pale stars above
waning moon in the western sky
tzitzit -- rose dawn-beams

eastern sky lightens
pale green, pale blue
dark blue, the lightening moon

crows and bluejays call
a mist blows over the pond
from the heron's tree

cornstalks turning brown
rabbits walk across the road
white-tail deer bound off

mint, sage, basil, thyme
diamomd dew on the garden
motley of pale greens

     behind the blue sky
     yellow sun bursts forth in joy
     like a strong woman

in the stone-cooled hall
flute notes in the quiet air
earth foods at noontime

golden light, green gardens
the birds are setting up camp
pensive time, Yitzhak

Kaballat Shabat
sun setting behind the hills
bright colored palace

cool of day drifts back
spectrum of darkening blues
looking for three stars


                               Ruach Camp -- Abode of the Message
                               1982, 1983
                               to Noor


=================================================================
.p
[title obscurred]

Pausing before entering
I drape over my shoulders
and knot the imperial gartel
  yoke of bondage
about my neck:
  `let my soul not see
   nor mind comprehend
   what I put my kishkes through
   to earn my daily quiche
Senlin says.

	Cambridge, Mass, Autumn 1984

Ref:  Conrad Aiken, "Morning Song of Senlin":
      "Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
       pale in a saffron mist and seem to die
       and I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
       stand before a glass and tie my tie."

[More notes:
a gartel is of course the ceremonial belt that hasidim tie abouttheir waist before commencing davening (set daily prayers), 
in order to separate one's lower parts from the higher

"he wore the yoke of bondage through / the streets of Mandalay"
US folk song
I am indebted to Mr. Smith, 5th grade teacher at Shady Hill, forintroducing us to the 'Song of Senlin'

------------------------------------------------------------------

Conceptual Distinctions from the Harvard College Succah

If, eg
the, eg, Lubavitcher
Rebbe were to say
(Heaven forfend),
"Yiddele, we may now eat pork"
all is hassidim would say,
"Our holy master has
(Heaven forbid)
flipped out.

[Note:  
I here savoured the distinction between 'forfend' and 'forbid'. ]

------------------------------------------------------------------
.a3
taxicab home from the Seder
interrupts the flight from Egypt
"tchuve tchuve," robins sing
[Notes: "tchuve tchuve" as I heard it chanted by a woman recitingSong of Songs for Pesach 

=================================================================
.p

REVISIONIST AKEDA

I.

No.

Temptations from devils;
  farts and belches of your own mind:
Fattest idol can't be the Highest;
Blind obededience's fate of slaves;
Test's to hold your own ground. 

     Signs and wonders -- madness'
     booby prizes,
     Distasteful battleground.

       Angel and devil
       the two inevitalbe servants
       accompanied him.
       And old man spoke plain sense and raised his staff;
       cast away again, Ishmael's sickly smirk behind our backs.
       My father's madness called down a wadi flood
       that only madness could cross.

     The wood was heavy;
     clumsily I stumbled and fell many times, of course
     and that damnable fire would not go out.

A HAND blocks the Place
as he pressed forward, through his whirlwind --

     unable to move
     and my father suddenly so small
     soul surged through opening heavens
     and saw, they say, "The Awe of Issac"
     handing my life back to me, as grace.

my Mother had become a ram, nestling in the PALM.

     As the silver knife dropped to earth
     his strength passed to me as a robe.

     Whole, in the peaceful cool of the day
     we did not speak again,
     and went to separate Sabbaths.

She returned just once, to show me, afar
a strong slender girl descending in golden light
to return laughter to my soul
living under my mother's peace
in the Light of our Lord.        

.p


II.

Redeemed but bedazzled at last by Light
          (our Lord is magnanimous
           herbs cooking in venison stew
          [or: 'we shall feast on savoury stew']
time to sanctify, at least, my own first-born
whose birthright is to sanctify that Place
let him redeem our mistakes.
No sharp tools; not burning flesh
but sanctified laughter of men and women shall ascend
like incense, like music.


I dream of a Temple of peace
nothing to envy
just piled-up field-stones, each chosen in love
where the poor man may dip his bread in salt
by ancient olive trees.

