Your family looks for your ghost in corners while
nightly, you visit me in my dreams
We invent a language to
connect over you, not wanting to be trite,
(but who am I kidding?)
And now, each time
I leave my apartment, I carefully step
'round the stain on the walkway, which
might afterall, be from
your spilled brains.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
On Writing (Modern) Poetry
Numerous are the legions of "poems", whose well rendered words are perfectly metered or rhymed, and maybe even chosen with such care so as to defy any suggestion of triteness or triviality, but who lack any real anima or soul. A "good" poem however, exists beyond the mere confines of its language.
There's an almost mystical quality to the process of writing a good poem; one might even assert that in fact, a poem isn't so much "written" as realized. I'll explain by personal example: When I sit down to "write" a poem, I pay little attention to the words I'm going to use, the form it's going to take, etc. Instead, I open myself to the soul of the poem; "what exactly do I need to convey?" Believe it or not, this is usually an almost painless process. When a real poem is ready to be born, it just won't be denied!
The next step is somewhat harder: getting out of the poem's way.
Anyone who has sat at their desk, a cafe table, on the edge of a cliff, etc., wishing to "compose a great poem", will have no doubt found themselves painting with broad strokes of ego. This is annoying, and almost never results in an enjoyable, interesting or enlightening poem. That's not to say that one can't write a great piece that exhibits his or her own point of view, (think "Two roads diverge in a wood...",) but it must not come from the desire to "prove something", or force something down the reader's throat, otherwise it'll result in little more than a self indulgence at the reader's (or audience's) expense.
Try instead, to allow the poem to be organic. I've found that thinking of it as a living thing, with its own set of needs and desires, helps me do this. This is very handy when it comes to the next step: editing.
When I edit a poem, I do my best to remove any extraneous content that might interfere with its purity. Usually, I begin this process with a chainsaw, and only later, when I’ve hacked off a sufficient amount of “fat”, do I go back in with a scalpel, finely trimming here and there, surgically shaping it. A good poem is, if anything, distilled.
Adjectives and adverbs are poetic potholes!
When Gary Snyder wrote "The Dead By The Side Of The Road", he relied on the cleanest prose:
" Zac skinned a skunk with a crushed head
washed the pelt in gas; it hangs,
tanned, in his tent"
He could have expended great energy on adjective laden descriptions, but instead he allowed the events or the moment to move it forward. Therefore, it has energy and immediacy.
This is equally true of both Raymond Carver's and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's work. Neither provokes inertia with wasted adjective or metaphor; When Ferlinghetti writes
"Johnny Nolan has a patch on his ass
Kids chase him
thru screendoor summers"
there's nothing unnecessary; in fact, the only adjective employed- "screendoor", is so new and specific, that it almost disappears, or takes on the same quality of motion as the rest of the poem.
Lastly, don't impose some artificial format on your poem. A poem, being organic, and having its own needs, tends to grow into its own form. This is not to say that there aren't some great and very enjoyable formalized poems; the dusty world of "Poetry" (notice the capitalized "P") is littered with them, but modern sensibilities tend to relegate these to the realm of the "quaint", and (rather unfairly,) the boring, so while I very much enjoy work by the likes of Donne, Wordsworth and Coleridge, the type of writing I'm discussing here is more akin to that of Snyder, Carver and Ferlinghetti.
Early readers of these three must have experienced one of three possible reactions:
"That's not poetry!",
"That's poetry?" -or-
"That's poetry!" .
All three largely disregarded earlier Western notions of what a poem is. Snyder studied and emulated Japanese and Chinese poetry with its pared down sensibilities. Ferlinghetti tuned into the music of the world around him, and Carver wrote almost as if he was writing fiction, which just happened to be readable as a poem. Whether one enjoys any of these approaches or not, it’s undeniable, that these three did something new, something interesting, something enjoyable, and something irrevocably poetic!
