=poorpo14 LL=65 chars a few new packaged apercus of lesser lustre, Jan '04 slightly selected caveat ratting: PG-23 probably ================================================================= Portrait of the Poet as Country Gentleman I live "by the side of the road" in a little house of reinforced concrete with a foot-thick roof iron bars on all the windows and a state-of-the-art--lock solid steel door which I usually keep open. Doberdane Drive #101 Moshav mevo modi'in ------------------------------------------------------------------- My mother said, 'When I was a young woman I thought that if I didn't do better than my mother I'd just die and now I think I didn't do as well.' (to E-S AH) ------------------------------------------------------------------ My father once said 'I wish I'd gone into physics not physical chemistry. But I don't now much care that I have 80% happiness not 90%.' ------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Downshifting reconsidered: I have a 10-speed double-trans tractor-trailer which I always drive in only the highest gears because I am more refined than hi-grade diesel. (Or) :Balaak modernizes: ------------------------------------------------------------------ * "The way to go" above treeline on the trail they have taken the cairns and made a maze :(halacha) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Agricola "We loved your hundred poems. Please weed through them and pick out 2 or 3 to send to our Forum" to be torn to pieces by our literary lions. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Shambling back from the dentist wearing my new grey beret I'm cut off at the crosswalk by a car carrying 4 powerful men in expensive European suits. Sure glad it's my country and my city not theirs. (Jerusalem, 14 Cheshvan) ---------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- On a bright fresh day after the first rains on a bus to Jerusalem through rocky hills a young man in black and white wearing eyeglasses closes the window and pulls down the shade. :Meretz stereotype ------------------------------------------------------------------- Someone sends me a CD with 36 Mb of Shlomo teachings. I take it to a neighbor who'll make me a copy if I give him 5 shekels. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------ The Convenience of a Locksmith: a horror story "Confucious say: He who lose old lady's key get no new key." (USA folk-saying) His ex--(more-or-less)--wife 's shut him out of his pizza-pie gourmet cafe so he convenes *** Three Rabbis *** to tell her to give it to him again and he has the law which he locked in his car but then lost that key too while doin' the 'loo at half-'ast two so he takes in hand a 12-pound sledge with a yard-long rod painted bright yellow with a red-trim rim and goes in pounding away two or three times half-awake at day- break! with the pretty rosette of a softy hard-head deadhead saying "I know what I'm do'ng: there's 4 more in my back yard man" only now he needs to call to his wife on the tinkling pellephone to let him back into the restaurant so he can get their dustpan and sweep up all those little bits of glass. 12 Jan '04 -- 18 Tevet Post-scripitum: so I typed down that tale while my little pot of tea boiled unaware away on my canned-gas fire to sludge and smoke. 12 Jan '04 -- 19 Tevet { + col 3 } again the wind and rain "the small rain" cleaning the street cleaning everything even the shomer on a soft warm night only from a dark-gren dust-bin portruding plate-glass 12 Jan '04 23:59 ------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------- More journalism: In the prettily-painted cold concrete Bet Knesset sitting in rows at tables dressed in black they are debating Tractate Shabat about Chanuka under the waning moon of Tevet. The lamp is still set by Rashi's courtyard which they have mis-placed inside-out. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------ * [posted 12/'03 to Mima'amakim Poetry Forum, www.mimaamakim.org but displayed flush-left. [Footnotes appended thereon ] Declamation to the Students, Take 1 [Rev. 8 Jan '04] [+35] " Don't the trees hide the wind between their leaves and speak in whispers?" [+55] (Denise Levertov) [FL] I like miniatures eg, my budget: to keep eating on what I've got is a bit of an art. The Talmud tells us that even a street-corner schnorer must be a little philanthropist some of the time. [+40] ( Reznikoff was here ) [FL] Or cleaning house in my bachelor pad, rearranging the clutter in more socially acceptable patterns. [+5] (Dutch love Vermeer; it's a little country with a wry humour. ) [FL] And Suria Lees said Play by the rules maybe they're stupid but -- {+8} -- but what -- oh, Eliot said {+25} that twit {+40} (Plutzik got him behind the playground ) {+20} a picture without a frame might bleed into the sunset {+25} Pound was a poet (American, naturally). He could recite the telephone book like Homer {+30} and darned near did. "I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman": Ginsberg made space for declamation. Bob Dylan used it. {+35} Kupferburg: 'Publish your underwear.' {+45} I miss Delmore Schwartz. {FL} When you drop half a cap (or, if you're Bedouin, coffee) and they turn on the waterfall of revelations look dumb stay loose be cool {+10} young woman in a tickel eyes glowing {FL} You see, that's kelim the irony of incarnation. {+5} The first time out, the vessels broke. {+10} 'Everybody knows'; nobody learns. {FR} First light over Media Rousseau's moon is going down over our bubble-gum Shomer. (Mevo Modi'in 13 Kislev 05:50) ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------ PRINCIPLES OF LEADERSHIP If you go sailing and the boat's about to sink talk politely. If the sky is falling open the discussion with a remark about the weather. -------------------------------------------------------------- And just so it was that Esav Uncle Sam mighty white hunter cleansed the Parthenon with lysol aerosol kindled mercury & sodium vapour lights electrified the Levites & made a McDonald's. