Tefillin
An experiment.
My heart is burning like the oil fields in New Jersey
Licking the sky at one in the morning
While the fat globe turns
And the stars cry hidden in their bedrooms
And the lights of New Jersey bend over and kiss me
As I pass through their stolid arms at midnight,
Holding the steering wheel like champagne
And drinking the eyes of New Jersey.
Night-time flickered like a school of fish.
Maariv nestled underneath my coat
Disappeared in the eyes of a leafless tree
Spun and gazed with owl's eyes
Frantic in the sudden lair
Of a flashlight amidst the hairy vines.
Rabbis passing on the path
Curl their wooden sidelocks.
The house is warm with swaying men
Stepping back into finite raincoats,
The undertow of warrens on Sixteenth Avenue.
Monsey is full of learning
Crawling like trellises,
Snap-dragons on sidewalks,
Tall shtreimels disappearing,
Flashing like black universal matter
Light of yellow-eyed rain.
Tefillin winding roads green inlets of fog
Vermont supper granary milking
Fragrant splashes dawn clover
Black roads winding up my torso
Sinuous trunks twisting grayly
Sucking leaves bursting beneath the sky
Into blue complexion of sun
Spread like gold and lead upon my lips and eyelids
Convoluted folds of fragments
Leather roads stream into my utterances
Spirals of blackness print a letter on my hand
Fringes flicker, herons wrapped in white feathers.
Green hearts, green wonderment of wood, farmers' hands
Dipping into cups of fog
Black light
Black star
Black fingers
Black sheep, black eyelids
Black leather roads
Black helixes of seven fold flowers, eyelids,
Sacred history
Clouds of yellow leaves
Illuminate my feet.
Emerald fluorescent pink-bluish highway
Sweeps into loneliness, reconciliation,
Temples, square and massive, black and pressed of leather like a heart
Old Messages, friendships swaying against the cold radiator,
Messages of ancient highways stretch across my cold body,
Parchment from my palm
A burning letter
Ashes in my hand, a residue
Snakes wrestling up my shoulders,
Heavy women pull their vast weight,
Two geese pull into the air,
Roads of fog in the green cornfields waving,
My heart twisted like rusty guitar strings
Strung across my vivid torso,
Quays, stone piers, exploding snow.
Tefillin are eyes roped in from exile,
The clouds strung through the harbor,
The somnolent old rooms,
Old mikvahs, secret whispers,
Burned shadows of ibises,
Wordless abandon,
Secret reminiscences.
Tefillin in the sun are grapefruit trees
Peering in the windows
For baalei teshuvah secretly mumbling
At two in the morning
The shadow on the wall the footsteps.
Toads flopping in the forest
Underneath clay fingers.
I sit cross-legged
And my eyes are rocket ships.
My feet are encrusted with hieroglyphics.
We are sailing through the litter of flat top houses.
I dive into the green of your garden,
Emeralds crushed by the bickering sea birds.
Rav Kook and Reb Nachman
Fly like ferns
Blessed with the snow
Blessed with the eyes
Of milk and Andromeda
Flower like bowls of cereal
Geraniums on the refrigerator
Penguins at prayer
Harmonica tefillin
Green fields of chiddushim
Tuneless eyes of women
Black sky
Crescent green dreams of earthworms
Dance with mold and icicles
Impressions like old shtreimels
Farmers of tefillin
Wrapped in prayer shawls
Burying their old ploughshares.
My heart is burning like the oil fields in New Jersey
Licking the sky at one in the morning
While the fat globe turns
And the stars cry hidden in their bedrooms
And the lights of New Jersey bend over and kiss me
As I pass through their stolid arms at midnight,
Holding the steering wheel like champagne
And drinking the eyes of New Jersey.
Night-time flickered like a school of fish.
Maariv nestled underneath my coat
Disappeared in the eyes of a leafless tree
Spun and gazed with owl's eyes
Frantic in the sudden lair
Of a flashlight amidst the hairy vines.
Rabbis passing on the path
Curl their wooden sidelocks.
The house is warm with swaying men
Stepping back into finite raincoats,
The undertow of warrens on Sixteenth Avenue.
Monsey is full of learning
Crawling like trellises,
Snap-dragons on sidewalks,
Tall shtreimels disappearing,
Flashing like black universal matter
Light of yellow-eyed rain.
Tefillin winding roads green inlets of fog
Vermont supper granary milking
Fragrant splashes dawn clover
Black roads winding up my torso
Sinuous trunks twisting grayly
Sucking leaves bursting beneath the sky
Into blue complexion of sun
Spread like gold and lead upon my lips and eyelids
Convoluted folds of fragments
Leather roads stream into my utterances
Spirals of blackness print a letter on my hand
Fringes flicker, herons wrapped in white feathers.
Green hearts, green wonderment of wood, farmers' hands
Dipping into cups of fog
Black light
Black star
Black fingers
Black sheep, black eyelids
Black leather roads
Black helixes of seven fold flowers, eyelids,
Sacred history
Clouds of yellow leaves
Illuminate my feet.
Emerald fluorescent pink-bluish highway
Sweeps into loneliness, reconciliation,
Temples, square and massive, black and pressed of leather like a heart
Old Messages, friendships swaying against the cold radiator,
Messages of ancient highways stretch across my cold body,
Parchment from my palm
A burning letter
Ashes in my hand, a residue
Snakes wrestling up my shoulders,
Heavy women pull their vast weight,
Two geese pull into the air,
Roads of fog in the green cornfields waving,
My heart twisted like rusty guitar strings
Strung across my vivid torso,
Quays, stone piers, exploding snow.
Tefillin are eyes roped in from exile,
The clouds strung through the harbor,
The somnolent old rooms,
Old mikvahs, secret whispers,
Burned shadows of ibises,
Wordless abandon,
Secret reminiscences.
Tefillin in the sun are grapefruit trees
Peering in the windows
For baalei teshuvah secretly mumbling
At two in the morning
The shadow on the wall the footsteps.
Toads flopping in the forest
Underneath clay fingers.
I sit cross-legged
And my eyes are rocket ships.
My feet are encrusted with hieroglyphics.
We are sailing through the litter of flat top houses.
I dive into the green of your garden,
Emeralds crushed by the bickering sea birds.
Rav Kook and Reb Nachman
Fly like ferns
Blessed with the snow
Blessed with the eyes
Of milk and Andromeda
Flower like bowls of cereal
Geraniums on the refrigerator
Penguins at prayer
Harmonica tefillin
Green fields of chiddushim
Tuneless eyes of women
Black sky
Crescent green dreams of earthworms
Dance with mold and icicles
Impressions like old shtreimels
Farmers of tefillin
Wrapped in prayer shawls
Burying their old ploughshares.