Poetry Ray Bash

The Poetry of RaYBaSH Katan Volume I
By Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr
Shalom Alichem (Peace be unto you), These free verse poems are like a captains log of my journey through life as a Netzari Jewish Rabbi, and if I had them in order it would be like a diary of my life; thus, these poems are not listed in chronological order. These poems span a wide spectrum from religion to relationships, from external to internal matters. In them I wrestle demons, emotions and myself; and hopefully say what others may be afraid to say, or feel what others know they feel but deny it out of fear; to those, perhaps they can borrow my voice and feelings. Sometimes my voice is a lonely individual to where few can relate, like that of an outcast or prophet. And at times my voice is universal, that of an everyday Joe and everyone can read the poem as if it was coming from deep within them. Sometimes my poems are dark and melancholy, but like King David I always try to end on a positive note. Sometimes they are euphorically giddy and sometimes they are righteously rebellious. Regardless of the eclectic-ness of this compilation, I sincerely hope you enjoy and are somehow edified, motivated and changed in a positive way because of them. I hope this is like a hot cup of reflective coffee and an indulgent dessert to savor. I hope there is enough rich marrow to satisfy any poetic pallet. I can only hope YHWH Elohim will use these humble musings as a flame to ignite a smoldering soul to life again, or to feed an already brilliant blaze. Shalom, -- Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr
EVERYONE
Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr
I look around and see EVERYONE is in need. EVERYONE is struggling, EVERYONE is suffering and, EVERYONE has no one to turn too, EVERYONE has no one to listen, EVERYONE has no one to help, EVERYONE has no one to lean upon, EVERYONE has no one to talk too, EVERYONE has no one who has the answers. EIGHT hours a day, Leaves the toll of TWELVE hours on the body, mind and spirit. For only a couple hours pay. A week finances a day. EVERYONE wants to help EVERYONE but, EVERYONES hands are tied, barely able to help ones self, let alone loved ones in need. You either grow crazy or callous. This tight rope is a hard one to tread. Blinded by despair I see more unanswered prayers than answered ones. Why!? Is only met by frightfully stinging silence. One can admit ones part in creating the hole ones in but when one makes necessary corrections and one is still in the hole by no fault of his own. You are only left desperate and bewildered, tinged with a bit of anger. The enigmatic world is only for itself and the individual, the family is left in its wake as it steam rolls ahead. Leaving carnage in its path. The individual, the family is targeted for genocide. The individual, the family is dazed and confused, left to salvage what they can and wander desperate and aimless in this third world conspiracy. LET US ALL PLOT OUR DEATHS AND RUN FOR THE HIGH GROUND AND ALL WHO ARE MAMED BY THE STRUGGLE, LUT IS BAND TOHETHER, LET US MAKE A COIMMUNITY AS IT WAS AT THE FIRST. LET US BE SELF SUFFICENT, SELF CONTAINED; ALL WORKING TOGETHER AS ONE. BURY OUR NAME, OUR NUMBER, OUR CITIZENSHIP, AND LET US SEPARTAE AND BE A NATION WITH IN A NATION. Let us work together providing for ourselves, our families, one another.
Like those who had gone before us. I fear it may be the only way. WHOS WITH ME!? I hear the masses cheer.. But NO ONE will move to make it so. Including MYSELF.
The Atrium
I can see out side this atrium, And everything inside these four walls of glass is a fabricated habitat Meaningless. I keep running into these walls of glass, Not because I dont know they are there. But because I DO know they are there. One more hit, one more run and I might find a weak spot, I may very well penetrate these four walls. My mind is numb; my skin crawls as I move through these mazes on auto pilot. Why? What for? Meaningless I run and run but it is as if the destination before me gets farther away, not closer. Repetition, tedious, menial tasks. Round and Round, Over and Over, Day in and Day out. Around the block again and again. Around in circles, round and round. Chasing my own tail. Like a board game, circle squared. This is rubbing my mind raw. It grates on my nerves like scraping silverware on the teeth, or nails raking across the chalk board. Where am I going? Whats the purpose in this? I have got to break free or Ill go mad! A life without meaning and purpose is a fate worse than death. A living Hell!
Like a Hebrew slave to Pharaoh; A mental hostage, A psychotic torture rack. Wake me up from this nightmare. I must leap over this wall of glass, I must break the surface before I suffocate. My lungs are burning, my head is throbbing, My body shakes, weak as of one deprived of food. Weak, shaky, nauseous. However. I WILL DO IT, I WILL BREAK FREE! I REFUSE TO BE BOUND! I WILL FLY OR DIE TRYING! I will crawl out of this mind trap.
REVOLT AND REBEL!

My Spirit rebels and throws tantrums like a spoiled little brat! I stretch and groan trying to break free. Like being bound to dungeon walls. Like a 9 volt battery being forced into a C battery receptacle and commanded to work! Short circuited and overloaded. Meltdown. Every fiber of my being screams and convulses in revolt. Some of us are not hard wired for this world, the materialistic, meaningless existence. I am as a square peg forced to fit into a round hole and I struggle to wiggle free. I WILL TURN OVER THE TABLE OF THE MONEYCHANGERS! I WILL GO A.W.O.L.! I WILL SCREAM IN THE FACE OF BLIND CONFORMITY! I WILL RISE ABOVE THIS FABRICATED ILLUSION! I WILL SWIM AGAINST THE TORRENT! I know there is a way out of all of this and Im gonna find it! Yet not without repercussions and circumstances.
Seeing the path along the way that says Keep of Grass, Not Trespassing! I dare to take it regardless of what may come.
Untitled Free Verse