There's an almost mystical quality to the process of writing a good poem; one might even assert that in fact, a poem isn't so much "written" as realized. I'll explain by personal example: When I sit down to "write" a poem, I pay little attention to the words I'm going to use, the form it's going to take, etc. Instead, I open myself to the soul of the poem; "what exactly do I need to convey?" Believe it or not, this is usually an almost painless process. When a real poem is ready to be born, it just won't be denied!
The next step is somewhat harder: getting out of the poem's way.
Anyone who has sat at their desk, a cafe table, on the edge of a cliff, etc., wishing to "compose a great poem", will have no doubt found themselves painting with broad strokes of ego. This is annoying, and almost never results in an enjoyable, interesting or enlightening poem. That's not to say that one can't write a great piece that exhibits his or her own point of view, (think "Two roads diverge in a wood...",) but it must not come from the desire to "prove something", or force something down the reader's throat, otherwise it'll result in little more than a self indulgence at the reader's (or audience's) expense.
Try instead, to allow the poem to be organic. I've found that thinking of it as a living thing, with its own set of needs and desires, helps me do this. This is very handy when it comes to the next step: editing.
When I edit a poem, I do my best to remove any extraneous content that might interfere with its purity. Usually, I begin this process with a chainsaw, and only later, when I’ve hacked off a sufficient amount of “fat”, do I go back in with a scalpel, finely trimming here and there, surgically shaping it. A good poem is, if anything, distilled.
Adjectives and adverbs are poetic potholes!
When Gary Snyder wrote "The Dead By The Side Of The Road", he relied on the cleanest prose:
" Zac skinned a skunk with a crushed head
washed the pelt in gas; it hangs,
tanned, in his tent"
He could have expended great energy on adjective laden descriptions, but instead he allowed the events or the moment to move it forward. Therefore, it has energy and immediacy.
This is equally true of both Raymond Carver's and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's work. Neither provokes inertia with wasted adjective or metaphor; When Ferlinghetti writes
"Johnny Nolan has a patch on his ass
Kids chase him
thru screendoor summers"
there's nothing unnecessary; in fact, the only adjective employed- "screendoor", is so new and specific, that it almost disappears, or takes on the same quality of motion as the rest of the poem.
Lastly, don't impose some artificial format on your poem. A poem, being organic, and having its own needs, tends to grow into its own form. This is not to say that there aren't some great and very enjoyable formalized poems; the dusty world of "Poetry" (notice the capitalized "P") is littered with them, but modern sensibilities tend to relegate these to the realm of the "quaint", and (rather unfairly,) the boring, so while I very much enjoy work by the likes of Donne, Wordsworth and Coleridge, the type of writing I'm discussing here is more akin to that of Snyder, Carver and Ferlinghetti.
Early readers of these three must have experienced one of three possible reactions:
"That's not poetry!",
"That's poetry?" -or-
"That's poetry!" .
All three largely disregarded earlier Western notions of what a poem is. Snyder studied and emulated Japanese and Chinese poetry with its pared down sensibilities. Ferlinghetti tuned into the music of the world around him, and Carver wrote almost as if he was writing fiction, which just happened to be readable as a poem. Whether one enjoys any of these approaches or not, it’s undeniable, that these three did something new, something interesting, something enjoyable, and something irrevocably poetic!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
ארצנו Our Land
ארצנו
בנוי מאבנים
ארצנו
בנוי מכאב
ארצנו
בנוי מהבטחות ומפיוט
אחרי מאה שנה,
רק הפיוט
לא יהפוך לאבק
Our land
built of stones
Our land
built from pain
Our land
built of promises and of poetry
after one hundred years,
only poetry
will not turn to dust
בנוי מאבנים
ארצנו
בנוי מכאב
ארצנו
בנוי מהבטחות ומפיוט
אחרי מאה שנה,
רק הפיוט
לא יהפוך לאבק
Our land
built of stones
Our land
built from pain
Our land
built of promises and of poetry
after one hundred years,
only poetry
will not turn to dust
Friday, October 21, 2011
ערב שבת 2
אני נכנס את הדירה מהקריאת הפיוטי
בחוץ, זה כבר חושך
ובפנים, זה חם בתוך ההילה של הנרות השבת
השבוע המטורף, היא היה לעזאזל
העכשיו הזה,
הוא שלנו
I enter the apartment, fresh from my poetry reading
Outside, it's already dark
but inside it's warm in the glow from the shabbat candles
Let this crazy week go to hell
This now, is ours.