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Every day the lawyers pray. They do everything right & everything wrong. [after RSC, passim.] --------------------------------------------------------------- After a rainstorm how peaceful the walkway outside the the Old City walls. In the street jammed autos honk. ------------------------------------------------------------------- a wet yesterday's paper The shopowner says, "if you want it, you pay for it." --------------------------------------------------------------- By the day's-end bus top a quiet poster invites you to a presentation on 'Eating Right, Living Right, Feeling Right' while a loudspeaker truck in pious Hebrew incessantly demands donations for folks whose homes need food. ------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------ I don't go out much now. Have to take my donkey and he's getting too heavy to carry. :Oy, Byzantium [Cf. Yeat, Byzantium: "This is no country for old men ... " -------------------------------------------------------------- On synergy In the good old days if any three little blind Hindus "or whatever" discovered, oh, an elephant and had to pool their -- 'ignorant opinions' will do for starters (to start us) ... or: Method for Metaphysicians --------------------------------------------------------------- The bridegroom had insisted they said that the invitations be sent only on recycled paper. "No children under 18 will be seated" and so they stood outside the wedding feast some swaying to mega-amps shome shuckling franticly. :but Sallinger was poignant ------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------- daily paper front-page photo apall'd, I glance for consolation at the adult movies machine :Mental Mikveh, Step 1 --------------------------------------------------------------- Just before Shabat she gives me a bag with 2 challot. One falls on the floor. She put it back in the bag. -------------------------------------------------------------- & Breindel said the lowest thing in the world anyone can do is deny someone a toilet. --------------------------------------------------------------- With a voice that could curdle milk she opens a pizzeria. Don't say she's got a scolding tongue, but I'd rather french-kiss a scorpion. ------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------- [Posted to Mima'amakim Live Poetry Forum 28 Dec '03 ] Excerpts from the label on a can of presumably water-resisting spray (contents not listed) purchased in Mea She'arim and deposited in Eliahu Gal-Or's magsin, as read through 1.5 + 2.0 eyeglasses: "Coxy Super Protecter "dangerous to the environment "inhaling the fumes may damage your health "Only spray for a few seconds! "Irritating to skin "Toxic to aquatic organisms, may cause long-term adverse effects to aquatic environment "irritant "Made in Germany "20% gratis "Brussels "melvo.com " (16 Dec '03) ------------------------------------------------------------------ [posted, loc. cit.] Reply to Neighbor Chaim "a sculpture made of old soda-pop cans" Less than that: to display an object trouvee is only to say: 'dig it, man' and maybe (installation art): 'ain't some folks ugly' (Mevo Modi'in 31 Dec '03) [N.B.: A subsequent comment [CITE] notes that 'object trovee' is Duchamp's 'found art' ] ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- [ from the Jerusalem Post, Dec. XX '03 ] Why are We In --- Iraq. "It's quiet out there. Too quiet. " John Wayne " ... because, as we know, there are known knowns: there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns: that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns: the ones we don't know we don't know." Donald Rumsfeld, USA Secretary of Defense (Honoree, Golden Bulls Awards, 2003) [who is published inter alia in: --------------------------------------------------------------- Liora sends people all over the West. Judy buys her a map so she can see where they went. (16 Dec '03) ------------------------------------------------------------------ Once, at the commune I caught the clap took my antibiotic told no-one & got better. Robbie said, Oh yes. Everyone knew because you said nothing. (Dec '03; of ca. '68) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Variations on a reported remark by Natan Zak "the sproutings of sweet nothings" At Beverly Hills Junior High a motley of cashmere as imagined by Vice President Stevens. On Rehov Yuppie mostly alfalfa. 