Blog

  • In praise of lousy words

    Lousy words roll,
    start somewhere
    toward the back of his skull

    Marble out in his too full mouth
    toward his lips, from his lips
    spinning, spill out onto the
    floor.

    Lousy words make him
    slide fall sprain on the ice

    his wrist catching
    himself with his right hand,
    the seat of his
    pants cold, wet.

    Why stand on the ice
    in the first place in those
    sharp, black shoes?

    And those same lousy words
    mark joy mark life
    letting him shine through.

    Letting him shine like
    marbles like ice spinning, sliding

    like sharp black shoes
    covered in ice debris now
    as he rights himself.

    As he sends those words
    from the back of his skull
    to yours

    and all
    the shimmer points
    in between.

  • Threaten me with your breeze

    Threaten me with your breeze,
    Your touch this
    Fragile skin I’ve got has cracks.

    If you come to my door, I’ll open it slow,
    Step back, pull up like for a fadeaway,

    I’ll raise my voice,
    Keep you at bay.

    Don’t breathe into me, my friend my foe
    don’t send me words.

    I won’t
    breathe
    into you.

  • It’s changing

    It’s changing things.
    I’m evolving into future
    me, some better biped. A cellular
    remodel til I can

    eat at a restaurant outside or
    be in a friend’s backyard
    outside and if they walk past me,
    too close, it’s ok,
    not too close
    after all.
    And I can
    use their restroom.

    And after that, after this:
    flight. super strength.
    heat vision.

    I’ll be some
    better biped
    changed by a vaccine and
    40 years in the desert
    and all the things
    it did
    to all us.

  • When I come back to the office

    When I come back to the office
    we will all look older.

    And that’s because we will all be older.

    No one will return as they were. As they left. Even
    if they sit in similar seats, and the fashions
    haven’t changed all that much.

    Meeting rooms will be booked. Restrooms taken.
    Notebooks will be misplaced and there will
    be coffee, I’m sure and
    everyone will have
    an avalanche that happened
    while they were away
    some ice that broke off
    that fell off of them

    into the canyon below.

  • The 5 Books Meander, Week 23: Va-Yikra’

    What just happened:
    Leviticus opens with several laws of sacrifice and the details therein which are, let’s be honest, alarming for anyone who either likes pigeons or believes blood should be dashed on the wall rarely if at all.

    And I thought to myself, Leviticus, your reputation precedes you. Because that’s pretty much what I know of this third book — that it’s a set of rules, rules and more rules, associated with the Levites.

    For the first few pages of this section, I thought there wasn’t much in the way of a picture idea that I could glean. The pigeon thing threw me. And it was interesting to learn we aren’t supposed to eat fat. (Clearly no one told my grandma Lilly that because: schmaltz.)

    But I didn’t see how I could use the above in my day to day. Then, pulling back, I did in fact glean a few things that perhaps I was taking for granted on first skim.

    Of note:

    • First off, there’s the embedded message that everyone sins — priests, nations, individuals — we all sin.
    • Happily, there is also a path to forgiveness. It’s possible to make up for our sins. To take action — to do something to right our wrongs. The key might be acknowledging the mistake, and marking that acknowledgement with care and an odor that God finds pleasing. Hard to argue with that.
    • And it turns out, ignorance doesn’t get you off the hook. If you later realize you did wrong, you still need to make amends.

    These are ideas that feel pretty widely accepted today. Sin is universal. But with conscious thought and effort we can move forward.

    It’s easy to align these ideas with confession, for example.

    I wonder though if they were that widely accepted at the time. As a novel notion, they would be revolutionary.

  • Suddenly, yesterday

    And then suddenly, yesterday, it was Spring.

    With dreams of visits to foreign lands —

    to movie theaters, coffee shops,
    to the insides of other people’s houses
    where dining room tables turned into desks
    might become dining room tables
    with a few things on them
    once again.

    All in the seasons ahead.
    Far away, down this curvy road.

    But trees and fields fly by in the Spring.

  • The 5 Books Meander, Week 22: Va-Yakhel and Pekudei

    What just happened:
    The tabernacle is built and the Lord makes an appearance, as we finish Exodus. What’s a tabernacle, you ask? Wikipedia defines it thusly:

    According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tabernacle, also known as the Tent of the Congregation, was the portable earthly dwelling place of Yahweh used by the Israelites from the Exodus until the conquest of Canaan.