At one point in the infancy of my adolescent youth we were one. Then, I cant decide if things branched out or fractured. Did we grow or shatter? Bloom or wither? Is it a green tree I see or a dry, cracked desert floor? We are all spread out from our point of origins, not miles, but eras apart. Separated by time, space, physically, mentally, spiritually, culturally, doctrinally, philosophically, and theologically, to the point I even question if our origins were the same. The once thought strong has caved, the weak have either disappeared into the assimilated mediocrity of society and civilization, or climbed against odds over the caved to replace the strong. Is this mid-life crisis? Is this when I really grow up? Did we make waves for the betterment of tomorrow, or did we splinter for ruin like a spider webbed windshield? We once were so solid in our faith, yet all too quickly I see who sunk and was swept away in the shifting sand, and what I see what few actually found the Rock. I choose, as Frost put it, The one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. It is an over grown, little known, shaded path, narrow like a fine scalpels edge. Yet well defined like a line drawn in the sand. Many others have taken the broad ways called The Same, only a different color, texture and flavor to cater to drunken pleasure until the senses are numb and dull. Oh where have all my brothers and friends gone!? Alas, they are aliens and strangers to me now. Lost in the fabric of justified self till the individual strand is lost in the weave. Oh, hell is so sweet and inviting, and can hardly be resisted by the masses, like lemmings off a cliff; almost all my friends have jumped with ecstasy into the deceptive abyss of sinfully satisfying swill below. G-d! Like Eliyahu I sit bewildered in my cave, like Lots daughters I fear I am the only one left. I feel alone.
Yet I know you have said that there are many who have not bowed their knee to Baal nor kissed him. There are others. We are just separated as seeds are scattered and are asked to bloom where they are planted. I feel the roots beneath the sod reaching out to the others planted far away. For we all come from the same source. Like siblings separated at birth. Oh, HaShem, I will, with Your help, look up and press on
BURNT ORANGE
If burnt orange over sepia tone had a feeling, I feel it. My brain throbbing and humid, Pacing like a caged lion in heat. Flashes of blinding hot light mixed with a stench of steamy smoke of Matches roll about my head like a wreath. Mind racing, labored breath, I want to pounce, but have no room to jump. I am surrounded by Mad Dogs, Jackals, Wolves and Hyenas, All robed in bloody sheep skin. Taunting, circling, barking, and howling with delight. Drool dripping, mouth frothing, As they circle, and stare down their prey; They sometimes bite and nip at them selves. Minor scuffles break out in the rag tag ranks. The sent of blood is in the air, but it isnt mine. I have no fear, They are no real threat, They are insignificant in the light of what is now negative existence. They fade into the background, And are silenced for only but a moment as if one drifting into Unconsciousness. I look passed the self imposed bars and see the Pride Lands. I hear the distant cry of the Pride and I long to join them. Yet all of the Pride is as I. I crouch and spread my feet as my razor like claws sink deep into the earth Like cleats.
A fire in my bones churns as a volcano in my gut. A rumble rolls as hot thunder upward from deep with in me. It erupts from behind my ivory like daggers like a geyser from my throat As a sound like shofar resounds and reverberates through the air. The imaginary bars vaporize and the canine throng cowers as if awaiting The heavy hand of a cruel master. My muscles tighten and visibly ripple beneath my golden skin, As I flinch forward and another blast echoes from my carnivorous cavern. The miss matched pack flinch backward and cower as whimpers bounces Around the pack like popcorn in a musical round. A few Alpha Males growl and step forward undeterred by my authority, And deluded by their own. Only because they backed themselves in a self imposed corner. I proceed to walk forward because I own the moment. I havent time for this. I must move forward. I hear a guttural growl behind me as if to say, How dare you walk away while I am trying to decimate you! I dismiss him by a swish of annoyance with my tail. I feel multiple stings like blunt hot lead bored deep into my back. I feel drunken poison, like delirious, swarthy hot ooze spread like hot tar Into my body. Striking as a snake, recoiling just the same. A jab below the belt. The blood within me burns the toxic brew away like sun eats the dew. My head is clear but I smell fear. Cowardess puffs them up with imaginary authority, confidence and bravery with each sniper like tag. A primordial wrath intoxicates my psyche, Mingled with a somberly stoic holy rage. Rising fire, fierce and high channeled and controlled by 12 stones, Ready to be wielded by a skillful soul. A roar intense like a welders torch, Like white fire on black fire. Claws like piercing blue sapphire greet the glass teeth of the malnourished scavenger. His prior lunge incites a feeding frenzy of barks. As if to protest my self-defense and to taunt the down fall of one of their own all at the same time.
In the distance I see other dogs scrap, jockeying for a promotion to replace their disposed leader. With the first attack permission has been given to a fall upon me at will. Then I feel it. Like a vice grip of living thorns pierce my feet. Will I be crucified or hanged? Not this time. Steely cold determination burns in my eyes, My muscles tense, The ground trembles. I let out a Breath, Hot as lighting, Hard and weighty as a stony berg of ice, Yet soft as billowy dandelion seed wafting in the wind. The four jackals collapse like dogs that have been hit by a train, And I smell the ripe stench of their singed smoking flesh. I shake the dust off my feet. My peace returns to me. Judgment will fall. I walk forward and the mixed pack retreat behind splintery wooden doors that werent there before. As they slam shut they all bear a single spike, Dangling from it is 613 bloody pages. As 95 pages lay in ashes at the threshold of the door. I hear muffled whimpers and moans of defeat and confusion behind the rotting wooden doors, Moans like a worm burrowing deep within the brain, Driving its victims mad. Its night, but I see like its day. I feel the earth vibrate beneath my feet. I see a cloud of dust on the horizon. I see a pillar of fire leading the way. The Pride is free and filled like me. They are on the move. Dawn is breaking, So is the Thorny Flaming Heart, So is the Steeple, So is the Dome, Yet Yochin and Boaz rise and stand firm. The sand is shifting, the foundation rolls,
The houses fall, The floods consume. The Rock rises, lifting Yochin and Boaz above the ensuing surf. It wont be long. It just takes a holy anger producing an absence of fear, Balanced with a bold humility that produces an unshakable confident authority. The cold chilly waters of Jordan retreat with my every advancing step. Every secret will lie naked, Every truth will be exposed. The crooked will become straight, And the dark glass will become as crystal. The bedrock will be exposed as 2000 years of refuse, hay wood and stubble is consumed by Holy Fire. The dross will be skimmed off and the tarnish wiped away. The past that has passed underneath the sun will all be but a bad dream As Eden is reborn. The sheeps clothing will rot and fall away from the pack. The Wolves will be shocked to see themselves as their duplicity becomes A singularity. They will only realize too late that the Changeless does not change. Reality will become a dream, The Dream will become Reality. The Pride will be exonerated forevermore, And Now will be all there is.
The Cries
I am liable. I am accountable. I am not my own. I belong to a vast body of unseen people who feel all alone as I do. We are spiritual refugees. All of us in exile. I hear the cries from Arizona. I hear the cries from Ohio. I hear the cries from Kentucky. I hear the cries from Virginia, and West Virginia. I hear cries from Florida. I hear cries from the UK.
I hear cries from Iran. All sounding the Macedonian Call. All isolated and alone. All longing for others like themselves. All trying to keep Torah in a Torahless Society. All hounded by Christians. All rejected by the Non-Believing Jews. I too am in the same boat, yet my heart breaks for my brethren. I am only one man, I am only one Rabbi. Yet I am liable. I am accountable. I am not my own. I belong to a vast body of unseen people who feel all alone as I do. We are spiritual refugees. All of us in exile. I will pray. I will encourage. I will blog. I will I.M. I will link Believer to Believer. I will seek. I will draw in. I will help. I will be the best Torah Observant Follower of Yeshua that I can be. No matter where I am. No matter where I find myself. As Rav Shaul said, that I have learned that no matter what state I am in I am content. I will not stand idly by and consent to failure. You. You are liable. You are accountable. You are not your own. You belong to a vast body of unseen people who feel all alone as you do. We are spiritual refugees. All of us in exile. Elijah! Wipe your tears and crawl out of your cave. Can you hear the cries of the myriad who have never bowed their knee to Baal or kissed him? We are Avraham we are Moshe in the Exodus, We are the Joshua Generation. We will pave the way for those who will come after us. Do you hear the dry of your brother?
Do you hear the dry of your sister? What can you do? What are you willing to do? What will you do? We are all apart of the cries. We are all apart of hearing the call. We are all apart of answering the call. All that is left is to do. As you help your brother, your sister, you also help yourself.
These are Some Days

