;.cSupplement to GILD, Tishrei '48 -- Adar II '50
;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,5,75,192,2,30,40,50,60,127,5,0,
;.l2,10,65,192,2,17,42,127,10,0,

MORE OX
                                                                      
Supplement to In Search of the Ox with the Gilded Horn

More selected poems with at least some Jewish content; from Tishrei5748 to Adar II 5749

by:  Steve Amdur, P.O. 23529, Jerusalem 91234
----------------------------------------------------------------------
.p


"Jolly good," said Moses,
"whom shall we send?"
 ...
"Yes, quite; but -- might
 We not find someone more --"
 ...
Quite; yet -- surely You, above all --
 ...
Yes, yes...well --

(detouring passers-by eyed askance
 an exiled prince, perhaps,
 from Africa, thrusting a shepherd's staff
 groundward while burning eyes leaped up
 and incomprensible words fell through distended lips)

     :  The Annunciation of Don Quixote

   Refs:  "of uncircumcised lips"
          "for he had married a Cushite woman"

.p
SEASONS OF THE YEAR, IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL

as faces in a mosaic
revealed only as mist blows away
they live among us.

     Yom haZikaron, 5749

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

after Shaherit
how beautiful the tulips
Shushan Purim morning.        

-----

.p

Bruria on the 19th of the 18

& Essau too that night lay down
bellydown
and seemed to see
a ladder black in a lake
   one foot anchored on earth
to climb downward
becoming greater and greater
until he drown,
or ungrasp and gasping break through back to life
and at last lifting face
start again
very small. 
 
-----
"The greatest jihad..."*

mean man, Moses
some say, who
humbled own soul

so, to do mitzvot
bid habitual vices
and bargain yourself down.

     *"...is that which one fights against oneself."
                                     Prophet Muhammed

--------------
Reb Nachman on Minimum-wage Job Ops

Going to hell?  Give 'em the finger:
do one last mitzva
on the way down.

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

Encrypted Yom Kippur Sermon

and Lucifer from luce to fire
fell, some say, failing 
to --
      bend ideals to living -- 'fallibility', if I may;  or say that
not passion but virtue betrays us,
beguiles the monkey mind with dreams
of premature immortality;
so, petulantly waiting to glimpses of mankind's immaturity
would (parody godlike judge)
damn me, damn you
hasatan c'est nous.

N.B.:  Heb. ha = the; satan = adversary; falsely concretized in theChristian heresy.
.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 theaccount in musaf Yom Kippur, suggesting that theatonement of Yom Kippur was seen as prerequisite to theadvent of the life-giving autumn rains.  The argument,of course, is over the role of delegated ("priestly")atonement; the tone is eg that of Dostoievski's GrandInquisitor.  Sinn is part of the southern Judean desert. The phrase 'hard travelin' is that of Woody Guthrie,z'lb.
-----
l1

.p
RABBONIM HILLONIM

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.

-----

Many year later realized,
and  wept then -- Essau,
still breathless from running through  forest trails, green
chewed up birthright
pale black bookworms.

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

The year the haredi
constricted the Infinite to a stifled cry
 my soul fled to Tel Aviv
seeking release in the celebration of the shuk.

-----

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.

-----
On Hof Tzitzit

I seek in the sight
of a a boyish girl with perfect breasts
relief from our cold winter's reign
of blows and piety.
Muse may I now praise
fresh-caught lobster quickly boiled; scallops fried in wine:
through such innocent communions
may we from hubris be redeemed.
------


the Rebbe's indestrubible picture
followed me around all summer
reproachfully.
-----
Protest strike

Last  summer
Jonathon Daniels
stopped wearing a hat.

-----
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.

-----                                       
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


MORE SPIRITUAL POEMS

           2 takes of Porpoises

Porpoises
arch through their heaven
to dance through depths.

       with a breath of heaven
       porpoises dance through the depths
----- 
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.

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

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.

-----
Down-shifting

Falling, the acrobat
thanks the veil.
    
     Tired of spiritual crises?
     Have a drink.
          (Home from a hard day on the front,
           the soldier goes out to a cafe.)
----
To play
ping-pong
defensively
stay quite attentive
reacting as needed.
Don't scheme.
Turning past fir-trees on narrow skis.
-----

When someone's closer
pass;
when you're closest
shoot.
.a4
-----
In the right seas
a sailboat accepts, ast last
the waves,
drawn by a chosen mark.

-----
Swimming across a lake -- 
don't get half-credit

     (Knickerbocker Lake, Boothbay (Maine), 1950.  Et seq.)

----------
Bum's Zen

nothing on my back
anchor to tomorrow
look dumb, stay loose, all eyes 

go with the flow
roll with the waves
slip into the darks, sleep with the earth
when you're cold, shiver

---------

waves on a Dead Sea
how quickly you rush
to break on the shore.
-------

cooked as good as can be
it's still a turnup
but can't throw it out

------------
who else can we be
but the little boy and girl from the Palace
who lost their Father
who lost their Mother
who find each other
who else are our friends
but those wise-eyed bums.

Unexpectedly I glimpsed Her or Him
at the edge of a crowd.
The courtiers won't let me pass --
my bastard brothers.
he moment passes; a bum again.

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

AT HOME IN THE HOLYLAND

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

	Nahariya Junction, Oct. 18, 1988

------------
Roadsings in the Holyland
gravestones over history.
-----

                   Ambivalent Pilgrim

In quest of Jewish roots
he comes overland to eretz Israel
bearing a tinned ham.

-----
                    & A Reluctant Confession

I must
        I suppose
admit:
        I fed
               (forgive me, please
                                    when
                                          or rather, 'if'
                                          you read this)
               the  campground   cats
               that dam'd canned ham.

------
.P

MEN AT WAR  (WITH ONE ANOTHER)

In the Athenian National Gallery
Poseidon's balls
look ordinary and vulnerable.
I re-cross the sea to land
"tender and faint of heart."*

L2
Refs:    Leviticus?? exempts from military service,inter alia, those who are "tender of heart" and thosewho are "faint of heart".
----    
l1

Armed only with slingshots
they wait by moonlight
in rocky olive groves
steadfast against the imperialist march
of suburbia.

     :Commuter Blues

-----                  
Leila, leila

like popcorn
or rain on a window-pane
bounding a dark night
machine-guns on the range

                  (Moshav Meor Modi'in)

--------------
MICKEY MOUSE BOOT CAMP

     "that we should bruise our aged flesh in cruel armour"
                     Shakespeare, Henry the 3 4 or 5

or Haverat Bill on Frango:
He ate, he shat; he's a good dog."
body on overdraft
dream anachronistic
I observe the perversity
of courting the vulnerability of bodies
  (Can't fix it, don't take it apart.)
Innocent as Adam or the dog
body does his duty
though mind grow gross:
We die only of cummulative regret.
-----

Uzis like airplanes
change nothing --
superfluous accessability.

-----

Home Guard                 Haganik

Pre-dawn Sunday:
dressed in my battle-gear
I kick out the cat.
                                       
-----


as she said shalom 
  to her daughter
so, l'hitraot
naked, life-giving
  body to body
heroine of Ras Burka
l2

    Notes: (Would be neater in Hebrew.  Ref:  On RasBurka, in the Sinai, Israelis swimming nude weremachine-gunned by an Egyptian soldier who, according tothe official explanation, went beserk.  One woman savedher daughter by lying on top of her.  The soldier wasimprisoned, and subsequently suicided.)


-----
