;.cScavenged Jewish/Israeli poems from /POEMDONE
;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
=extraox                                         
Append to =washedox
Scavenged poems with at least some Jewish context

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ALL FROM COLLECTED INPUT 1984-1992, unless otherwise noted

from =hoc!(hic

*after a sunrise rain-squall
white storks on a field
of fresh-cut alfalfa

(Mehola, 1/30/85)
-------------------------------------------------------------
yearling yaelim
curious as schoolgirls 

(Ein Gedi, winter 1985)

--------------------------------------------------------------
*the halil I lost -- 
how I want to play it now --
lonely winter evening

--------------------------------------------------------
Enduring a  Spinoza Colloquium
I recall dawn at Ein Gedi.
----------

*The charm of sin
is simply its
illictness,
like the warmth of stolen sleep
after the alarm clock rings.

-----
*Bewailing povery
awaken to birdsong --
summer daybreak.

(7/14/86 -- Ein Hemed)
-------------------------------------------------------------

*"The legend'ry Lawrence of Arabia"
reminisced the old gentleman
"once told me,
'Machine-gun everyone.'
"I enquired,
'Who shall do it?'
and he replied,
"You will.'
After which I ate a stout breakfast."

      (from a documentary on Jordanian TV).

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


From =besthock

Automatic stuck in his jeans
the bank guard
mists the potted plants

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

Arik Sharon landed at Ofra and said
"What do you want?"
And all the people answered,
"Build us a factory!"
Now Ofra has a factory
with nothing in it.

-------------
Meyer said
"Yup,
sometimes in this country  it can take all day
to make 3 phone calls."
                           (Moshav Shedmot Mechola, 1984)

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The Poet Contemplates his Lift

      "I had it of Leah..."
           Shakespeare, Merch. of Ven. III:1

Just a yekke or family fault
to throw nothing out, no doubt;
yet to lose these unused objects
imbued with memories
or enclosing unrealized dreams, never disowned
breaks me up.

-----

Some
things
seemingly take too much time
but
't ain't so much the heat as
the circuitious logistics of poverty.
     
------

T.S.' B.S. Revisited

Bleinstein in knickers
but armed
with "Let's Go/ Corfu"
I shamble past mopeds and all the goyim
come to do their thing
and blunder in front of the Old Synagog
built 1537, obsoleted 1941.
Only the names remain
on mistransliterated street-signs --
Solomou, Koen, Kaplou...

    Refs:  T.S. Eliot, "Beerbahm with a Baedecker, Bleinstein witha Cigar"
     "Let's Go to Greece", 1988 p 206 (research by Ellen Goodman)

----- 

Flip-Flop Song

at 'sixes and sevens'
or 'sevens and sixes'? it
mixes me up
whichever it is &/or ought
to be or Akiva:  if it don't matter
and you can't decide
go back;
water flowing over alabaster
will wait.

    Ref:  Zohar?  "If you come to a place...."etc,
-----

Quickly the Germans ruined everything
the Jewish bride would ever have
so three times a day
the old lady triple-locks her door.

-----
Mark- and mock- ed by German tourists
the prosperous old Yiddishe lady at the Dead Sea Spa
discreetly stuffs leftover
  bread eggs cheese and fruit and a few napkins etcetera
into her handbag.

-----

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, 10 Ben Yehuda St., 9/21/86

-----
==================================================================
from 'Crazy Louie and the Bum'

The best of bad-time buddies
he lends what he's got
answers Tora honestly
and knows it's a mitzva to steal food.

-----

Times ain't precisely tough, but
in my mailbox
the only good news
is a draft notice.
     4/22/87
-----

stumbling thorugh a false short-cut
slightly lost, spaced, thirsty and hungry
how delicate the wildflowers
-----
==================================================================
from =mopo8992

The gold-winged blackbirds
stopped last fall in England
to call me home.