Laden as with a heavy blanket. Pulsated with a barrage of dull pain. Thrust into darkness. All aligns and adjusts until it all feels normal. The white noise of the mind is a confusing cacophony that deafens my sight. As if suddenly awakened in the dark, far reaches of space, or in the darkened depths of the sea, your mind goes mad in its attempt to find up. In both, oxygen is a cruel ghost. Your lungs burn as you struggle to breath. You race through a labyrinth of branches and vines. You struggle against a gauzy cocoon. Like spelunking the narrow depths of the earth, your arms tingle with the sensation of wanting to stretch yet they are constricted by cold wet rock. You fight the urge to panic, to scream, to run. You grab the arm of Sanity before it slits its own throat. Like breathing thick humid air, longing to throw back the covers of sleepy childhood and suck in deep the cool clean air, yet for fear of the monster your brain screams to stay hid. You fight to keep pace with the falling sands of the hour glass that falls into some unknown abyss. These are some days. These are brief moments.
These are split seconds. This is the constant advancing and retreating of the enemy. One that is too fearful to face you, for fear of its impending defeat. Like a sucker punch or a mugging from behind it strikes then vanishes, but the pain leaves its residual mark upon the psyche. This is the feel of depressions quick, swift sword. And you can never understand until you have felt its bite.
Wine to Vinegar
Trapped. Id better be an oyster. This dark irritant. This ignorant, demented annoyance, That bores itself into my brain. Like a grain of sand to the eye. It better produce a pearl. Like a constant dripping. Drip, Drip, Drip, Weak as water but enough to bore a hole in solid granite. My constitution, cracking like and engine block. Drip, Drip, Drip, Pulled into a world of ignorant logic, Laced with dooms day ranting, And fearful snowball scenarios. Old dogs that cant learn new tricks. The slate has been chiseled. Its message set in stone. Drip, Drip, Drip, All the jokes about Chinese water torture, If I were only so lucky. Nerves frayed,
Patience flayed, Sanity worn thin like the knees of old jeans. Like a steely P.O.W., I am forced into silence. I bite my lip. Im not talking. They cant understand and wont believe a word I say. Drip, Drip, Drip, Cold stares. Heated words. Leaves me lukewarm and humidly nauseous. Breathy mutterings and conversations with walls. Drip, Drip, Drip, They look behind them. They see imaginary enemies like boogey men in the night. Knowing it all with a fragmented alphabet. Like memorizing the 1950s Encyclopedia Britannica in 2010. Drip, Drip, Drip, Prejudice, assumptions and kangaroo courts. Like Frankensteins Monster, They chase me with verbal pitchforks and torches, Around bunny trails they have created, Looking for a precipice to throw me from. Drip, Drip, Drip, How do you scratch your brain when it itches? How do you educate the blind, deaf and dumb? Unwittingly sacrificing there only son. Drip, Drip, Drip, This is what can happen when the window to the soul becomes dim and dirty.
When blood turns to sand. When tongues gate is broken through. It releases the writhing, untamed serpent. Faulty as a dismembered centipedes legs, Twitch, Twitch, Twitch, Stutter, Stutter, Stutter, Yet deadly as a mamba. Drip, Drip, Drip, This is what happens near the end of days. A lifetime without Torah and a pagan Christ. Mind looses its restraining grip. You think youre on Waltons Mountain and you act like its Hamburger Hill.
When?
Gone are the seamless, sunny days of youth. Where everything was stable and same. Everyone was happy. Everyone was prosperous. Everyone was at just the right age. Everything was simple. You wish it would stay that way forever. Change back then was slow, kind and gentle. And it always brought with it good. Digging a hole to China. Playing in the woods. Drawing pictures in church. Saturday morning cartoons and afternoon B movies. Faking you was asleep so you can get carried up to bed by your mother. Ignorant, clueless and carefree. Then something broke. I dont know when or how, but it broke.
Like a baseball ruining a perfectly good day. Change comes hurling in on me and shattering my window. Like being rudely awakened by a rock through the window with a note attached saying: Wake up! Beaver Cleaver and Peter Brady are dead. The Bundies and Springer have moved in next door. I knew things I didnt want to know. I saw things I didnt want to see. The skies seem grayer, Aunts die, Cousins grow up, Sisters divorce, I still find shards of that broken glass in my hair, I still pick slivers from my skin. Reminding me of what was and will never be. Reminding me of days gone by. Childhood now seems but a whimsical dream, Dissipating like a ghostly mist with echoes of joyous laughter Haunting. Taunting. Truth is beautiful and priceless. I will never let it go. But it can leave the world looking Spartan and unforgiving. Restless, nomadic, and wandering like Abraham. Like Moses, seeing the Promise Land but cant get in. Oh that I were Joshua entering the land. Oh that I were Solomon, to see the golden sun rise on Israel. Oh that I were Kefa when thousands of Netzarim were added daily But I weep like Jeremiah. I fight like Judah Maccabee. Im homesick like John on Patmos. Where is the Kibbutz? Where is the community I can get gray in and die in? Like Jonah I languidly lie beneath the gourd by day. Like Gideon by night I sever the heads of idols. When will the dogs eat Jezebel? When will the dagger pierce the gut of Eglon? When will the worm feast on Herod? When will Goliath be beheaded? When will paradise be founded on the carcass of the Beast?
The Trouble with Prophecy

