=extraox                                         
Append to =washedox

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FROM COLLECTED POEMS 1984-1992:

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 with a
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.

-----

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

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,
although my wares may shatter skulls    
these, at least, are precious.

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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, and
followed her home.  Then he remembered his duties and spurned her. 
     Quite a bit later, when he came to the rainbow bridge to the
pearl-light gates of heaven, he found, as expected, a great sage
robed 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.

-------

'See much, say little.'
Wiry as Jacob, striding stones
to shelter and raise a family on sun-scourged land.

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

*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.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------
 
 It is reported that a diplomat has said:
`One must see many cities
 to collect a single poem.
 
       Zhlolp'd in the sun,
       I remember my bookshelves.


--------

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

                                        (Hamburg, 1991)

-----
An infaturation with artifice

Once upon a time
several gentlemen of Japan
flew to Israel
got off at Lod
shot everyone in sight
went to jail for a decade or so
and then flew home.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
=================================================================
RECOLLECTED POEMS:

  The valleys are filled with mist.   From each rise I find myself, surprised,   
till climbing the distant mountain.                                              
                
(Lama, ca. 1968)---------------------  one mountain, many ways  
how restlessly I change trails
eager for each new view.                                         
                                     (Old City,  ca. '86)

==================================================================
POEMS  '03:

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Leah said
When I was young
I wanted to be Rashi
I asked Shlomo
How did Rashi get to be Rashi
He said
He was so connected to his own letter in the Torah
that it opened a window. 

{N.B.:  This notes a teaching ca. 8/03 by Leah Golumb, at (and a
founder of) Moshav Meor Modi'in, so anyone interested in further
circulating it should first ask her.}

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

A damaged stone plaque tells
that 10 years ago
the people of the Netherlands
in a gesture of friendship
gave the people of Israel
a million tulip bulbs.
Today the ground is bare.

                               (Jerusalem, 10 July 2003 )

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Indians run
on Indian time
and hippies hop along after;
but honkies stub toes on the mobilea
of a world that won't ever sit still.

                                       
                                       : exegesis of`B-Li NeDeR'

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 this off-the-rack black suit don't quite fit yet but it sure beats rags.        
                                
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[ Untitled ] 

                    "viens la nuit, sonne l'heure
                     les jours sont vent, je demeure"
                                        (Valery, Le Pont Mirabeau)

I did not go out
not having taken a lamb
for fear of offending the neighbors.
      I had thought -- 
      well, that it might not be quite --
      appropriate.

It was very quiet that night.

and after the commotion in the morning
they were quite kind; 
said I would not have to work
until late afternoon
and even gave me extra food.

Sometimes, nowadays
I think of those in the desert.     
                                                                 

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


