Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

The Year of the Ayin Alef
Tih’yeh sh’nat Ayin Alef or Iyyun Alef*

Master of all the words,

We are breaking in on the year 5771
Since the Creation of the world as we reckon time
In our language of acronym
Secrets clues and anagrams
Tih’ye SH’nat Ayin Alef
The year of the ayin alef
May it be this year — the year of the eye
Vision
Mindfulness
Iyyun
Focus
Elusive alef
Silent One
Unity expressed in diversity
G*dliness itself.

Let all the signs
The stars too
siman tov and mazal tov
All the angels and energies, totems and intentions
Conspire to be the year –
It is supposed to be.

This year we begin with ayin
With the eye
With Iyyun
Focus
Sense of deep investigation
Seriousness
Ferocious of vision
The gaze within,

And the added alef
The attentiveness attached to deep listening
Alef — silent and whole –-
G*dliness in its most expressive
Most quiet.

All our years begin with hope
Possibilities present for the secret good
Congealed in language.

Now – the year of ayin alef –
The eye, seventy, conceiving
Vision depth of focus
Deep listening for the silent alef
Bring down its unity –

Now explode the alef into a vuv and two yuds
The numerically alive 26
The postured vuv the Great Connector
The elevated conjunction And
Drawn by the hand Above
Protected beneath by the hand Below –

Something entirely new coming
Better than good when good is not enough
Deeper than surfaces
The vision into events
Into Self
When events and self-ful-ness lose their opacity
And surfaces release**
– For a moment –
To vision
Thoughtfulness
Ferocious Inwardliness –

This could be the year

Amein.

james stone goodman, united states of america

* The year we are entering is called in Hebrew Tav Shin Ayin Alef — Tih’yeh Sh’nat Ayin Alef — an acronym that corresponds to 5771.

We play a word game with language, here game is something serious but with an aspect of play. Every year’s acronym is an opportunity for intention.

**All signs are significant. B.T. Horayot 12a, Keritot 6a

Tekiah – sustained note
Original unity
From where we have come
Before exiles –
Personal
Spiritual
Tribal.

Before separations
Before the terrible twos of existence.
The universal –
Tekiah.

Teruah – the relative.
Against the universal tekiah
Is the teruah.
Three yevavot
Wavering, crying
A longing to return.
When we lose our way
The roads go into mourning.
Teruah.

Shevarim – broken
We are breaking up
Weeping in our brokenness.

The Great Tekiah –
The promise of return.

It is a sad and beautiful world.
Sad – so far away
Beautiful – so hungry
We are to
Return.

jsg, usa

Give ear O heavens
And I will speak
Listen earth
To the words of my mouth

I stood on a rock
With You
You were wrapped in a tallit of light
And there I was given forgiveness
For all of us

When I came down the mountain
My face was fire
And on that fire
A mask

If we believe in justice
It is a double course justice
If we believe compassion
There is no stranger
Or we are all strangers
Not just then
But always

If we believe in good
There is good
And only good

If we choose life
We take each day
With the intention of joy

You are endlessly forgiving
Compassionate
When will You abandon us?

Never

jsg

Ellis Rivkin z”l

Education

When he was a boy,
He snuck off on Shabbes Afternoons –
“Ball Hawk” his teammates called him
so began his independence
and break from

expectations.

Intellectual Formation

He plotted the hidden ascent of the
British from his office
In the Klau Library
Wrestling his newsletters into light
Pouring over the secret
Sources,

The English are everywhere,

Predicting the fall of the Iron Curtain
Long before it collapsed –
“a society that cannot
produce
a decent razor
is no threat,”
he said in falsetto,
“it will collapse like a house of cards.”

The Classroom

His voice ascending
His eyes following ideas heaven-ward
Lifted
His voice
Into extra-sensory
Registers –
“tapping the mind of
God.”

Then there was the last session
Of the semester
When he kissed each of us as we left
As if we were second graders.

Then there were the nights he invited us
For hot chocolate

And the days he brought fine
European chocolates to the classroom,

And then there were the classes
Rarely history
He was planted in the future
And parsing the secret present –

To which he drove to and from
In his galleon Cadillac.

And then there was the time
He pushed the
Clouds

Away.

Ellis Rivkin,
sweetest teacher –

Good night
Dr. Ball Hawk.

james stone goodman
Cincinnati ‘81

Your Double Coursed Sister

I am your double coursed
Sister

My modal figure –
My yearning for voice.

I am a single line
I am the melodic serpent
Advancing by half-flats.

I am the hands of Ziryab
The blackbird
The one born in Baghdad.

I am oud player to the Umayyad court
Cordoba
8th century,
Ziryab
The dark one.

I am your hands
I am the reeshi in your hands
The eagle feather
As you pluck the strings.

I am the fifth course of strings
The ones introduced by Ziryab –

The soul –
Added to the four courses
The four humors of Aristotle.
I am the soul –
The fifth course.

I am the hands of the old man
Sitting by the Seventh Well

I am the sixth course
A single string
I am resolute
The absolute
The sixth course.

I am your hands
Rescuing you.

The Politics of Marriage

It was toast that brought us together
And without the toast
We were finished.

We disagreed on everything
Including toast.

Make one more piece of toast that way
And I’m leaving you.

All we wanted really was toast
The same toast that everybody else had
Or didn’t have
Fought over
The toast that brought us together
And the toast that drove us apart.

Toast, you said,
Is that what you really want?

Yes, toast.

Do you promise to love and cherish
Play scrabble
Make toast
Tart up now and again?

Clean the seeds out of your teeth
The detritus from the front yard
Make toast?

Are you going to make that ****-ing toast?

When marriage is trivial
When marriage is not trivial –
It is trivial when you have it
When you don’t it is of the highest consequence.

You want toast?
Marry me.

I married you for your toast.
Why not, marriage isn’t political
It’s love–
It’s love.

Plodding away we are through toast
And leaving our socks around the room
Empty toothpaste tubes
Not enough aspirin for the headaches you’ve given me –

Someone to curl up with on Sunday night
These lowly blessings of life
Passed up passion ages ago
As the enduring legacies of marriage,

Keep the politics in your pajamas
I will –

Toast please
Not burnt
All the toast I want
Whenever I want it.

jsg, usa