                                 Pesach 5744 --
                                 Sukkot 5755 

                                      Belmont, Massachusetts


------------------------------------------------------------------

[Notes:
There is, I gather, much midrashic support for this interpretation
References:  Many; Cf. esp. Kitov, Book of our Heritage
"booby prize" (from my childhood slang, USA 1940's:)
given to one who comes in not first but last in a contest.

=================================================================
.p
"A quiet man, living in tents"

           "... nor could I have known
                whose heel I grasped, my brother's or my own."

                                         Delmore Shwartz, "Jacob"

from a far field
my father's shadow in afternoon
reflected mountain in a small lake

grain waving in the wind
and the Age of Abel passing
     one drams, occasionally --
     to raise up first-cut sheaves... 

my brother races to forests
fleet as a wolf

 on the cook-fire
 stew of the fruits of the eath
 drying herbs hung about my tent

wild brother in animal skin
sliding down the dry mountainside, tumbling stones 
[or: 'schussed' ]
threw himself on the goats' watering trough
drank like a great cat
and burst through my door

ate without pause
(I dared one demand)
he laughted it away
and left to his wives.
He tolerates me.
We parted friends.


The day, my father dying
my mother moved clamly, postponing grief
as if she wer heir to his peace
steering my destiny through that fateful, labored masquerade
          -- wheelbarrow in a muddy rutted field --  

laughter tears and rage
(virus forte)
one of my brother's rabbits now
mocked by that stolen blessing

                                    JACKPOT JAKE HITS THE TRAIL
                                    WITH THE FAMILY JEWELS

always listening                                   (shema, shema) 
hoping only for begrudged shelter
in my mother's land

     I know livestock.   That helps.

 ...
 our son, our son at last
 his dreams recalling me to the truth of my own ...               

------------------------------------------------------------------

[Notes:
'wheelbarrow':  Cf. William Carlos Williams
Traditional references are here relatively few.
The last two lines are mistakenly out-of-place; 
they predicate of Issac speaking of Issac; not of Jacob 
(who had no lack of sons, and soon).

============================================================== ==
.p

Egyptian Eating Brown Rice

Belatedly, the Butler recalled his omission;
the tzaddik was bathed and was raised    
[or: 'was bathed and raised']
up from the prayers of poverty
"...but it is easy to forget, at our ease"

        Ref:  after a teaching by John Gomez, Taos
              Cf. Heraklitus, Fragment Bywater 108

------------------------------------------------------------------

[Notes:  
The punchline here is the title] 

=================================================================
.p

                        Two flowers floating on a pond
                    amidst a consternation of handmaidens.
                         Imagine that moment's glance. 

I.
In a recurring dream
she stands by the Riverbank, watching
very concerned
my sister.  

	It's cold and dark and damp -- I'm scared
	Mother had me taken home
	They called my mama
	One day they sent her away again.


II.

Having given one's tutors the slip
investigated that dusty storeroom
scrolls no-one dared destroy
Great-grand-uncle, administrative genius malgre lui,
rainbow boy become father to the Father of the Lamd
	and ours a mean little viper of hate....


III.

It's all so distant
dried and blown on as dust
Bedouin life
	my wife an oasis, our sons Palms
	yes, yes
Strength from the air and light
stars my teachers


One's temper, faith, patience may break
I struck out
empty-handed

The mountain sighs 'above and beyond'
the desert echos echad

------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes:
'consternation of handmaidens':  Cf. Wallace Stevens, Susanah & theElders
=================================================================
.p
  
Prophet, followed by Little Men in White Suits

Such callers don't leave cards,
and an option of retrospective distinction
after life in the hell of interminable equivocation
seemed an imprudent investment.              