בחוץ, זה כבר חושך
ובפנים, זה חם בתוך ההילה של הנרות השבת
השבוע המטורף, היא היה לעזאזל
העכשיו הזה,
הוא שלנו
I enter the apartment, fresh from my poetry reading
Outside, it's already dark
but inside it's warm in the glow from the shabbat candles
Let this crazy week go to hell
This now, is ours.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
erev shabat
at seven o'clock you sweep
through the front door
your mood drags behind you like a
dusty bridal train
now thrown by the tempest of your
chaotic homecoming , it gets
caught in my hair
tangled in my curls
and now, I find that I
can't break free.
through the front door
your mood drags behind you like a
dusty bridal train
now thrown by the tempest of your
chaotic homecoming , it gets
caught in my hair
tangled in my curls
and now, I find that I
can't break free.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Y''m י''ם
אבני לבן על צלע ההר
היא מאירה את חום האבק באוויר
היא מאירה את חום האבק באוויר
white stones on the hillside
she shines in the brown dusted air
Monday, October 10, 2011
exile
Some of us live in a per-
petual state of exile,
but exile is not always
imposed by place;
there are those who are left there
by the passage of time,
and those who were simply
born misfits into the world.
All who live in exile however,
have this in common:
we carry small pieces of our
native worlds with us,
like round, worn pebbles,
that are
sometimes in our pockets,
and sometimes in our shoes.
petual state of exile,
but exile is not always
imposed by place;
there are those who are left there
by the passage of time,
and those who were simply
born misfits into the world.
All who live in exile however,
have this in common:
we carry small pieces of our
native worlds with us,
like round, worn pebbles,
that are
sometimes in our pockets,
and sometimes in our shoes.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Sunday, October 02, 2011
מולדת homeland
כאן,
בארץ אחי
ואחותי
הדוד
והדודה
הבית שלנו
הוא כל כך קטן
והמרפקים שלנו
הם חבולים
Here, in the land
of "my brother",
"my sister"
Of Uncle
and Aunt
Our house is so small
our elbows are bruised
בארץ אחי
ואחותי
הדוד
והדודה
הבית שלנו
הוא כל כך קטן
והמרפקים שלנו
הם חבולים
Here, in the land
of "my brother",
"my sister"
Of Uncle
and Aunt
Our house is so small
our elbows are bruised
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Dedication
For walls and trees
For oil and air
For screen doors and Tuesdays old paint cans, and stairs
For grandmothers and chickens
For Volkswagens and quarks
For malcontents who protest,
and nervous dogs, who bark
For oaken tables and magazines, for computers and for gold
For rust and for decay, for mushrooms and for mold
For all that we once were
For all we shall become
It's really all the same
All is one. All is one.