    And Wikimedia Commons offers this lovely image from the Phillip Medhurst Collection of Bible illustrations:

    Of note:

    • My co-readers had a wonderful reflection about this being the first great work of former slaves who had helped build Egypt. Now they build for themselves.
    • Meanwhile, I ruminated on the (let’s be honest) bizarre amount of detail this week’s portion was serving up. I’m just saying, you have to be confident that you have your audience locked in if you’re going to dive this deep. Melville did it. Pynchon does it repeatedly. Nice to see the Torah was written by confident folks, with no fear that they would lose their crowd in details of acacia wood, gold, copper, crimson yarns, linen, dolphin skins, lapis lazuli, spices, oil, flesh hooks, goat’s hair, cups shaped like almond-blossoms, and the extraordinary tabernacling skills of Bezalel, son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.
    • Adversity creates community. As can a shared past. Building something massive and mighty also bonds people with a sense of a common purpose, the common good, an appreciation for the moment and a stake in the future.
    • Looking at the image above, it’s clear that the tabernacle is more than an extravagant tent or gold-covered arc. It’s a mobile town. A place you can carry with you. No surprise that it would be so precious to this wandering people in search of a home.
  • Charlie

    Sally laughed and
    freaked and shrieked
    when he said it

    Eddie’s eyes popped
    out of his head
    when he said it

    Did you know his
    real name was
    Charlies Claverie

    And he went to art school
    with Gus Van Sant
    and David Byrne

    Did he know when he said
    that word
    it would mean
    an end to late-night writing

    riffing and inter-cast fighting

    an end to the spotlight haze
    Goodbye to Saturdays.

    Sally laughed and
    freaked and shrieked
    when he said it

  • The 5 Books Meander, Week 16 (Yitro)

    In brief:

    The gang brings Jethro up to speed, and God makes a memorable appearance.

    A couple of thoughts:

    • Where much of Exodus thus far has hit me with a political vibe, this one seemed to be full of great work advice. For example, Jethro basically tells Moses “you really have to learn to delegate — everyone will be happier if you do.” Ancient advice that people have been ignoring for a few thousand years. Likewise, it had never hit me before today how interesting it is that “take a day off” is one of the top 10 most important things you can do. Don’t murder, don’t steal. And take a chill day, because God did.
    • I always figured don’t lie was a commandment. But that’s not quite what it says. “Don’t bear false witness against your neighbor,” we’re told. Which feels to me much more like a (super important) requirement for having-neighbors-and-not-killing-each-other (aka living with other humans) than it does an abstract virtue. Verily, this is the Good and Practical Book.

    If you’d like to join in… this is the place for comments and commentary on Yitro (Exodus 18.1 – 20.23)

    Next up: Mishpatim (Exodus 21.1 – 24.18)
    -Cecil

  • The 5 Books Meander, Week 12 (Va-Yeḥi)

    In brief:

    Jacob blesses Joseph’s two sons, and once again it’s a good day to be the youngest child. Jacob then gathers his sons and delivers a series of prophecies that to be honest sound a little bit insulting here and there. For example: “Dan shall be a serpent by the road, a viper by the path”? Was that really necessary?

    Jacob/Israel passes away. The Egyptians are gracious, and mourn Joseph’s loss, and Joseph brings his father back to be buried in the land of Canaan. Many years later, Joseph passes away, confident that in time his remains will also be brought back to the promised land.

    A couple of thoughts:

    • A prophecy is not always as fun as a blessing. If you get invited to both a blessing and a prophecy on the same day, go to the blessing. Or you might get called a viper by the path.
    • Joseph and his clan are treated like family by the Pharaoh, a situation that (needless to say) takes a turn for the “let my people go” in Exodus. This image and the warning that comes were a part of what I was taught as a young lad growing up in New Jersey. In middle school, we could recite the list of places where things went wrong. Spain, wonderful before the inquisition; Germany, where my grandfather and his father before him were in every way Germans before they were not. The message was the same lesson embedded in Genesis. A message common I expect to all wandering people. Things may be good. But things change.
    • And that brings us back to what felt to me like the power of Genesis. It’s the book of a wandering people, a promise that there’s a place for them, someplace where they belong. There’s a God who watches over them, no matter how far they roam. And even though they may not get to that promised land in this life, their children’s children will; whatever today’s challenge, all those stars, all those grains of sand, they’ll eventually find their way back home. And who doesn’t want that?

    If you’d like to join in… this is the place for comments and commentary on Va-Yeḥi (Gen 47.27 – 50.26)

    Next up: Shemot (Exodus 1.1 – 6.1)
    -Cecil