"Librans are poets,"

she wrote, and
it spoke to me

and then I started to see...
my father
was he a poet...

He?
He was a Libra like me,
from a different time...

He did his poetry in mime.

Long or short day,
Thank You either way

Days aren't short or long
Gifts from G-d can't be wrong

 Thoughts On Poetry

1. If you can write,

you can write a poem

2. A poem is

a collection of words

coming together and apart

via your hand, head, and heart

3. Your souls is

(naturally) poetic.

4. Forgetting nothing helps.

5. Maybe forgetting everything helps too.

HAND WRITTEN OVER TWO NIGHTS

Processing my life

I am laying on my bed

Wanting to detox

That story about

the Xs on the foreheads

sits there on my screen

And the irony

is hot, I find it striking

how fitting it is

Our phones are the

wheat that makes us all crazy

this haiku, my X

Marking my forehead

my phone in the other room

I'm writing by hand

Write me a letter

send it through a blue mailbox

so we'll remember...

II

...I'm thinking again

about Rebbe Nachman's wheat

and the forehead marks

I think we've fallen

in a short number of years

hard, away from G-d

I write on paper

hiding from my phone, in bed

calling out to G-d

G-d bless us to read

to write each other and speak

heart to heart, off line

Oh my G-d, bless me

to work with you and be free

and learn how to see

Life and death
the short time
in between:
mind boggling,
awe inspiring,
makes me shudder
kind of thing.

From One Breath to the Next

I take pride in knowing
a lyric for any moment
everything about comedians
arcane, obscure, Torah facts:

Strawberries are the only fruit
with their seeds on the outside
Four is the only number that is
spelled by it's own number of letters

Sometimes, like now, I answer yes
to Ian Anderson, who asked teen me
if I "ever get the feeling that the story's
too damn real and in the present tense."

And as I yearn for companionship
I recall what Dick Smothers said
about Steve Martin, that "he's so quiet
that being with him's like being alone"

Noach and Avraham DID overlap, but
sometimes you can be alive and not
and that which saves your life once
can stifle it in another time and space

I wonder if I should shake off
the soundtrack in my head
and all the stand up routines
my too smart for the room 'tude:

But then I start to think and know
that we need accessible seeds
and we need symmetry in life
that's what we'e striving for

And words that replay in me
repay me for my attention
and help me be present
in this dream like life

And studying comedians
helps me understand me
so alive on a stage while
feeling caged by chatter

And in truth, often I use Torah
not as a tool to impress you
but the intricate insights take me
from one breath to the next

I put pressure on decisions
more than they pressure me

Expecting them to transform
how everything’s going to be.