For oil and air
For screen doors and Tuesdays old paint cans, and stairs
For grandmothers and chickens
For Volkswagens and quarks
For malcontents who protest,
and nervous dogs, who bark
For oaken tables and magazines, for computers and for gold
For rust and for decay, for mushrooms and for mold
For all that we once were
For all we shall become
It's really all the same
All is one. All is one.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
A Plate
A plate that’s been in the oven warming left-over nachos from last night’s dinner falls to the floor; breaking into 13 pieces (3 major, 7 minor, 3 more nearly microscopic), it’s so shocked it forgets to continue being hot.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
After THIS Storm
Hurricane Irene is coming to town. The thing is, I'm not terribly scared, nor am I not scared. You see, I've been through hurricanes before, and thus, I have a slight edge over many of my fellow New Yorkers. I know for example, that masking tape "x"s don't keep windows from shattering, and that storm windows in 100 mile per hour winds are actually no better than any others, just as I know that this isn't Armageddon, and a wall of water 30 stories high isn't about to sweep through Manhattan with biblical consequences. Then again, maybe it will. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not bemoaning my lack of an ark or collecting cooperative pigeons, but something about a storm of this magnitude actually fills me with something that just might pass for hope, (at least,if you don't look too hard).
It's been a terrible year; every time we turn on the news, some extremist somewhere is doing his or her damnedest to make life impossible for you and me, and corporations are strangling democracy to within a milimeter of its existence. Religious fanatics are citing recent earthquakes and economic turmoil as sure signs that "the beast" is afoot, and with a well intentioned but wishy washy Democratic incumbent going up against the likes of either Romney, Bachman or Palin, 2012 isn't looking so promising either.
Nevertheless, something about this hurricane business makes me smile a little bit. In about 20 minutes, our windows will rattle threateningly, our power may go out and we will be reduced to cold canned kidney beans for breakfast, but come Monday, the sun will rise. People will walk out their front doors, and having communally survived another near catastrophe, will actually say "excuse me" as they walk into me, their eyes glued to their iPhones. The news stand guy will smile as he refuses to look to see if he still has a copy of last weekend's Haaretz, and people will graciously acknowledge that I was at the bus stop before them, even as they elbow their way past me onto the 86 St. crosstown. For 5 minutes, New York will be glad the world is still here. At least until the next big scare.
It's been a terrible year; every time we turn on the news, some extremist somewhere is doing his or her damnedest to make life impossible for you and me, and corporations are strangling democracy to within a milimeter of its existence. Religious fanatics are citing recent earthquakes and economic turmoil as sure signs that "the beast" is afoot, and with a well intentioned but wishy washy Democratic incumbent going up against the likes of either Romney, Bachman or Palin, 2012 isn't looking so promising either.
Nevertheless, something about this hurricane business makes me smile a little bit. In about 20 minutes, our windows will rattle threateningly, our power may go out and we will be reduced to cold canned kidney beans for breakfast, but come Monday, the sun will rise. People will walk out their front doors, and having communally survived another near catastrophe, will actually say "excuse me" as they walk into me, their eyes glued to their iPhones. The news stand guy will smile as he refuses to look to see if he still has a copy of last weekend's Haaretz, and people will graciously acknowledge that I was at the bus stop before them, even as they elbow their way past me onto the 86 St. crosstown. For 5 minutes, New York will be glad the world is still here. At least until the next big scare.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Movie
So, we’re sitting on the couch reading the weekend paper, and I say to Cleo, “There’s this new picture at The Quad that sounded good.. Directed by Mel Brooks and Woody Allen, it’s called “Paradise, Nu?”
Robert Eger says, “It stars Mike Burstyn of Kuni Lemel fame, and Gene Wilder as two madcap would be suicide bombers who do their best to cross borders and blend in as Haredim. Hilarity ensues as Mahmoud (played by Wilder) tries to buy a shtreimel from a shop in Mea She’arim, but the shop owner speaks neither Hebrew, nor Arabic, forcing Mahmoud to communicate in a combination of charades, and something approximating "pig" Yiddish, meanwhile, Omar (Burstyn) just wants a lafa, but the Falafel shop in Ben Yehuda is crawling with border police on their lunch. Will he risk the mission for a sandwich? Will Mahmoud get his hat? Will the two ever make it to Paradise? Two thumbs up.. this movie is the bomb!”
“I'm not sure,” says Cleo, “it kinda feels like it’s been done before.