Fighting the waves of my mind
                        ("keep it under your hat, Gyro Gearloose")
"I went down to --
                    Piraeus", Joffa,
                                     "Hell, Tarshish!"
                                      (thank heaven for money)
skulking around friends
who said I appeared a bit preoccupied

and lied my way onto a boat.  One copes.
    ...with my back to the wall of a courtyard Cafe
    at the edge of the world, where the air is clear and calm...

and the rise & fall of the hull
(get some sleep, get some sleep)
confirmed my error, erring
tchuve, tchuve, wailed the wind:
     the sin we all dwell in is no ground for guilt
     yes, yes, repent all your vicious little excesses of despair
but turn, "return to the land of your soul"

One must pretend as long as possible that nothing's happening
     sling the bull with the tars
     rest in the shade of simple atheists
          damnit, goodness strong as oars pushing on heavy swells
instant taslick, they cast me away
taslick, taslick, lapped me back on shore 

"That looks like Jonah,
and he looks like fish-puke.
Been on a bender buddy?"
     Have some of our wine --
     hell, have it all."

Too damned mad at last
for conscientious objection
                                    "any way the wind blows"

I went where they wanted
                 "to the hookers wo move in mysterious ways, boy")
trying to at least not look the part
(thank heaven for clean clothes and money):
walked three days through that beige metropolis
and went through the motions.
They listened, with the indifferent courtesy of the rich
and declared another festival of despair.
Naturally nothing happened.                       
.p



Glutted with godly melodrama and popular farce
I elected to die in simple dignity.
A lady older than my ancestors
brought me under her arbor.
It shriveled; I gained weight.
Gradually the voices trailed away
and left me my mind back, like it or not
hideously bored again,
stakes back to my favorite, chicken-drops
but this time I was broke for real.
There was no point, any longer, in not going home. 

------------------------------------------------------------------
                            

Notes:

[Illustration:
Top margin, line-drawing:  Right, facing front, Jonah, bearded, longhair, maybe peyes, mouth open in a circle, both hands upraised aboveelbow, as if shouting silently 'Gevalt'; to his left, side-profile,facing right, procession of maybe 3 stick-figure smaller men inchitons (triangular lower garment) right hand of each on shoulder ofman in front of him, left hand of each holding a butterfly net halfupraised; clean-shaven, expressionless, a sort of ?gynecandia? --ceremonial procession.  The whole effect is static, each partyplaying its part, nothing about to happen. ]
      
In an earlier draft I used here the line:  'or a belch from my ownprivate demons'
Based on someone's commentary to the Joan of Arc legend: 'Is it G_d?''He says it is.'
                                                              
Cf. Eva Brann's article, The Music of Plato's Republic, in Agon I:1,1967, University of California, Berkeley:
The Republic [Politea] begins (in the voice of Sokrates):  "I wentdown yesterday ... to Piraeus".  There is a metaphoric intimation ofdescending into the Underworld.  Also, Tarshish (the part of Spainthat ends in the strait of Gibraltar) is associated with hell, beingat the edge of the Homeric world.

"return to the lands of your soul" is from R. Shlomo Carlebach
                
"the indifferent courtesy of the rich"                 
In the 70s, a radical theatre group from San Francisco did a show inBoston, including skits about "Flash"; the newspaper showed a photocaptioned "Flash and a Floozie".  I hadn't hitherto realized thatthose who exploit the poor try to appear likeable; it seemed to meimpossibly unsporting; an enemy should at least have the courtesy todeclair himself as such.

=================================================================
.p

In Search of the Ox with the Gilded Horn

Lao-tzu once more
and/or that baffled butterfly
one another's dream
olim "as those who dream"
awakening from discovered troubled sleep
into another dream
unable to build up or tear down
unwilling to sacrifice
desert or pillars of light

                                  (1985)

------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes:                                                              
Title:  
     Zen, 10 Oxherding Pictures
     Kitov, Book of our Heritage, notes (from Talmud) that thepilgrimage festival to Jerusalem for Shavuot was headed by an ox withgilded horns.
Hence the ostensible project of 'Reconstructionist' Judaism; aninspired name for a run-of-the-mill movement that would be obsoleteif R. Zalman hadn't endorsed it.
The parable of Lao-tzu, who fell asleep, dreamed he was a butterly,and awakened, and did not know if he was a man who dreamt who was abutterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a man.
"as those who dream"  from Psalm 126
"troubled sleep" the English title of Sartre's 'Le Morte dans l'Ame'

-------------------------------------------------------------------
=================================================================
.p

Birds sing shaharit.
Crazed man and awe-stunned boy
toil up Mt. Moriah
as traffic streams to Tel Aviv.
The sons of Aaron wash their feet
and gape at Herod's folly.
Korbanot and auto exhaust
pollute the air.