                             Ein Gedi
                             December 20, 1991

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Leila:
Black streets, cold rain
driven by a howling wind.
    "Everyone pauses, dreaming of peace" says Shlomo
     they tell us, waiting outside.

Mincha time:  snow settling like doves on orange trees
              and the Old City walls.

                                            Jerusalem
                                            31.12.91--01.01.92
------------------------------------------------------------------

*
No blame, only loss
of something unidentified.
Nothing changed.  The 'Angel with Flaming Sword'
could await discreetly an improbable crisis. 
Reaching toward each other they savor particulars
of a new, unwanted world.
      
                                  (1991, Hamburg)
-----------------------------

*
After so much rain
a warm winter's day -- 
hastily I sit in the sun
trying not to alarm it.  

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

Today they are burying
two persons whom I did not know were dead
nor had lived.

                            Israel, May 4, 1989

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The elderly proprieter
of Bet HaNeshek
displays Chinese vases
as if to say,
though my wares my shatter skulls    [although my wares ... ]
these, at least, are precious.

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

Sitting by the swimming pool
I glance up at the West Bank
village on the opposite hillside.

                                      (Makabim, 21.04.92)

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Oh, shomer mitzvot mayonaise -- today's
fast I
unintentionally betake from thee.

                                       10 Tevet, C.E. 1990]

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and the drunk on Jaffa Road
spake unto the autobus exhaust
      saying

          been sittin' here since '48
          nobody sees me
          might's well go back home

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& on the 8th Day Man said
it was good
for a start
but
Let there be brighter lights
electric birds
imaginary foods
and fire-waters.
You rest; we'll boogie --
Yalla, Chava.

                       Tiberias, Motzi Shabbat, 31.05.92, 00:30

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The Emperor of Ice Cream Shall Return"

"Hi --
 Last time we met
 you spoke of Jeshua.
 He's Messiah."
"What's Messiah?"
"Next time we meet
 the oldest buys ice-cream
 for everyone --
'Bye."

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     One day a poor student met a comely young woman of Moab, andfollowed her home.  Then he remembered his duties and spurned her.      Quite a bit later, when he came to the rainbow bridge to thepearl-light gates of heaven, he found, as expected, a great sagerobed in a long tallit waiting to greet him.  
     `Did you really not recognize me?' asked the Moabitess.                      
                                                (Hamburg, 1991)
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                                "this people mild politely smiled"
                                Gilbert & Sullivan, Iolanthe(?)

The Great Synagogue of Hamburg remains
only as a black-&-white photo
the bimah glimpsed
behind a smirking factory worker.

     Today we may fast or go to the Opera;
     for the villains have passed
     in a Cheshire cat's ass.

                                      November 8, 1990*
                                      Hamburg--Holland train

                * November 9, 1938, was "Kristalolnacht";

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from =satires

The sons of the desert
rise before dawn
wrap their heads in kaifa
and close their shops at mid-day
despite cold winter rain.

-----

And yet
if our Rebbe said
the moon is made of green cheese
and we're all going there for shal shudes,
I'd forgo the cholent
at lunch.   

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

How hard they work now
to clear a rational path
through Levantine poverty.

-------

*News Item by Andy Court from the Jerusalem Post Pesach edition

In Katmandu in '88
ba'al tchuva at a Seder said
"This can't, man, do -- know
 where you're at, baby:
 call the Rebbe."
In '89, beneath the sign
of a bakery on the way of the Elephant-god
came a carton of kippot with
air-mailed matza (baked in great haste)
and a hundred tins of gefillte fish
with two 20-year-olds in coat-and-tails
flown all the way from Austalia.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------

`One must see many cities
 to collect a single poem,'
 quoth a diplomat.
      Zhlolp'd in the sun
      I remember my bookshelves.

    :"Treasure in heaven"

--------

Amusing a modern woman
by my covered head
I pass Dammtor Plaza
and glance down at a bronze plaque.    

                                        (Hamburg, 1991)

-----
