Your shadow is hiding behind the couch,
As meanwhile you proudly strut and slouch, And the wall of stones stands before your eyes And the streets blow dust, and in grand disguise Souls are jostling in the grocery stores Buying nuts and harps and tiles for the floors. And your own personal plum on your personal plate Is the most interesting plum that I ever ate, I’ll put out a CD where I’ll definitely state That the path of that plum, through the orchard and gate, Through the air and the barn and the stones of the street Where the dust and the birds and the soldiers meet Is a saga, a drama, a tale bittersweet– And I find that each story teller is photogenic, And each story I hear slightly hallucinogenic, And the questions we ask so Platonic, Socratic And my heart starts to shiver, awaiting the ecstatic Take-off to where? My shoes on the dusty Stones are still scuffed and my ears are still musty, And the streets are flowing with all sorts of souls, Some eating bananas, some wrapped in fur stoles, Some rattling silver inside empty bowls, Some digging for coins, some avoiding the holes, Is your story mine? Is my story yours? There’s a secret engagement behind secret doors Where a hundred enthusiasts sway and splurge In a song of delight that sounds like a dirge And I want to stay and I’ve got the urge To stand at the corner and watch traffic merge. It’s real above and it’s real below But somehow in the middle we rarely know. Those who have questions preach solutions, Addled philosophers, former Confucians, Gurus who now perform sacred ablutions, And pilgrims who wash off the latest pollutions And mothers who keen for their sons who don’t marry, And Chaim with long peyos who once was called Harry, And bottles of oil and bottles of wine And ten stars in heaven (ten, not eleven, ten, not nine) Oh what a ferment, oh what a clamor, You barely can keep in control of your grammar. Where fresh fish are sold, who needs a sign? Where light’s the hor d’oeuvre on which acolytes dine And the service is slow and the view is divine.
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You are a cloud, a fuzzy swarm,
A residue of identity, formless storm, And I an empty cloud of drives Of sand, disorganized archives, The sun pretends to have a core. The men with bundles on the shore Carry jewelry to the queen. Imaginary? Aquamarine? Only heat can test the blade. Lonely, by the palisade, Courtiers sing; with phrases full, Exhort. But are their fancies fanciful? |
Yaacov David Shulman
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October 2019
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