More people should quote Beau Sia https://t.co/ulvBB1MjEn

— Dyalekt (@DyalektRaps) August 10, 2017

The Birth of Poetry

Introduction, Tales of the Hasidim Later Masters, Martin Buber:

It is the generation's challenge that manifests the poet [Inspired by Mendel of Vorki who say, "it is the Hasidim who make a rabbi"].

"Rabbi Shalom Shakhna (d. 1802) made himself appear sinful in public for the purpose of outwitting Satan."

"Before his death, Rabbi Shalom had a vision which he told to his son Israel: he saw a zaddik sitting in one of the halls of heaven. On the table in front of him lay a magnificent crown shaped out of his teaching and his holiness. But the zaddik was not permitted to place the crown on his [own] head. 'I have told you about it,' Rabbi Shalom added, 'because some day you may need to know it.'"

Karma Po-Lice States

Joshua 6
Zechariah 2:9

Every wannabe convert should seriously think twice, at the very least—before submitting accordingly, at cubits length, in Court Bizaarro—whether to merit a ceiling fan, spawning throughout A Midsummer Night's Westurn Wet Dream is worth this grief Between The Dire Straits.

Yesterday, I woke up to Ulan, my neutered Maltese barking up a typhoon, as the town fire sirens seduced a Mexican Landscaper in a wife-beater.

Today, while Ima prepares Tanghal'ian further up the stairs, I wake up mouthing Kaddish to myself, after missing my chance at dancing the horah around Jericho, my shorn pillow. (Less Changeling Hands Across America—The House of Shiva—narrated by cheap sweat-shopping mall t-shirts. More side-by-side rectangular mantles the size of Giant Tortillas via flotillas, unfurled upon Masada, shattering Guinness Galus Vinyl and Erevtov Cocktails with a slight subversion of the Viper's tong, at each of the four corners, counter-clockwise: firstly, toward The Rising of The Tsunami, then poised to harass, exponentially.)

I gather, a devastating imagination is a Lot, rarer than a tight bod. And Begin to wonder-weather the former manifests Menachem, the ladder flash mob. Either we're Sleepless in Shtetl, contemplating entropy in gasps or comfortably numb in the arms of a Golem. I can't tell. Karma Chamelion will.

Siamese-Trees

Yechezkel 37
Zekharyah 4

Remember

Silk Road

Parting Reeds

Recall

Pre-Exile

Amalekite ambush

Forgotten perpetually

The Hardest Profession in The World

Morning Ritual:

Dad does not hear the operator's rehearsed prompts. Next door, they talk over each other like a poorly-received Woody Allen scene at Sundance, dubbed in broken Amharic. All I hear is a flatline, my heart B-buoying. All you see are Emergency Broadcast System rainbows. Dialing.

Chai Frum Ararat

"Might I remind you," said Alex Epstein's bald opponent, in a dialect that has yet to merit unveiling, "that Chess was invented in India" and proceeds to balance a pair of Nabuta on his teacup, while contemplating suicide.

Related:

Nabuta

She'Chinatown

Single Black Eyed Femme Fatale seeks mentorship, not necessarily scholarship, to help steer our existential flotaliyah toward She'Chinatown. I friend requested a Guro Hudyo with a Ukulele pickle in Brooklyn and a Third-Olam Direktor with a red bowel tie in Cannes, on Facebook irrespectively. I still don't know who's more desperate for Rebelusyuan.

B'nei Galus

For Sarah Bee

Behind the window display are multicolored legos of various design, accompanied by name tags, bent in half: a busy, intergalatic police station, an empty airport runway, a baby carriage, tilting. I inquire as to who Jacob B., Eli W., Ryan M., etc. are, in black magic marker. The Librarian's reflection sighs. "These are souls on their way back and forth from a beehive somewhere in West Timor." Before logging off, the last memory that ascends and descends is how silly the miniature reconstruction hats look.

Spelling Be

The most awful word in the world is a world without l.i.c.o.r.i.c.e. Let there be conventional anarchy and there will be disorientating darkness.

Null and Void

Inspired by Alex Epstein's Blue Has No South

The best time to write poetry is during a full system circumcision or the day the world reboots. No use translating this into Hebrew. Abba could never afford a Rolex, Alex.

Total security risks resolved: 0

Total items that require attention: Wanton Soup

Sinesthesia

Zekharyah 2:12 

The angel whispers into my ear, "whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye," while a motorbike of an Ⓐpolocyptic hue revs up below my bedroom window. I'm not yawning.

Midrashic Antinomianism

The inaugural Jewish Arts for the New Millennium panel on "framing" and "interpretive practice" reminded me of a micro-prose poem by Alex Epstein:

"Portrait of the Artist as an Artist

This tale is rather old: Two painters wanted to see which of them could paint the painting that best imitated reality... One of the painters painted the front of a house, and the illusion was so perfect, so exact, that at first his competitor believed he had lost, but then understood that he simply had to enter the painted house and hang the painting that he had painted on a wall inside."

