;.cChoice Ox
;.l1,3,63,66,1,0,10,79,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l2,10,75,192,2,15,127,20,0,
;.l3,10,79,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l5,5,90,193,2,30,40,50,60,70,80,127,5,0,
;.l7,20,90,193,2,30,40,50,60,70,80,127,20,2,
CHOICE OX


Selected Poems from 
l5
CONSOLIDATED OX:  Collected Poems with at least some Jewish content, 1984--1989
l1

                         
                             Steve Amdur, P.O. 23529, Jerusalem 91234


.p

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

Miraculously, the water parted
they passed through to Mt. Zion.
To one
   (he 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,
and the   W O R D   was hewn on stone tablets.

		Mendocino, 1967.
			to Susan Harrison

-----
*Babylonian Shaharit

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."

------
.p
                        

*the valleys are filled with mist
from each rise I find myself, surprised
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
---------------

*Menorahs of clay
Dreidels spin like dervishes
The light of your eyes

        Hanukah 1982 -- to Noor

-------

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

                 (Talpiot, Jerusalem, 1987)
----------
*Blue-green Poem

        (1)
Glimpsing her standing outside, praying,
I notice my muddy boots.

        (2)
Sun blown free of the clouds
beam of light
in a pond's green depths --
her glance.
                                         (Meor Modi'in, 1989)
------------
*trying to go "from strength to strength"
lonely valleys between cresting waves.
-------------------------------------------------------------
.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 turnign brown
rabbits walk across the road
white-tail deer bound off

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

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

in the stone-cooled hhall
flute note 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

*Picking Apples Take 2

Know
where you will be
if the bough breaks
and if the bough breaks
where will you be;
then
you can pick apples.

-----
*Whistling in the dark, two tightrope walkers call forth light beamsthrough dusty air, to meet at intersections of imagination, until daybreak.

-----------
*To play
ping-pong
defensively
stay quite attentive
reacting as needed.
Don't scheme.
-----
BASKETBALL:

*When someone's closer
pass;
when you're closest
shoot.
-----
*Swimming across a lake -- 
don't get half-credit

     (Knickerbocker Lake, Boothbay (Maine), 1950.  Et seq.)
 -------------
 *an old man walks to the corner
fighting harder than a mountain-climber
each mitzvah a peak.

-----
*Occasionally to sketch in a few clear strokes some minor usefulact...
-------------

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

    Ref:  10 agarot = 1/10 shekel = apr. $0.16
          agara (Pl. agarot), Gr., Heb.  marketplace

------


.P

"With 1 tochas, one can't dance at 2 Weddings":

*One mountain, many trails
how impatiently I change
greedy for every sight
trying to avoid each cliff
               Old City, Jerusalem, Easter, 1985:
--------
*To savor the wine
not eat the earthen kelim
-- how slowly I learn.
-----
*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 his hassidim would say,
"Our holy master has
(Heaven forbid)
flipped out.  
----

I do not understand:
my father of body and love
and my father who gives us clean souls
both 
      were going to shochet me.
My friends the angels stopped them.
Now when the sun has stopped shouting
commands I can't hear
I go for a walk
to ask the field-flowers why.

-----
.p
 REVISIONIST AKEDA

I.
No.

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

	Signs & wonders -- madness'
	booby prizes.
	Distasteful battleground.

	  Angel and devil
	  the two inevitable servants
	  accompanied him.
	  An 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 say, the 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)
time to sanctify, at least, my own first-born
whose birthright is to santify 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
built on no man's back and bone
just piled-up field-stones, free-hand  chosen 
where the poor man may dip his bread in salt
by ancient olive trees.
Who would wage war on the hills?

                         
                              Pesach 5744, Sukkot 5745  Belmont, Mass.
                              (Olympia, Summer 1988)


.p
                           
l3
                                           
"A quiet man, living in tents"

	           "...nor could I have known
	               whose heel I grasped, my brother's or my own."
Delmore Schwartz, "Jacob"
  
from a far field
my father's shadow in afternoon
reflected mountain in a still lake

grain waving in the wind
and the Age of Abel passing
	one dreams, occasionallly --
	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 earth
 drying herbs hung about my tent

wild brother in animal skin
sliding down the dry mountainside, tumbling stones
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 laughed it away
and left to his wives.
He tolerates me.
We parted friends.


That day, my father dying
my mother moved calmly, postponing grief
as if she were 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...


Egyptian Eating Brown Rice

Belatedly the Butler recalled his omission;
the tzaddik was bathed and was 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. Heraclitus, Fr. Bywater 108

-----
.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 Land
     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, beyond'
the desert echos echad
.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 -- 
                     Pireus", Joffa, 
                                     "Hell, Tarshish!"
                                      (thank heaven for money)
skulking around friends
who said I appeared a bit preoccupied

and lied my 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."

To damned mad at last
for conscientious objection
                                         "any way the wind blows"
I went where they wanted
                "to the hookers who 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.
-----
.P


Let us begin by pretending
that once upon a time
(say, amidst Musaf of Shemini Atzeret)
a scraggly goat with the scarlet ribbon
walked up on the steps of the Temple
unto the High Priest
and said:
"buddy gimme 2 buckets of cool spring water
and a quarter-bale of your best alfalfa
fresh-cut.
Ribbon's still red.
Redistribute this necklace of minature monsters
that vomit my voice
to your flock to repent for themselves;
still time if they work quick.
Maybe I'm your Elijah."


