O El
Lord of dreams
Show my soul your garden
Of cosmic vines heavy with starry fruit
And trees five hundred years wide
Ever presently fragrant blossoms unfolding into infinity
Angels hovering upon them
Photonic feathers rustling in the breeze
Filled with the voices of your saints
Grant my soul dwelling for this night
Amidst the ethereal throngs gathered
Beneath your seven canopies
A seat from which it may hear
The murmuring sea of secret light
Waves dancing between the souls
Of the heavenly house
Let my body slumber
While my heart is awake
And when the dawn comes
Let me remember the mystery
You have shown me
Poetry
Poems, prayers, and verse — original work in English and Hebrew.
Spirit in the Leaves
Listen
My daughter
To the wind in the leaves
Quiet whispers become waves
Until the wooden trunk sways
That is the spirit
That blows through the land
From every corner it comes
Slipping into the streams
Of our veins and our dreams
Building unseen power
Wild words whipping back out
Into the rippling world
So ready for the coming storm
The First Word
At the start, [God] spoke a word, and the word was “God,” and the word heard itself and knew itself, and thereby came to know its [Speaker].
Within itself the word heard many words, and many words within words within words, words beyond count or containment in any human tongue
At the lowest levels of this speech, in the deepest undertones of the original word, pulsed a sub-sonic fractal of the entire word itself.
A word that at first heard itself incorrectly, and understood itself mistakenly, until it joined itself with the other words it heard and came to know.
An ineffable word, in its own, translated way:
“Human”
From a Dream of You
I woke up
From a dream of you
To your light shining through a window
I called to you
I cared for the friend you gave me
I left you at home
And crossed a city with you
I finally arrived at your doorstep
Your smile and your greeting
Invited me inward to your work
You built something new
In a heart you opened
Through hands you made wise
You released an angel into your world
I witnessed you
I thanked you
I took my leave of you
I traveled back with you
Found you at home
Waiting for me
“For we are Allah’s and to Allah we return”
Shadows on the Cave
Many sleepers
Have called me the enemy
Of the nightmares they create
Sleep walking through the streets
Sleep talking of
This and That
Tribes and Sins
Good and Evil
You’re dreaming,
I remind them
These are but shadows
You cast onto the wall of your cave
The Birthright
The birthright
The voice
The hands
The blessing
The escape
The love
The trick
The work
The feud
The sale
The famine
The slavery
The cries
The memory
The bush
The blood
The frogs
The lice
The swarms
The pestilence
The boils
The hail
The locusts
The darkness
The death
The sea
The passage
The song
The complaint
The food
The rest
The count
The days
The weeks
The purity
The thunder
The lightning
The blast
The fire
The mountain
The revelation
The law
The grace
The covenant
Still I Rise
Seduce me.
Betray me.
Attack me.
Raze me.
Deport me.
Forget me.
Hate me.
Still I rise.
Control me.
Colonize me.
Crucify me.
Conquer me.
Convert me.
Blame me.
Burn me.
Still I Rise.
Play me for my willing riches.
Mark me for the spear and sword.
Suspect me for your spreading plague.
Conjure me as your darkest demon.
Accuse me of your midnight crimes.
Condemn me in your halls of power.
Cleanse me of your many sins.
Still. I. Rise.
Never Again Is Always Now
Never Again
Is always Now
The eternal moment after
The gates of hell opened
Ready to devour bodies and souls
The moment of arrested
Time
Antipode of history
To the dawn in Eden
But within the darkness
Of the moment born at Auschwitz
Lies the seed of another moment
The eternal “To Life”
The eternal uprising
Against the Other Side
Against the blasphemous machinery of death
Fueled by rhetorical hate and power-lust
There is life after Auschwitz
There is life after Warsaw
We live in both moments
Both moments are Now
The Land of Peace
All I’m asking for is
One state
In charge of protecting the land and the people
Offering education, healthcare, and stability
From the river to the sea
Equal citizenship and equal rights
A civil parliament that respects the people
One state
Two official languages
Three names
ישראל
فلسطين
The Land of Peace ™️
Now I Am Here
I had a rough morning
I had an okay day
I had a tough evening
And
Now
I Am
Here
“The tides of one man’s life, against the backdrop of of the wave of history.”