I feel warm and thick. The dull pulsating pound rhythmically resonates within my skull. Like speeding down a lonely desert highway only to get stuck in city traffic. Were not done yet. Im not ready to leave this place, I say, as I see through a welders mask. Like waking in the night, Stumbling half asleep to the bathroom. Trying to navigate as if it were day. My toes painfully greet the two ton ottoman. I see the ottoman after the fact. Yet knowing it was there all along. What you read, what you see is clear only after the fact. The rest is speculation. Like the looming skeletal dinosaur at the museum. You dress it in your mind with skin. As does the mesmerized kid standing next to you. Seeing the same skeleton, but seeing very different skin. Like fumbling nervously for your keys only to find the right one at the last second. You enter and slam the door behind you breathlessly barely escaping that shadowy figure that followed you home. Torah may be stone. Revelation is stone encased in clay. Prophecy grows. Like your child, you only notice the change out of the blue. You fail to see the daily metamorphosis. I stand on cautionary definitiveness. I will not allow my opinion to gel. I can allow myself to be wrong without shame. G-d forbid I mistake a bear for a wolf. Or shall I see a sheik and mistake him for a whore? As a revolutionary, I will fire when I can see the white of their eye. Many are made insane. Many are made a fool. Many are made a fraud. Many are made a dictator,
When one maps where no one has ever trod. Some doors remained locked. We turn over door mats and rocks in search for the key, When in fact the key has yet to be forged.
Tender Tragedy
Though tempest toss and threaten to drown. Though Vulcan like winds thick and stifled pelt me raw with the embryos of what would be glass. Though sharp bitter wind as thick and hard as cold steel sheets bombard me sore. Though deceiving calm attempts to lull me to sleep like a beach side paradise, a hurricane threatens to quarter me like ill Roman legion. I ride the foamy crest. I grow a leathery hide. I endure as stone. I adapt and discover new limits of endurance. Though the cruel worm wiggles and writhes and burrows in my brain. Though shards of broken dreams pierce my heart like shrapnel. Though dreaded dreams materialize before my eyes and turn my innards to a nauseating soup of sinew. Though daggers and claws continually find their way to my yoked back. I overcome. I heal. I transform. I crystallize. Worms give birth to horns. Eyes turn to steely fire. My heart grows thorny roses like creeping ivy. Wings sprout where steel and keratin have torn my flesh. Infectious wounds drop pearls. Nightmares morph into tranquility on a page. Rape from those who called me friend gives birth to wisdom. I can be wounded but not killed. Violated but not victimized. Tortured but not broken.
Threatened but not intimidated. Beaten but not defeated. Hidden but not silenced. Left for dead but I will rise. Like someones nightmare I will multiply. Like a bad horror flick I will return from the impossible. I have found a way to be immortal. I will not go away. They have devised my demise but in reality created me, Made me what I am. Like a powder burn from a jammed gun. Like a double edged sword. Like the angel of death called Chernobyl. Like a broken vile at the CDC. Like circus elephant who has had enough. They have knotted their own noose. Fell upon their own sword. Sown and reaped the seeds of their own havoc. Tables turn. The weak shame the strong. The foolish confounds the wise. The slaves revolt and pull off a coup. They have been blinded by their own image. Deafened by their own words. Poisoned by their own doctrine. In building their Empire, they have unwittingly planned their own suicide. Trials, Tribulations and Persecutions have become my faithful Allies. Familiar and trusted friends. Like a hated teacher I have grown to admire and respect. Like V and Evie. They have been the sparing partner that forced me to push just one more time. They are the teachers and trainers held in reserve by G-d for only His elite students. I know who I am. I know why I am here. I see what I am to become. Tomorrow is closer than I think.
Unnecessary Words
Unnecessary words are like fuzzy white dust particles dancing noisily in a sun beam through a window. Like staticy clothes where hair and lint are unshakable like sticky strings of tar. Like particles of sand that make their way into every crevice of the body. Like clingy cobwebs when you wander alone in a dark basement are unnecessary words. We surround ourselves with a whole lot of nothing as we wrap ourselves in a cacophonous cocoon of radio, TV, cell phones, internet and ipods. Our ears and mind are full to a state of gorging gluttony, all the while our heart and souls starve like a third world child. Soft satisfying words from heaven only come like a timid deer from the woods to feed in the evening silence near the old apple tree in late summer. Unnecessary words will frighten it away into the recesses of the dark forest. The tumult of play. The tribal like drone of the busy streets. The factory like chaotic pound of the work day. The screaming white noise in our brain that bounces echoes of our day off the rafters of our mind. Command these things to be still! Run away. Let silence seduce you. Let silence speak. Let silence woo you. Let the pregnancy of silent words lift the grubby film of the unnecessary words of the day and cause you to float on an airy sea of meaningful silence. Rest, rejuvenate and soak and you will be filled again. People shake their fists at the sky and claims G-d never speaks. He never speaks because we never stop and listen.
Shallow Existence
I see sad and shallow shells of souls. Accumulating years of virtually a meaningless existence. Ghosts with no identity. Bound to a material and caporal dictum. Thin, no depth, Like an opaque, greasy napkin you can almost see through. Eat. Sleep. Work. Disgustingly predictable as a lifeless clock work mannequin who pounds upon the anvil every hour. Calling people and saying nothing at all. Their occupation tells them who they are. As one wilts and grays as a rose in the chill of Autumn. Labor ceases and they walk aimlessly through to the end of their life. Eat. Sleep. Sit. Lifeless and shallow like a scarecrow in an empty harvested field, Head filled with hay. Calling people and saying nothing at all. No friends. No hobbies. Some by choice. Some by consequence. Some by chance. Gossip is the only things to live for. Knowing something about everyone which amounts to nothing at all. Living their whole life in an invisible terrarium. Never venturing past the invisible line laid out by sight. Treading neither the plain of the mind nor the soul. Laughing to scorn those that do and thinking themselves ten times the wiser. The wine spoils before the bottle breaks.
Like accepting a debt they did not incur, they entwine themselves to every aspect of the physicality of this realm. Imprisoned and drained like a battery in a twisted dooms day toy. Their life as a raindrop running down a car window and collecting in a pool on the sill. Absorbed virtually unnoticed. Leaving no impact or evidence that they have ever been. I want to be that rain drop that creates a crown, however brief, upon impact. I want to make ripples in my puddle. I do not want to go quietly. I want my drop to be heard. I refuse to consign myself to accept where my pieces have fallen and leave all my life to the cruel mechanical tyrant called fate. I will reach beyond the looking glass and transcend this plain of tangible physics and let my mind and soul take flight. I refuse to just simply exist. I WILL LIVE! I will soar the heights and spelunk the depth. I will explore the endless plains. I will not sit static and stagnate. I will not be limited by the numbers 9 to 5, 24/7 or 365. I am more than my ID badge and what it says that I am. The cancer called death comes too quickly to occupy my life with that which rots. I am willing to be called a fool. Call me a dreamer, Unrealistic, Rebellious, Lazy, Backwards, A freak, A fanatic, At least when I draw my last breath here I can say my existence here had substance, depth, meaning and purpose. I LIVED.
I did not bow to the confined restraints imposed upon this race by a partnership between the devil and man, and accepted by soulless drones.
Intent
Born into a conflict as ancient as the heavens. Ethereal and milky. Like a faded dream on the tip of remembrances tongue. The gauzy elusiveness cocooned in the realm barely beyond sight. Yet it manifests wounds so raw and intense as a car on deer collision. So tangible and defined as a surgeons cold, sharp, sterile scalpel. Lumbering daily, bounding and jarring as a wagon on a dry barren furrowed field. So constant you know not whether to rise or sleep. So far back till the land bleeds into the sky. So far ahead the end seems but a speck of glitter against a black velvet abyss. Your mind wanting to blame it on the illusion of the eye. Pulled and twisted in infinite directions by an unseen current or vortex. Like walking in humid congealed air. Every move an effort to overcome resistance. Daily obstructions attempt to buckle me like hail the size of school globes. My mind a jumbled mesh of blinking holiday lights that refuse to uncoil. My stomach like the churning of cottage cheese. My eyes sting with a mix of sweat and tears mingles with a dry and dusty heat. My joints and muscles tremble sore as if ravaged by flu. Time seems to elude my grasp like sand through my fingers. Like the precious coin that falls through the street grate just slightly beyond your reach. Order seems to bow at the feet of chaos like a scolded puppy. Or a slave struggling to defiantly rise just one more time. The world machine with its gears and cogs, clunk methodically along as a dark and soulless drone. Blood fuels the fire and the tears of men lubricate the teeth of the gears. Like a mythic labyrinth or the pantomimes invisible box, I race to find an underground railroad to escape the lynch mobs noose. Id rather die free than live to provide for a faceless benefactor.
My pockets lay thread bare like an oil soaked onion skin paper. All the while I smelt silver to line the pockets of a stranger, or at best as sadistically benevolent Uncle who sends you to run errands like Capone and Charles Manson. I will bite the hand that feeds me, For Id rather taste flesh than to be left with a mouthful of gravel. Id rather drink blood than swallow sand. I WILL find the hole in this Alcatraz. I WILL breathe unsullied air and drink crisp water of crystal. I WILL live like an innocent, virgin feral child, yet have the scars to prove I was once a slave.
ALL
Wrap up, Tie up, Bind up, Infuse, Submerge, Saturate, Surround, Envelope, Permeate, Every cell and fiber of my entire being! Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit! Physically, Mentally, Emotionally, and Spiritually! Through and Through! Every Level and every Layer! I want to fall Madly, Deeply and Passionately in Love with YOU! I want to be Your Chariot to fulfill YOUR Mitzvot! I want to Be and Do all that YOU want me to Be and Do! Hopelessly Devoted, Fanatically Infatuated, Totally Surrendered and Submitted, To YOU, YOUR Torah and YOUR Moshiach!
The Fate of the Yidden

Sorted is this place. Its malevolence concealed. There is only a faint whisper that cause me to glace over my shoulder. Prejudice casually saunters about. One only catches is as a ghostly glimpse out of the corner of the eye.
The days pass slow and languidly. Loneliness settles in as the cold on a snowy evening. Muffled silence steals away the days. This is exile. Melancholy solicits like a beggar in the square. Like a vagabond I roam. Wearing out my welcome like a gypsy. Always a stranger and never a friend. This is the lot of my people, Wafted about, Dispersed in a haphazard dance like the billowy seed of the dandelion, Till it looks like a freak blizzard in July. And where they land, they are as welcomed as one. Wanting to go home, But not to an empty house that weeps as if bereaved of its Owner. So we wait, we roam, we groan. Trekking a winding path that leads to nowhere. Only until Moshiach comes.
The Great Escape

My feet of iron and clay threaten to keep me sinking in this mire. As my burning bones attempt to propel me upward. The wet, dark shroud that clings to my mind, it threatens to suffocate it as a serial killer would secure a plastic bag over the head of its victim. My heart aches as if constricted by a steely barbed wire serpent, just as the coil of this life is cold cutting and unforgiving. My screams are as loud as a mime, but these tears arent painted on like one. This reality in deed can feel like that infamous invisible box. I crawl the dark caverns of those that dug it before me. Searching for that ray of light that finds its way through the surface of the cold earth. Prophets, Ravs and Rebbes ascend through the layers of rocky mortality. Through layers of earthy morality. To rise as if from the dead. Pisgah is calling. I hear the rumble of distant chariot wheels drawn by fiery steed.
Enoch whispers. Moshiach is coming.
The Last Exodus, The Last Holocaust