The High Priest replied to the goat:
"Elijah or not,
eat your hay and go back
    to the desert of Sinn
that the rains may soothe your thirst
and the ribbon turn white with your bones.
If they could then they would have;
let us begin by pretending."

               Kefalonia, motzi Shemini Azeret, 1988



l2
Notes:
    Briefly:  Cf. eg Kitov on Yom Kippur; also the account inmusaf Yom Kippur, suggesting that the atonement of YomKippur was seen as prerequisite to the advent of thelife-giving autumn rains.  The argument, of course, isover the role of delegated ("priestly") atonement; thetone is eg that of Dostoievski's Grand Inquisitor.  Sinnis part of the southern Judean desert.  The phrase 'hardtravelin' is that of Woody Guthrie, z'lb.
-----

.P
In Search of the Ox with the Gilded Horn

Lao-tzu once more
and/or that baffled butterly
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)
------------------------
Birds sing shacharit.
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)
----------------- 
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 on 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.

------

"Would ye but heed my voice"

Every day in Jerusalem
a drunk says
"I'm back.  Came back in '48.
"'t'vin?   Gimmee now!"   
-------------
*The desert town of Narishkeit

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 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.
---------------------------------

*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.)

------------------------------------
*
The 2 Head Rabbis
of the Holy Capitol City of Jerusalem
are supported
in Tel Aviv
by a hidden tzaddik
who dances
each Friday night
on a bar
bottomless.

-----
*speeding to Mincha
the rabbi's driver honks.
-----
*As sunset colors rise to the crescent moon
and are pushed back into the sea by blue-black night
unrolling to reveal three stars,
men sit inside houses of prayer
capped in black.

-----
*Remus Rebus Rerun

doty dadi rabi don't you
  piss in the stream
now the fish can't see
good; gotto go upriver
try to try again
doty dadi rabi you can stand right there now
but
better button down
your fly, bye 'n bye.

-----
*the Rebbe's indestrubible picture
followed me around all summer
reproachfully.
-----
*and yet
if our Rebbe said
the moon was made of green cheese
and we're all going there for shal shudes,
I'd forgo the cholent
at lunch.

-----                                       



*Home Guard 

Pre-dawn Sunday:
dressed in my battle-gear
I kick out the cat.
                                       
-----
*Surpised, the Giants
watched the spies trying to hide:
"We was fixin' them supper
what they gonna eat?"
"Maybe each other."

------
*teenage mother
holds up her baby
to watch the passing train.

	Nahariya Junction, Oct. 18, 1988

------------
*Sitting, I suspect, opposite
the old family hotel
blown to rubble 36 years ago,
at a table for 4 --
what ghosts invited me today?

     Cafe Nash, 10 Ben Yehuda St., 9/21/86
--------
*Hanukah candles:
last spirited leap of flame
as wax is consumed.
         (Belmont, 1982)
-------
*after Shaherit
how beautiful the tulips
Shushan Purim morning.        

-----
*Peach-trees in blossom
waning quarter-moon of Nisan
in the pardes
your Japanese chametz
is up a tree

"we have forgotten the tree"
perhaps the birds once knew

l7
  
Ref:  Elie Wiesel plays Hungarian Favorites on the Hammond Organ
l1
------------
*as faces in a mosaic
revealed only as mist blows away
they live among us.

     Yom haZikaron, 5749

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




*Av again, and again
that set of questions
crude as a constellation:
    what got broken
    should I cry
    when can we stop
    what then
-----
*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.
-----
*Pass Washington D.C.,; Collect 3 Billion Dollars....


who once ran down deer...
and EssauElvis Presley
grew grossH-bomb Teddy-bear
stewing and gulping pottageblood salt of the earth
compulsive denial BIRTHRIGHT
Israel may return, pleading:

(12/84)
----- 
*The Meaning of Life according to Renata (1)

Sometimes in eternity
there's a draft call
and some souls have to go down to earth
for a little lifetime.

As below, so above --
you get all types in the army: 
  The wise old souls go to Iceland
	and when they grow up
	they go down to the bars stay there
	all the long winter
	until it's time to go home.
  They're retired, and dam' well gonna stay that way.

  The teenagers go to Israel
	where they make a lot of noise
	and have adolescent identity crises:
	"Who am I?" "Who's a Jew?" "Let's all be Palestinians!".

But nobody from Iceland
goes to Israel.

----   
.p
Lines written somewhere above Ein Gedi

Breaking a bunch of rules as usual
I'm slighly lost on the Judean Desert
sans map, hat, water, food, jacket, matches & sleep-sack
2.5 hrs daylight, 2  1200-foot trails somewhere thataway.
Unasked jeep stops, bani in back gives me
  2 oranges, 2 white-flour pitas
  and 1/3 bottle of water
  that tastes of her lipstick
until suppertime.

.p

l7
*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,}  
laugh at him because he cannot laugh.
at week's end, gathered with his fellows on some bare floor
sad folk songs mingle with the darkness

                          Oberlin, Grey Gables, 1958 {reconstr.}

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