200 meters away from almost anywhere here Palestinians and everyone else are dying and being born and eating lunch. --------------------------------------------------------------- After Margritte, again: A lunar eclipse: 'How do you feel' asks the Shomer bays like a wolf, and walks away. We need silence, says the Sofer. The Shomer returns opens a hi-fi white car door and clicks in 'The Sound of Silence'. (9 Nov '03 14 Cheshvan) ------------------------------------------------------------------- & Amy said nobody else ever asked me in for a drink of cold water ---------------------------------------------------------------- filled with compassion he watches and does nothing :Mystic manque ------------------------------------------------------------------ [news item, Rodos News: ] An Englishperson cannot do without a more commodious 'loo ---------------------------------------------------------------- (outbox alternate) Beethoven, that ungrateful hired hack got back at 'em 'and then I got in my little digs' said Nixon of kicking a downed man who'd spit at him ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dark skies, lights too bright. I shamble into our Bet Knesset. The gentlemen in black are sitting there at tables holding a shiur for 3 locals. There's a plate of brownies I take one, chomp, and ask 'what's the occasion' They say, maybe, 'aliyat haNeshama shel Reb Shlomo'. The brownie is made with NutraSweet a difficult taste to get rid of. & Little Joe once said, 'Dead don't need our prayers.'. ( Mevo Modi'in 30 Dec '03 ) ------------------------------------------------------------------ I walk down the road to take Eliahu's stray kittens some month-old gourmet shop white-flour tortillas each with a half-dozen artifical ingredients identifiable only by E-number. When hungry, Rebbe Reb Zusha would say, clearly, 'Zusha's hungry.' (Mevo Modi'in 31 Dec '03) ------------------------------------------------------------------ I throw a burnt chicken wing to Butterball the Kitten but the orange cat snakes in snatches it up and runs away. She looks at me plaintively. "Your brother came with guile." ---------------------------------- Motzi shabat 2 pre-teenies giggling and hugging each other sashay down the road to the high-speed highway to go tramping. "And Dinah went out ..." ------------------------------------------------------------------ I must conceed said Beelzebub that, given their predicament they often do it rather gracefully but what would Plato say. :"and the posture is simply ridiculous" ------------------------------------------------------------------- * Misspelled handbills for a machmere kollel "Mo' din" & "mo' dim" or so it seems it seems to him is MODI'IM (from 'MODI'IN'). ----------------------------------------------------------------- Overhead at Haverat Shalom Shlomo came to the Abode. He saw a Jewish medele. He said, 'What are you doing here?' And now she's living in Boro Park & has 7 children. -------------------------------------- Overhead at the Abode, ca. 1974 'He got initiated a few months ago and now he's sitting in jail, waiting to be tried for murder.' -------------------------------------------------------------- Now is the time to dwell in fields by the ripening apple trees in a simple shelter covered with stalks of dry grain. Leaving my small house of iron--re-inforced concrete I enter unto a six-cyliner upholstered automobile and ride down the freeway to our suburban shopping mall to buy a set of cloth walls for a succah. ---------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------ An early-old broken-down new immigrant bedecked by a preposterously motley borrowed kippa stands in the Bet Knesset waiting to tell too long his own tale of exponentiating debacles. The machers from double-decker concrete houses listen politely & explain that they don't bring money to a house of prayer. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Plain Potatoes Today "Your Chanuka olive oil came today. Get it off my floor." "Go no money yet and not much food now." "Get your money and take your oil. Since you're used to doing without it can wait." 13 Tevet, Modi'in --------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= CAVEAT COMING: . . . . . e t c . ----------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================ CAVEAT TABBYCAT: PG-103 1950's Nostalgia and Doozer said HE's blowing his nose. I'D like to SEE that. ---------------------------------------------------------------- (sketch) Technology breeds odd results: new vices for 'mature adults': (frustrated, lust fills channels rank) before a CRT to wank. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= Shalom Schwartz serves tequilla between courses; an excellent idea. Basho: quoted in Haiku, by R.H. Blythe, Vol. IV Autumn-Winter, (c) 1952 by R.H. Blythe (12th printing 1970), Published by the Hokususeido Press, 3-12 Kanda-Nishkikdeho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Asagao wo heta no kaku sae aware nari The pathos even when painted unskillfully of the morning glory ================================================================ (sa again:) nowadays my neighbors scarcely speak to me but in the early morning their birds still sing ---------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= Caveat Retract: PG-23 again: 'shtuyot'="a stew of ridiculousnesses" the fragility of daybreak Yeats: 'as clear and passionate as the dawn' (daybreak is clear, sunrise is passionate. Steve Keyes: "Yup, nope, that's not it." ( Antioch outs '65) (:ok, Oliphant did it first: sub-titles) ------------------------------------------------------------------ WIP: Subject lines of SPAM received in response to an attempt to download a Yahoo Homepage Free Screen Saver under the name of Fred Frodo: January is cold, warm up, Fred Do you need help to quit smoking, Fred Credit card for 2004 -- Fred No Credit Checks ---------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= CUT & PRINT & CHUCK IT OUT ONTO THE WEB FRED =================================================================