Raped and Ravaged; This world denies me of who I am. Threatened to destitution and starvation by the Western corporate Nazi regime. I must press the officers pants with their silver lined pockets and polish their green back padded shoes. All for stale bread and Nebuchadnezzars meat which I refuse to eat. Work or Die! They shout as I dig my grave with a magnetized plastic shovel and the capital dozers rolls the bones. Paper chains shackle my limbs like green moss hanging from a willow. Sam who now brandishes a neatly trimmed black mustache can have Caesars gold. No room for souls, just corpses. Let them clamor over their pound of flesh. Like a manacle cauterizing tape worm, I will cut off this supply of blood like an unforgiving tourniquet. Those Poly-Tics wont vampirize this dry utter. Ill starve, I fade, I disappear only to return like a Phoenix. With Ezekiels army with the fused two twined staff in hand. As Babylon burns and Jericho Falls, the sea will spread her arms for the liberated captives. The sea will then clap her hands and the depths will vomit up her dead. Pharaoh, Hitler, Stalin, Nero, Constantine, Titus, Marcion, and Ignatius, The waves repulsively push their limb bodies upon the jagged shores. The birds of carrion will bloat tonight. As the fire crackles the sound of tambourines and drums blend in symphonic victory. And we dance our way home.
Reflection
Okay, balanced, above average. I see myself through rose colored, splintery glasses, though unbeknownst to me all from the reflection of a funhouse mirror. I like the lie I fabricate, and I see. I try desperately to forget the nagging truth that down deep in my heart of hearts I know the truth of what I am. Deformed, amputee, crippled, prosthetic, asymmetrical, out of kilter. The truth of The Infinitis spectral sight. I am not half a quarter. a third a sixth. Heck! Im NOT the man I thought myself to be. I want too, and I see myself explode in splendor like a kaleidoscope and take flight. Yet The Infinite sees me struggle and flutter erratically as a lonely ameba under a microscope. Some times G-d feels as far away as things look through the wrong end of a telescope, and I must be as small in His sight. Reflect, Refract, Focus. In being naked I am clothed. In being hungry I am fed. In being thirsty I am satisfied. In being broken I am made whole. In being sick I am healed. In being weak I am strong. In dying I live.
A Mountain Called Today

There are days that take me back to High School. To that class where homework served no purpose. Busy work. Just to burn time and paper.
A mountain that stood in the way between me and hanging out with friends. Some days just seem to get in my way. Burning day light only to find myself on a hamster wheel. Hooked up to a generator producing energy for this Babylonian Hedonistic society and wasting my own. A mountain stands between me and solitude of fellowship with the Written and Living Torah. Like a police chase through trashy alley jumping over boxes and refuse that the perpetrator has strune behind him in an attempt to postpone his apprehension. I see the oasis but a field of dry and thorny brambles of annoyance leech and claw demanding my attention while fatigue sings me a lullaby like the embrace of a straight jacket. I mourn over the days lost like that of a dear childhood friend. Knowing I can never have them back nor see them again. Only a lingering fantasy of ecstasy between two lovers rapes my mind like ravenous hunger pangs. I wish to fly but am forced to forge. If I must traverse this mountain called today I will look for that trail of manna, the crumbs from the Kings table that fell from the mouth of the Prince who forged the path in eternity before. I will be brave like Hansel and hopeful like Gretel. May this manna bring light to my eyes as the honey did for Jonathan. I need the strength; for dragons and wolves are scattered on the trail before me. Some block my path. Some lie wait in ambush. With no feeling but anger and annoyance I slay the beasts without remorse, almost without seeing them. For my focus, my gaze is beyond them, locked on the Prize. All I care about is getting there before night fall, for the prostitute called Slumber is almost too hard to resist and I have yet to dine with the King. I will make it. I will be there.
Wings of Youth
When as a child we walked a narrow path where daisies and clover cushioned our steps and the trees made a canopy to soften the light and heat of the sun. There, lions were our friends and we pulled the ears of the wolves. As a youth the soft valley path ascended to a mountain plateau where the horizon melted into the sky. The air was clean and the view was bondless and endless. We were invincible, we were immortal. We could fly. We could anything. Yet how quickly society melts our wings of wax like Icarus and we crash hard upon the unforgiving earth while our heart and mind seem stuck in the stratosphere. Like cattle were herded. Bottlenecked, we are forced to choose a path. We keep looking back as the crowd moves us along, wishing we had more time to choose. Like a caged animal we methodically test the fences to find the gap, the weak link in the chain. Desperately trying to regain that freedom and no impossibilities of youth that seem but a vague nagging dream you try to remember upon waking. Fade; fade into the mass of faces. Only then you will escape the cruel gaze of gods of this world. Only then can you become a shadow and back track your path. Only then will you have time to find the rabbit hole, only to find a mountain peak on the other side. Only in the dark and solitude of the cold earth will you sprout the wings you will unfurl on the other side of the rabbit hole. To escape this fabricated reality forever. Dont allow this world to sterilize your mind and make your spirit impotent. Never forget how you used to be able to kiss the sun and straddle the clouds. Never forget that impossible was but a myth. Remember the days you carried your future in your hip pocket? If a solider can walk with no legs, there is no reason why you cannot fly once again with clipped wings. Let the slave ship think it has you. Let them make you row against the current.
Let them think you are weak and submitted. And all the while you grow strong from daily fighting resistance. The shackles are but threads. They are only as strong as you think they are. The task master only has the authority you give him. They believe you row in bondage. You know you row to freedom. Let them be blinded by their own fallacies while you fly away.
Bleached Silent Bones

I stand in the midst of a barren plain. The dome of the vaulted sky hangs heavy above my head. Dispersed to the edge of the horizon are bald boulders. Windows and Doors. Im used to windows and doors. Even a locked door would present a purpose. Even a locked door would hold somewhat of an opportunity. But all I see are bleached silent bones and boulders. Wilderness takes on the feel of an Exile. The only movement I see off in the distance are that of warring roving packs wolves and jackals. This is what Ezekiel must have felt like in the Valley of Dry Bones. You prophecy to seemingly no one. Yet unseen G-d has those who will hear and obey.
To the Point of Blood

Born into the lap of luxury only Solomon knew:
My roof doesnt leak, my belly is full and I am not in the least bit naked. My poverty is another mans royal pampered life. The Shekinah shades me during the days of my exile and a canopy of fire warms the cold starless nights. I work hard but my hands know no blisters, my stomach no hunger and my body no chill or burn. Shamed to say, Spoiled and Pampered am I. As Rav Shaul said I have not yet resisted to the point of blood. I am not discriminated against. I am not refused my basic human rights or needs. I am not a fugitive from a hell bent government. My back holds no scars. I do not have to hide to be a Jew. How weak and fragile our mind and faith are for we have not yet resisted to the point of blood. If suddenly Penniless, Homeless, G-d suddenly vanishes like my cash and house and my speech becomes that of an angry dead hearted Atheist. Yet I have never been in a holocaust. I have never been through an Inquisition. No pogrom has ever broken down my door. What is a slighted word compared to a house reduced to cinders, a spray can scrawl on a wall compared to a Jew hanging from a noose? Yet I am shaken. The Jews of Nazi Germany, the Jews in India, Iran, Iraq, know of the things I have only read about and G-d is just as visible to them as scars they bear. I have never risked my life by wearing Tzitzit, I have never had to hide to study Torah. Yet to some Jews they risk their life by performing even the most mundane Mitzvah. They are bruised but not broken. They are caste down but not defeated. I however am a fat and ungracious Rabbi among a scattered fat and ungracious people. We have not resisted to the point of blood.
From Diamonds to Emeralds

It glistens like wet, fresh laundered wool.
Like an endless field of dewy while dandelions. The sun scatters its rays upon the fresh fallen snow. The rays of sunlight, like seeds of diamonds sparkle in the snow and create a priceless, unique treasure for the eyes of the heart to forever embrace and hide. The snow lays prostrate and offers its obeisance of reflected glory of the sun, to the sun. The snow yields to the sun as the sun gently coaxes her to her resting place within the clouds to fall again weeks later as rain. The snow that once entombed the sleeping seeds will now caress and gently awaken the sleepy seeds with its wet kiss. The sprouts will yawn and stretch as it lazily pokes its sleepy head from its earthen sheets to bask and grow in the radiance of the sun. Soon a carpet of emerald dew will cushion the feet of the sun as it walks from one end of the sky to the other and birds will sweetly herald his arrival. Flowers will leap upward and spreads its arms as if wanting to be hugged and held by the gentle warmth of the sun. The earth will be awakened by the scamper and chatter of busy animals as if rushed and late for work. What was dead is alive again. What was old is now new. What was barren is fertile. Winter yields to Spring.
Evils Self Made Doom