                                  (1986)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:  Everyone is aware that a re-institution of Temple animalsacrifice would be problematic; modern man does that at McDonald's.
It is said that Rav Kook implied that vegetarianism is optimal, orideal.
Herod, who built the 2nd Temple, was a bad man.

=================================================================
.p

Yom Kippur Shir HaMalot

Less like Nehemia's exiles
rebuilding the Temple brick by brick
than those squabbling crews of priests
whom Jesus wept
over; forseeing that their 'causeless hatred'
would tear it down.

                                (1987)

=================================================================
.p

Gush Emunim Dream

Loud banging at our Clubhouse door
Guy in a red-check sports-coat:
"Shemi Messias
 Hashim sent me
 I'm taking over."
"OK."

------------------------------------------------------------------

and Shemi Messias
spake unto the members of Members Only
& he says
You're all redeemed
I just bought Beelzebub's HOckshop
on Hashim's credit card
& tore up all the tickets
You can all go learn at Yeshiva
says he.         

------------------------------------------------------------------

One Tenth of Av
Kotel Plaza stayed shady all morning.
For three weeks
everyone was lined up halfway back to Lod
to see the Temple.
Then things went back to normal, more or less
except for the tourists.

=================================================================
.p

The Desert Town of Narrishkeit

A quaint domain of black-and-white
where 
      (despite rectilinear agitation)
nothing really changes
and everything has her place.

Their world of ideas is an aviary.   [orig. misword, 'apiary']

The Mayor's city walls,
just mud and straw
have collapsed into gaps and traps
      {(Imagine, say, the "chambermaids" locked out
       and an overfed jackal shut in.)}
Meticulously inspected each day, they
may not be repaired
until the Police-Chief-Designate appears
and, having proved his identity to the
Proper Acting Authorities annexes the rest of the world.

------------------------------------------------------------------
{
If my tourist's euphoria
collapse into consternation
at, say, kashrut
it that this incredible contraption
    ossified golem
having run unattended onto unforseen highways
is now doing all the wrong things }

------------------------------------------------------------------

but mark that
these black--hat acrobats
tumbling through heavens
happen, apparently, to
land neatly on their feet

(Imagine, "one misty morning, early"
ten assembling, shielded in grey cloaks
whose lining comprise the rainbow. }

------------------------------------------------------------------

but by the time bet Josef had squeezed through mitzraim
he'd become color-blind
and wore black-and-white
for his rainbow.

------------------------------------------------------------------
.a2
"Jews for Nothing"

As Plato's prisoners
found the light less blinding
they looked for walls;
finding none
thought themselves nowhere.

This year the haredi
constricted the Infinite to a stifled cry
so my soul flees to Tel Aviv
finding release in the celebration of the shuk.
=================================================================
.p

GESHER TZAR MEOD

Talit katan -- second skin
tzitzit like whips

	covered in halaka
	lightly as a beautiful talis

smirking children
playing with the fringes

{Note:  The title is apt:  the first couplet is the error of din; thethird is the error of chesed; the center is the middle way, the "verynarrow bridge" the "straight and narrow" way.}

------------------------------------------------------------------
Off to our left ... 

Jonathan Daniels asked the haredi
"Is Tai Chi avoda zara?"
and the the haredi answered,
"Lama?"

----------------------------------

To honor the Creator they pay others to cleanse tehir clothes inpoisons.

----------------------------------

speeding to Mincha
the rabbi's driver honks.

----------------------------------

and off to our right ...

She loves a brit; so quaint despite the baby
and feeds her Seder as a snack to the Fishy-Folk.

=================================================================
.p
                         
after 40 years b'midbar
they retired to Miami
bequeathing us one-way Charter fare.
How awkward their visits
forever exiled.

=================================================================

Jeremiah on a Bicycle

Xerox Mincha and clock out
Shmitta
tears of smog in the valleys
fear Father's tears of fire.