Haredim - ultra-orthodox Jews
shtreimel - a hat made of a fox's tail wound around the head, typically worn by Satmar and Netureikarta chasidim
Mea She'arim - "Hundred Gates", an ultra orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem
lafa - Iraqui pita, larger than Israeli pita, with no "pocket". Used as a wrap, rather than being stuffed.
Ben Yehuda - A pedestrian mall in the center of Jerusalem
Monday, August 15, 2011
if..
The tension is growing between the lovers, you can feel it coming in the peace between them. But maybe you're wrong this time. Maybe, Amir and Noa will work it all out, get married, have a kid, buy a dog and a house outside the city where possibilities sprout from between the squares of pregrown grass that make up the front lawn.. it's possible, you tell yourself, but then again, if everything was grand in the end, if Amir got his tenure at the university, if Noa finished her book, if their son Gidi didn't grow up and get shot in Lebanon, if they lived long and contented lives, free from tension and tragedy, would you in fact, be sitting by the window, your legs curled under you, holding this book?
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Soup
How much is say, a container of the best soup in the world worth to you? Say you’re sick, and the best soup in the world is across town, in a little hole in the wall called Mogadishu Café. Say you have a fever, and the only thing in the world that would make you feel better, is this soup. Now, say your roommate, who’s this quiet Indian guy who the Foreign Student Union set you up to live with, would have to race if he left right now, just to catch the cross town bus to get to this place before it closes for the weekend, and say the owner is willing to wait an extra 15 minutes, but no more, because he had a good day. Now, say your roommate races out the front door, and it’s starting to rain, but neither of you has an umbrella worth its salt. Your roommate get’s soaked, and you promise to yourself, you’ll make it up to him. You’ll set him up with the cute blonde on three who laughs at your jokes in the laundry room, the one you were hoping to score with yourself. You’ll do his laundry for the next three weeks. That seems fair. Maybe you’ll finally clean the apartment, top to bottom like he’s been asking you to do for months now.
How much did you say that container of soup was worth to you? Say that, while running for the crosstown bus, his glasses blurry with rain, your roommate doesn’t look and darts out into 72nd St, hopelessly as the bus pulls away from the curb?
Even if it was a semi-trailer that hit him, and they said it was instantaneous, was the soup worth what you’ll carry the rest of your life?
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
On Writing
Herbs and spices
dry in jars on my shelf.
One day,
maybe even in many years,
they're going to make
a tasty soup.
dry in jars on my shelf.
One day,
maybe even in many years,
they're going to make
a tasty soup.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Here is the Road
Here is the road
on whose center I walk:
On one side the flowers
are heavy, and sweet,
and hanging from a cactus,
a sabra, ripe and tempting.
On the other,
glass and steel, and
Guo's Garden, whose
kung pao sets your
tongue on fire.
The road is wide,
the sides far apart,
and the sabra after all,
is growing behind a fence,
But look at the red sky,
the Friday sun is setting;
will it be omelettes in front of the
T.V. on the couch,
or will we
sit together at the table,
eating slowly, playing sheshbesh
This road we walk is
a balancing act.
We take from what's familiar,
arrange it as best we can;
the narghila sits in the corner
unlit,
and Keret and Kishon debate
"HaMatzav" on our dusty shelf.
Maybe
just for this week,
we'll put off clearing the table,
instead, take out the bag of menus,
and hold hands on the couch.
Sabra - A cactus pear
Sheshbesh - Backgammon
Narghila - a water pipe, also known as a hookah
Keret and Kishon - Etgar Keret and Efraim Kishon, two well known Hebrew writers who are on opposite ends of the political spectrum
HaMatzav - Literally, "The Situation"
on whose center I walk:
On one side the flowers
are heavy, and sweet,
and hanging from a cactus,
a sabra, ripe and tempting.
On the other,
glass and steel, and
Guo's Garden, whose
kung pao sets your
tongue on fire.