The Killer is like a Tiller dismembering the soil of my mind. The Thief is like a Wreath hanging round, waiting for his time. The Liar is a Fire consuming everything. This is the Devil who makes the tormented sing. He claims he is our creator, we are stardust that had fell, Little known he forged our fallen souls in the lowest pit in hell. After his own image, like Nimrod tall we stand. Only in the future lay as dry bones upon the sand. A remnant extricates themselves, from the abyssful mire, Disowning the dreadful wretch who claims he was our sire.
Lying in the wilderness, in blood we lay on the sod, We would have perished, if it were not for, the merciful hand of G-d. Like clumsy waddling lambs, were surrounded by the Wolven Collective, But the Lion paces, so the wolves, will not ever obtain their objective. Like a Rock were thrown and we fracture the darkened glass, The future is secure on account of a dictum from the past. The evil will consume us, like a serpent swallowing and egg, But like a vampire it will lie limp; from his chest a wooden peg. Like a tumor in the belly of a grotesque obese toad, We as a grenade, we wait just to explode. This is what the future holds, evil looks like the victor, But we will roar reverberating like a ten point Rictor. Just like a weary candle evil melts like wax, They will burn away, in a flash, like a smoldering fiber of flax. The lambs grows to lions, forged in a holy flame, All is vain and loss, nothing exists except His Name. From the ashes of evil, good will flourish as a field, Just like Eden this New World will be whole and healed.
Between the Doors

Pensive; I linger between the two doors in the corridor, frequently stretching out and withdrawing my hand, recycling my thoughts every few moments about opening the door that is before me. I cast a glance over my shoulder to at the door of the room I recently vacated. And now, even the distasteful things of that room seem sweeter only because there is no mystery, no unknown. Yet to walk back through that door would leave me with a mouthful of bitter salt. I left that room in a stalemate, every door with in the room locked but the one I exited out of. Its senseless to go back I know, but terrifying to proceed through this one. I look around.
Silence. Everything is muted, no windows, no other doors. Not even a mouse hole to at least put my hand through. I think of all the doors before. I think of all the fears before. I am suddenly flush with a feeling of de ja vu and I must laugh at myself. I remember the odd absence of fear at doors Ive picked open, only to realize I should have felt the fear I insanely feel now at this unlocked door. Why is it I trust a fallible, finite worm such as myself and scrutinize and doubt an infallible, infinite G-d who has never let me down or steered me wrong? I chastise myself for such stupidity, shake the cobwebs from my brain, take a deep breath and twist the knob
When it Happens to Me
Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr Dedicated to Laila Shapiro
As via a security camera I clinically work from a distance and formulate and calculate, and everything seems logical and in order. Rational takes the brunt of the abstract pain and suffering. Seeing it as the burn of a workout; painful at the first, only to benefit after a few tomorrows. But when what I see on a glass screen between me and it occurs before my eyes, it is all to real but foggy as a dream; I am suddenly at a loss for words, like a stage frightened child who has wet himself, struck dumb by fear and confusion I am in a shocked daze. I wonder if the tomorrows I spoke of will ever come. Rudely being forced to practice what Ive preached. I helplessly watch as one heartache bleeds into the next in a tormenting blur. Shocked silent as Jobs comforters in a bewildering seven day sheva.
In the face of chaos and confusion all logic disappears and we are left with a complex juggernaut whose gears and cogs defy imagination. Then I realize. It doesnt have to make sense to work. That is the power of Faith. What Ive said is true, but it cannot be so prettily mapped out like a double helix, but is known and yet as mysterious as the brain itself. It is not calculatable like the shattering of a windshield, but more like the growth path of a dendrite or the root of a tree. Like the formation of a snowflake it has a symmetry uniquely all its own. Its the difference between seeing only one set of footprints and wondering why, and seeing one set and knowing why. The laws of degeneration and of gravity in the unseen realm of the spirit must too flow like a tsunami unabated. We must learn to avoid, prepare or to ride when and where it befalls us. This answers our question of why, but doesnt make the answer anymore reasonable or pleasant to hear. Or to live with for that matter. But redemption will come and will make this fleeting blow of suffering seem like an annoying gnat in the light or eternity. As the Rabbis and Sages say when we look upon the caste down cherub we will say in befuddled jest, This, This is the one who caused all our suffering!? to the righteous he will seem like a pebble in ones shoe, hindering a hike in the spring. And to the wicked they will say the same in abject horror as if he was of the stature of Fuji. When it happened to me I submerged myself in the One who took the pain before me. I took a mikvah into Life, and a renewing in the fire of my trial and I emerged as gold.
The Man I Never Knew

I saw a snap shot of a stranger today, only to realize it was someone I know, but someone I never knew.
The picture was of a young, robust, clear headed man who was strong and sure. Like a hunter and protector in their prime. He then ruled the world. He then could move mountains. All I see now is a stature of a dwarf, a fading shadow of what was and will never be again. A personage as fragile as aged parchment, whose texts has been smeared and faded with the passage of use and time. I see a nearly vacant hull, whose once sharp mind has grown dim and confused as a dreary winter storm and a body that is worn out and threadbare like a vintage cloak. Yet inside I see a regression to what I cant decide; Senility or Innocence? When I look at what is now I see a sad confused little boy in the body of a Methuselah. Like a boy trying to carry himself as a man, only to see his stubbornness seep through to appear as ignorance. The photograph captured what can never be maintained. It is but a memory of what was and will never be. I am sorry I never knew that man. And Im sorry that I never will. Instead I know a child trapped in the body of an old man. The body will soon wilt and die like a fruit severed from the vine and the mind will slowly regress into helpless infancy. A life spent working with no pursuit to keep the inner man alive. And now, it dies faster and more alone than the body. The clock springs and cogs slowly wind down and the bulb slowly dims and fades to black. This to wich one never comes back. I must keep myself from this end. I want to go down like a fine aged wine that is enjoyed and I want to go out like a gracious switch that is dimmed after a concert of a lifetime. If this cannot be then pick me as a flower before the pedals wilt and fall to the ground. Remember me in a painting before Im put in a vase and then press my pedals in you favorite book and visit me often. Remember me before the curse turned the tide and I lost the fight.
Just Shy
Running this race is no easy task,
I stagger and stubble as if nursing a flask, Vertigo as if from a carnival ride, Shamed by failure, in no one I will confide. I fall up the stairs by barely missing a step, I tumble over a hurdle; Ive lost perceptive depth. Just inches from the top I slip on loose rock, I punch in to late according to the clock. I have intentions and plans to put into action, My domino is too far to start the chain reaction. Sometimes it looks as if I did it, but upon closer inspection, Missing the mark is revealed and cant slip past detection. Help me L-RD, give me what I lack, Quick before I lay down upon my self made torture rack. I try so hard but I fall just shy, I sit in the ruins and helpless I sigh.
The Sonambulous Serenade