     Refs:  "So it in the Mountain, reap it in the valley
             you gonna reap just what you ssow.
             God gave Noah the rainbow sign
             won't be water for the fire next time."
                           Appalachian Folk Song.


-------------------------------------------------------------------
=================================================================
.p

Alouche said
"whatever your faith
if you feel at home here
it is your home.
But if you do not love this land
it will 'devour' you.

     Ref:  Tale of the Spies in Exodus 
           [parshat Shelach, Exodus:     ]

------------------------------------------------------------------

surprised, the Gians
watched the spies trying to hide:
"We was fixin' them supper
 [now] what they gonna eat?"
"Maybe each other."

     Ref:  [Ibid:] Exodus "and we saw there giants"
           "it is a country that devours the inhabitants thereof"

=================================================================

.p

and old man wlaks to the corner
fighting harder than a mountain-climber
each mitzvah a peak.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Impeccably businesslike
the bum insists on a shekl.
Some days the best I can do
are mitzvot ha-agarot.

      Ref:  10 agarot = 1/10 shekl = apr. $0.16
            agara (plural, agarot), Greek, Hebrew:  marketplace

=================================================================
.p

"with 1 tochas, one can't dance at 2 weddings"

One mountain, many trails
how {impatiently} I change    [restlessly]
greedy for every sight        [greedy for each new sight
trying to avoid each cliff    [lazy facing each cliff]

          Old City, Jerusalem, Easter, 1985

------------------------------------------------------------------
                                          
My brother writes, briefly:
"we fear you'd try to convert our children."
Almond trees blossom [white]
followed by pink mish-meesh.

------------------------------------------------------------------

"The longing of the Mountain for the lake"
     (Reb Nachman, Tale of the 7 Beggars)

air of Tiveryia
white wine {heavy} with woodruff
air of Zfat
spirit {purer} than clear cold water.

=================================================================
.p

CALENDAR [ LUACH ]

Hanlukah candles:
that spirited leap of lame
as {wax} us consumed.

         (Belmont, 1982)

------------------------------------------------------------------

sun beams from behind clouds
strike the mountain-top city
(and G_d is a wild horse,
escaping names and names of names like lasoos)
A Mitzvahmobile, hell-for-accelerator
drags down Main St. [Main Street]
carrying an electric Menorah.
(candle-flames delicate as a woman's smile
patches of sun on cresting waves)

(Tiverya, Hanukah, 1985)

------------------------------------------------------------------

re-reading to the Megillahto Bach's Art of the JFugue
while a drunk in tzitzit bops me on the head with a 
    / collapsible plastic day-glo hammer
thinking he's happy ...          
     [3-dots merely pause, not elision of articulated thought]
     Purim sameach --
Angels enjoy interplays of archetypes
But that girl, fresh a myrtle
softened in scented oils for 12 months like a castrated lamb,
snack for a pig to make nice to --
only the right to defend ourselves
tragic dignity

(Oasis Cafe, Jewish Quarter, Old City, Purim 10\986)

[Well, some poems come together, and others wanted to]

------------------------------------------------------------------

after Shaharit
how beautiful the tulips
Shushan Purim morning.

                  [Cambridge, outside Harvard Hillel, ca. 1975? ]

------------------------------------------------------------------

Av again, and again        [or:  Av again; and again ]
that set of questions      [or:  questions,          ]
crude as a constellation:
     what got broken       [or:  line-break before this line ]
     should I cry
     when can we stop
     what then                                        

------------------------------------------------------------------ 
.p


after this evening's pleasant supper
I almost believe I but imagined
that Vespasian, two millenia dead
will destroy us in less than 2 days.

------------------------------------------------------------------

In his last public appearance in eretz Israel before Yom Kippur:
the famous Rabbi confessed his sin:
"Once a poor crazy shlepper wanted to come home,
and for three days I couldn't make up my mind
to write El Al a rubber check."               

------------------------------------------------------------------
=================================================================

.p

who once ran down deer ...
and Essau                                               Elvis Presley
grew gross                                          H-bomb Teddy-bear
stewing and gulping pottage                   blood salt of the earth
compulsive denial BIRTHRIGHT
Israel may return, pleading:

(12/84)

------------------------------------------------------------------