The road is wide,
the sides far apart,
and the sabra after all,
is growing behind a fence,
But look at the red sky,
the Friday sun is setting;
will it be omelettes in front of the
T.V. on the couch,
or will we
sit together at the table,
eating slowly, playing sheshbesh
This road we walk is
a balancing act.
We take from what's familiar,
arrange it as best we can;
the narghila sits in the corner
unlit,
and Keret and Kishon debate
"HaMatzav" on our dusty shelf.
Maybe
just for this week,
we'll put off clearing the table,
instead, take out the bag of menus,
and hold hands on the couch.
Sabra - A cactus pear
Sheshbesh - Backgammon
Narghila - a water pipe, also known as a hookah
Keret and Kishon - Etgar Keret and Efraim Kishon, two well known Hebrew writers who are on opposite ends of the political spectrum
HaMatzav - Literally, "The Situation"
Friday, August 05, 2011
Erev Shabbat
One Friday night, God, who's real name is Chaim, just happens to look down from heaven, and as he does, he happens to look at Tel Aviv.
He sees people dancing at The Fifth Dimension, people smoking on the beach, riding scooters, etc. His mother puts her hand on his shoulder, and says “Chaimka, you have to do something about this.. It’s not kosher! They’re making a freyer out of you, can’t you see? Yallah, send another flood.”
God smiles at his mom, says, “Dai ima, it’s how Israelis are.. stam.. nudnikim. They do things to annoy, it’s just how they show affection.”
"Oof," says God's mother, shaking her head, "come eat. Your soup is getting cold."
Erev-evening
Shabbat-sabath
The Fifth Dimension-a club
freyer-someone who gets walked all over, a fool
Dai-Enough, stop
Ima-Mom
stam-it's nothing
nudnikim-nudges
He sees people dancing at The Fifth Dimension, people smoking on the beach, riding scooters, etc. His mother puts her hand on his shoulder, and says “Chaimka, you have to do something about this.. It’s not kosher! They’re making a freyer out of you, can’t you see? Yallah, send another flood.”
God smiles at his mom, says, “Dai ima, it’s how Israelis are.. stam.. nudnikim. They do things to annoy, it’s just how they show affection.”
"Oof," says God's mother, shaking her head, "come eat. Your soup is getting cold."
Erev-evening
Shabbat-sabath
The Fifth Dimension-a club
freyer-someone who gets walked all over, a fool
Dai-Enough, stop
Ima-Mom
stam-it's nothing
nudnikim-nudges
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
there are
There are poems
and there are stories,
that are made of a single word.
Words like home,
or immigrant,
longing
or exile.
There are poems to whom if
you add a single thing⎯
they'll disintegrate,
or explode
leaving nothing behind,
but ever increasing
entropy.
and there are stories,
that are made of a single word.
Words like home,
or immigrant,
longing
or exile.
There are poems to whom if
you add a single thing⎯
they'll disintegrate,
or explode
leaving nothing behind,
but ever increasing
entropy.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Damned
So I get off the M15 Select Bus at 79th St, and see this woman running madly for the bus as it's pulling away from the curb. Feeling bad, I offer her my receipt so that she doesn't have to pay. She declines, explains that she has an unlimited Metrocard, and says "I'm surprised, I would have thought you'd be more aggressive about it."
I have no idea what she's talking about, until I look down, and remember I'm wearing a blue t-shirt with the collar torn out, and printed with (in large, white Hebrew letters,) "ETZEL ITZIK- MAKOM HAMIFGASH HA'ISRAELI - MIAMI". I think, "Even when you try to do something nice... damn, I hate bad stereotypes."
I have no idea what she's talking about, until I look down, and remember I'm wearing a blue t-shirt with the collar torn out, and printed with (in large, white Hebrew letters,) "ETZEL ITZIK- MAKOM HAMIFGASH HA'ISRAELI - MIAMI". I think, "Even when you try to do something nice... damn, I hate bad stereotypes."
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