Lost ways, lost days the mist of meaninglessness arrives, Befuddling the mind and breaking down increments of time, Making all a fuzzy grey blur. Clouds and rain the drone of same like a sore throbbing bruise. Full on nothingness bloated on apathy, Eyes stinging and lids become like sodden iron. Like a sleepy child rudely awaking for school, Wanting to stay in the soft warmness of their dream for five more minutes. Wanting to give way to the amnesia, disgruntled and irritated, batting away intrusion. A Sonambulos serenade intoxicating and seductive, Bitter sweet like a coffee that bites. Lulls one away from reality into numbing carelessness. Purpose seems a fairy tale and Accomplishment a dream,
Routine seems like the entanglement that interruptions are. Trapped and malcontent in this stupor of sleepwalk. As if trapped behind a looking glass I scream, It assaults my body in muffled vibration unheard. In anger I ram my shoulder against the portal like a S.W.A.T. cop. Beyond is the illusive lover of Order, As if calling out to me in a dream, As if kidnapped by creatures of the night unseen. Selfish anger melts into burning indignation, As I want to strangle the ones who rapped me. Truth comes to light as I see I am the one who has been taken. And yet the cruel maestro still conducts, The excuses and reasons play on, The serenade crescendos into a deafening symphony. Like loosing the fight against something that has been slipped into my drink, I strain to open my eyes, to rid myself of this gauzy haze, I feel darkness giving way. I bang my head to feel, I scream to hear, I bite to taste the salt of my own blood. I whimper for I feel the sleep coming like a heavy blanket. I feel the brush of pinions upon my swollen cheeks, I hear the claxon of a Bird bust up the dismal orchestra, As the enemy feels the hot sting of talons like lances. Cradled in the grip of the Bird I feel as if Im floating on a cloud, I no longer feel I am outside my own body, I feel the warm, prickly pins radiate through out my body as my limbs begin to wake. I breathe in warm sweet air as if waking under an apple tree in spring. The suns warmth pulses through me reliving me of the night chill. Hope is alive, Purpose and Accomplishment raise me up and I feel their solid fleshy hand.
I am greeted by smiles; the faces line the circumference of my vision. As if greeted by loved ones upon waking from a coma, I rise from what would have been a sure death. Whether the day begins with sun or rain its still a new day. With only the promise of now I rise, I stand, I fight. I weld my weapon of words with allies in tow. I still feel the toxin trickling through my veins like a dark root. It wants to creep and branch out like rivulets of blood upon a battle ground, Like a gnat diving for the moistness of my eyes and a mosquito laughing in my ears. Like a thorn in my flesh, Like a dislocated hip, Like a three day old circumcision. Like walls of water on either side, Like a Stone Wall before me, Like a nail through my hand. I will write, I will walk, I will serve. I will proceed forth, I will surround, I will rise To sleep no more.
The Curtain
My eyes have adjusted to the thick black velvety Curtain which blocks the Light. All I see are shapes, shadows and shades of grey.
But I have managed to walk without falling much. The Curtain stands indifferent like a heavy wall. Like a No Trespassing, or Do Not Enter sign, the Curtain Itself is not the enemy. And yet, it seems to mock me. It seems to stand defiantly against me like an imperial sentinel who guards the King. My eyes have adjusted so I think I can see a very faint aura or light that glows, edging the outline of the plush black Curtain. I could, at any moment yank with all my being, forcing the Curtain to fall before me. But if I thought I was blind when I entered this room; I truly would be blind if I force the Curtain to the floor. Blinded by the thing I desire most. I cautiously approach as a wild animal to a baited trap. I almost expect the Curtain to have hand and protest and keep me some how from touching it. A rush of adrenalin, excitement mixed with fear as I actually touch the Curtain and expect something like and electrical shock. As if it was the Ark. I touch the very tip of the corner of the Curtain as if testing a bare wire and Nothing. The Curtain is not black velvet, but coarse as pumas and black like jagged coal. But wait It has layers! Like trying to remove tape from a wrapped present without ripping it and trying to leave no evidence of tampering I slowly and painstakingly peel and pull off the first layer, only to discover nine more layers remain, and the first six are virtually inseparable! But with even the first layer removed, the darkness becomes softer and the shapes and shadows in the room have edges and become more defined. So I know I see more Light. I am one layer closer to It. The first layer lay as a skin from a hunted carcass, limp and helpless on the ground. I am not detoured nor distracted, I continue on. The second layer is rough like the back to a wall to wall carpet, and the layers bleed together and fray like a poorly opened milk carton. Each layer softer than the last.
I dig with my nails as if trying to peel a sticker, not being able to distinguish between the paper and the sticker itself. This is my Life. I know by the time my lease expires on this old room I will have pierced the final layer.
Ladders
I have set a match to the Cooperate Ladder. Why climb what is destine to fall? The higher the rung the more devastating the fall. They dont make Ladders the way they use to. I have found an older, sturdier, worthier ladder to climb. Jacobs Ladder. I seek a journey, not a contest, or a race. I do not wish to reach the top to be alone, to be elite. I climb to because I am alone and seek belonging. Jacobs Ladder will burn one day too. But those whove reached the top will never fall. It is a one way trip. Quick, get on and start your climb before the burning of the Cooperate Ladder licks the feet of Jacobs.
Sometimes I Wish I Could Run.

Sometimes I wish I could run. Just run. I want to escape and to get away. Yeah, like Lenny Kravitz! Be free of this putridly foul mire that sucks me down with every step, which labors my breathing, and desires to consume and annihilate me and make me its drone. Sometimes I wish I could block out everything around me and have everything just fade to black. I wish I could sometimes be invisible and just go about my business.
So much is left undone because of priorities of no importance. Sometimes I wish I could just disappear. Sometimes I wish I could just be left alone. I am slowly becoming a stranger to myself and G-d is becoming just an intellectual thought to me. This ought not to be. Sometimes I wish I could live in this world and yet be totally disconnected with it. Like a ghost. Sometimes my brain is in a constant mode of contemplation and people with nagging words like mosquitoes, infect me; try to pierce my wall, my bubble, like a knife. Like a home invasion. Like a rape. Like a Drive by shooting. Like a rude patron. Everyone wanting a piece of me. Everyone wanting things that are of no necessity and yet they make it out to be as if it is life or death. It seems 90% of life is so trivial and unimportant and its made out to be the IT. Im annoyed, I want to fight back. I wish I had a retreat in the woods, a refuge to flee too where no one could find me. I feel like the door is open on the bathroom stall and everyone, men women, children and strangers, just comes and goes and meanders as they please as I sit, as if this private room was a social hall. Sometimes living in this mortal coil can feel like such a nuisance. Some people fear being alone. I crave it. But to be alone with others like me would be better. Its like being with one. Alone. Like a collective of unique souls, foundationally the same, and yet uniquely diverse. All making complete the whole. The hole. I want to be with these like minded people, these kindred souls. I want to attend to real needs of this world. I want the Truth to get out.
What could be more important than the Truth and the information thereof? Am I being selfish or selfless? I want to dismantle the throne of my self and shed this shallow existence. I want to know and fuse with the One. I want to know all my ancestors knew and all that people today have all but forgotten. Things the majority sees as ethereal and that which verges on the brink of insanity. I want to know. Forced to rage through the forest to get to the peaceful glen. I cant focus, I cant concentrate. The cacophony is drowning out the meaningful silence. No time for quiet. No time to sort and lay out straight. Like a cruel drill sergeant forcing an inhumane march, denying his platoon sleep. I will either stop or be stopped by this run away train. And Damn it, I aint movn!
Alone in the Expanse

When Yosef was led in shackles to Mitzrayim, When Moshe sat down at the well after being on the lamb for murder, When Yaakov was about to meet his brother after his wrestling match with the mysterious stranger, When David fled from King Shaul, When Jonah was cast overboard and swallowed by a great fish, When Eliyahu escaped to the cave as the still small voice came to call, When Yeshua was on the cruel Roman cross and G-d showed Yeshua his back. Did they feel alone? Like a man lost in a desert, Like a prisoner in an isolation cell, Like a child who lost his mother in a swelling crowd, Like a stranded foreigner in a foreign land, Like a lone astronaut dangling on the space shuttle arm over nothingness,
Like a lone castaway on an uncharted island, Like a one being trapped in a dreamscape. Alone. Alas, a community dies, the younger generation leaves never to return as the old die off. The callous hand of hard times mercilessly chokes one family at a time and they walk toward the setting sun. Like an empty ball room after a party, everyone has gone. Starvation, Assimilation or Genocide, friends are taken out and away like diplomats dropping like flies from a snipers gun. Alone. Faded and missing pages of an address book. Physically separated by miles or deaths. Spiritually separated by lies or drunken doctrinal swill. Mentally separated by one who has chosen to comfort their body. Emotionally separated by fear, ignorance and lack of compassion, openmindedness and understanding. Intellectually separated because of pre-Galileonian and pre-Columbus dogma. Alone. I break my bread alone. I laugh alone. I cry alone. I study alone. I worship alone. I fight alone.
I hike alone. I camp alone. I go to the movies alone. I drink my coffee alone. Gone, gone are they by many routes. Gone, gone, distanced by time and space and mind. Where are those who have never bowed their knee to Baal and kissed him? Where are Zippora and Yitro? Where is Davids Mighty Men? Where is are the faithful at the foot of my cross?
The Rut
Rivulets of anger and hate streak the window pane of my mind and merges to form a tiny stream of blood and tears that move across the surface of my psyche like water and erode a rut in the synaptic pathways of my brain like a tiller. Ive been down this path again and again and I always see that rock split in twain. The path is well worn like ruts from a pilgrims wagon train of a myriad of decades past. Like and animals instinct to kill, like a fly to a pile of steaming shit, its all I know. I fear of getting lost or making matters worse to much to change and so I make the rut deeper. Finally I get so sick and tired I stop in mid-stride but a force like an undertow forces me down the self made murky riverbed of my mind. I try to climb out but slide to the bottom as if the walls of the rut were slick as a greased flag pole.
The salt of my blood, sweat and tears eats away at the slippery walls and I finally see a path begin to form in the wall of the rut. I climb and slide down over and over, day in and day out and each accent I climb a little higher. My fingers are bone bloody raw. One day without even realizing it at first I mount the summit of the wall of the rut and lay breathless, heavy as lead on the edge of the rut. I marvel. The rut was so deep I forgot how endless bright blue the sky was is. After what seems like years, afraid to move, afraid of falling back into the rut, I pause, I rise. I pan the horizon seeing no other paths. I fix my gaze on a desirable mountain top and slowly, one step at a time, I blaze a new trail.
Kiss the Son