Source:

Sixth Street Shul

Pinoy Vey

Bamidbar 12

There is just one

Tribal ritual:

Sunsets — when Ate surrenders

Her Templo bangs on your shoulder

Blade without evil eye

Contact, without uttering

A single Tsismosa curse

And exhales

Smoke signals

Know Ledge

What you don't know kills you.

What you do know might not.

Dragon Tefillin

Avos 3:1

This is what it feels like to drown.

Festivities end.

The angels were never there

To begin with

Your incomplete

Silencer.

So. You return from whence you came.

Skinnydip through unchartered names.

An island Eden, draped in seaweed

That feel like serpents tickling your toes.

Convince yourself

Of Eternity

In a Cainine stroke

After desperate stroke.

Imbued with perplexity

Dim-witted

And gasping for breathalyzer

You realize

Serendipity

Reincarnated into a pair of anonymous

Dolphins.

"The innermost hanging, the one that could be seen by whoever came into the Sanctuary, was made of fine linen decorated with figures of cherubim, as was the curtain in front of the Ark. Over the hanging of fine linen was placed a coarser hanging made of goat's hair and over this a hanging of tanned rams' skins and over this a hanging of the skins of tehashim, a word of uncertain meaning, often translated 'dolphins'" {MyJewishLearning.com}.

NOTE:

Published in My Jewish Learning

Inquisitory Karma

Guro Hudyo Juan Mejía say, "I fight the Inquisitorial frame of mind."

In May, I turned 34. 6 weeks and 6 days of the Omer. My sister, Mercy flipped through Sephora, while her drowsy husband wrestled with Esau's Angel. There were no fireworks. No intoxication. That night, a Karma Chamelion painted your plans, neon. And for the first time since my last cruci-fiction, we dreamed in Tagalog.

Forthcoming in the anthology, Voices of the Asian American Experience [ABC-CLIO, 2011]

Witness Protection

Keep a low profile

For Thy son's sake

Whose hesitancy to confess that

Dead-beat dads garner all the laughs

Enlist themselves out of shame

Withdrawal as collateral

Famine not fame

Sanction their soulful

Shofarim from taking off

The scales off the hook

When there's a Tokea whirlwind

Who hungers to be the epicenter

In obedience to Abba Father

Mindful of every syllable

Potentially tempestual

Just as G-d is

A jealous G-dragonfly

Fix your eyes like Le'ah Imeinu

On Kuyya Eliyyahu

The spitting image of His islands

Splashing shallow tears at lips

Ends where your playground rests

To the deep recesses of Eretz

Tailored in our Shabbat best

Guard unto Him

Bamboo Etz Ha'Khayim

A shul of Shlomo Salmon

A kosher mother

A net gain of survival

K'lal Yisra'el

Like fan mail

Code

Related:

Jewish Māorim Warrior Kabbalists

Me(n)tal Kung Fu-Zion

Israel Teaches Siamese-Twins A Chilly Recipe

Parshat Toldot
Bereisheet 25:19 - 28

If Tefillin is searching
And — Yeshiva Ever —
What's been found, then
We're here to stay awhile

You're going hunting, kuya
You're the Hairy Junta
You'll turn back the clock
But I don't know when

B'nei Yafet thought they could
Organize peace treaties alone
How diplomatic of U.$.
Lo yod velo kotso shel yod
You sussed k'lal out, didn't you

Yoktan could smell tainted blood
So you left Peleg with a Smooth Stone
To prepare the red stew ingredients
Now we're waiting for the minced meat
Stir-fry thigh until ready

You're going hunting
You're the Hunter
You're the Hunter

I'm going hunting
I'm the Hunter
I'm the Hunter

We're going hunting


Related:


Kosher Hai-Hai

Winterface

Torah Khayim

Zekharyah 14

ז א
INTERFⒶCE-

-To-face 陰陽:

Tehillim 30
Beatbox Arkaeology
Excavate L'Haiku, Yuri
Mabuhay-Shanghai, Haiti
Solar energy and Kosha creativity
Along this coal-studded journey
Of hours aka Akhayot Sheli
Shalom home, Homie
Etz Ha'Khayim purity
Am Yisra'el Chai Tea
Kung Fu-Zion movie
Kaifeng Jury Duty
Nehushtan Party
Prophetic legacy
Hip-Hope liturgy

Heebee-Jeebies
She'China Na'vi
The Truth City

L'Khah Dodi
Free-Lee
Thai Chi
Ima Be
Honey
Softly
Baby
Holy
Sige
V

אמֶר אֱ

Bahay Shalom

When I overcame

The Yetzer Ha'Ra

 — Ashamed

I shattered my Beloved —

I wept, silent

In Your holy absence.