I see aged paper, dry and brittle before me. Like wallpaper in a condemned house. It is irresistible not to pick and tear at it. Slightly fluttering in the wind, begging to be tugged and pulled. As if it were curling fingers inviting you to come. Like an itch to be scratched I tear off this old layer that almost disintegrates by my touch. Behind that layer shine forth gold. My heart jumps, my eyes widen and my breath is hard to catch. I touch it, expecting peace to be a tactile sensation, But suddenly I see it rub off onto my fingers. I pound this wall of fools gold and I see a crack.
In my anger, frustration and lack of hope I act as if the wall were a person to be punished for lying. I hear the miniscule grinding of glass upon glass, like a person hearing the ice crack as he is about to fall in. Billions of tinkling shards collide and rain like crisp, fine snow. My breath is taken again as I see and endless blue sky. I reach out to try and touching, symbolically trying to touch G-d, of course expecting not to, but I do! Not G-d, but a cleverly painted back drop. The sky mocks and taunts me. With all my unleashed rage I blindly fall upon the canvas, stabbing and clawing like someone who just snapped. I feel something cool and moist with the musky smell of earth. I stop and slowly open my eyes and my hands are covered in rich black earth. For the first time I feel a peace, the sent comforts and sooths me. Then I can feel the sky as a voyeur, looking at my back. I stand arms outstretched and pan the landscape as I turn. I take in all the colors, sounds and sights. All fresh like throwing back the suffocating covers once you know the boogie man is gone. All I take in is in reality a delicately thin gauze which envelopes us from the Light. I might have been frustrated as before, but I am okay with it. I know each day I live, each chapter written; each mile traversed, I am all the more closer to the Light. Like the comfort one receives as the chill of night is slowly taken away by the dawn and you receive a slow, warming, radiating caress from the morning sun. One cannot dive in. One must slowly savor and soak in.
Fast Lane
Going faster than I want to go. It all tailgates behind me. Looking for a place to U it, And let it all ride someone else.
Wanting to get a head of it all, Not realizing it will catch up and over take me. I foolishly pull out making myself an easy target. Like being swept away in a flashflood or a rushing mob. Its kill or be killed. Stop and be trampled. Its almost as if you are moving by someone elses volition. Like trying to out run a tsunami, Who can survive the onslaught of this juggernaut? My options for salvation seems impossible. Stop. Can I survive the collision? Break. Melt into the ground and let them all zoom past. Fly. Grow wings and elude the chase. Disappear. Slip into some other existence. Exit. Sleekly break away. Like a horrid dictator fearing and uprising, Like a speechless bully when Poindexter pushed back, The only power they have is what I let them have. They fear just as much or more than I, For they too are being chased by some unseen pursuer. They just know how to hide it better. I slam on the breaks and screech in to a 180. Like a suicide bomber or a kamikaze pilot, The Ruach courses through me like holy adrenalin. I play a mean game of chicken! Just as an arrow splits when driven into the another, Like the parting of the Red Sea, They veer to either side as I drive past. Like a salmon I will swim against the current. I will drive the wrong way on the one way street. I will not be bullied. I will not submit. This world has no true jurisdiction over me. I am indestructible. Like a Jedi; Kill me and you only make me stronger! Sons of Yah press on!
To Those Who Did Not Bend

To the women whos dead children were hung about their neck because they circumcised them. To the ones who were strung up and whipped for not accepting a white slave name. To the ones who were taken from their homes and forced to be educated in the white mans schools and refused to stop speaking their language and were punished, killed and buried secretively behind the church. To all who refused to bow or convert to Islam and Christianity and were martyred. We honor and salute you. Your death was not in vain. Your death gave us strength and courage to stand and not bend. We thank you.
Born a Stranger
By Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr
Do not let my birth fool you. I was not born who I was supposed to be. I was born far from home. I was born with defects. I was born and alien. Like wood I was whittled. Like marble I was chiseled. Like clay I was kneaded and de-stoned. I was taught lies so the truth would be easy to find. It towered over the lies. Like a mountain that even the clouds can not conceal.
Who I was is dead. I killed him. And I loved it. Everyday I shed skin like snake. Everyday I am reborn. Everyday my form becomes more defined. Ones birth is not important. Ones journey and how he decides to end things is all that counts. In this regards, your fate is in your hands.
Summer Rain
Stifling heat. The air, warm and thick. The rain even seems to fall slowly as if with exhaustion. The impact releases the suffocating smell of dirt, oil and asphalt and does little to relive the heat. I see pools on the roadways. I hear ringing in my ears. My eyelids droop with sleepy heaviness as if hung with lead. The day rolls on as slow as a seemingly immovable storm of thick grey clouds. Every task seems momentous as my other self kicks my tuchas and cracks the whip to motivate my movements. These are the days one wishes to spend on some porch in a rocking chair listening to the katydids and cicadas while you sip lemonade and the hound dog naps on the stoop. Or under a shade tree in a hammock and allow the heat and humidity drain you and let sleep overtake you. Once the day is spent your like the walking dead. You sit in your easy chair and like a hypnotist you are almost instantly out. You live moment to moment as an Alzheimers patient, reminding yourself each moment, who you are, why you are here, and what you are doing. Food is heavy and the smell crowds your head and your stomach becomes claustrophobic.
You try to read but you keep reading the same sentence over and over as if you were trying to comprehend a foreign language. The news drones by as if hearing from the next room. They sky is soft orange and peach. You smile, for you can finally release yourself to the night.
We Should Be Stoned
Other worldly is what we have become. Doing that which even animals do not do. Subdue the earth doesnt mean to poison it! It means to harness and direct what is there. So goes the land, So goes the animals, So goes the people. We hold the world hostage as well has kill her, ourselves, and everyone in the process. If the earth were our mother, A flesh and blood entity, Wed be stoned to death according to the Torah regarding our treatment of her. We walk about with nooses as neckties. Each year the noose gets smaller and tighter, Gouge out her belly with a spoon. Spit, Vomit, Defecate in her wound, Grind it in with your boot. Fill her with your man made shackles of various compositions. Sew her up as if it never happened. We nurse and we wonder why we are not sick. Like a spoiled child who looses his treat, We refuse to be a husband to the land if we cant have the Garden too! Up billows the smoke of our burnt offerings of our refuse, Reminiscent of Baal Peor.
We offer to our god and goddess, Mammon and Convenience. We blanket the skies with a Cloud of Abandonment and proclaim that G-d is Dead! We have become self-hating, sadomasochistic, self absorbed beings who cares only for now and not tomorrow. We have laid our children in the flaming arms of Molech. Enlightened Barbarians we have become. Desensitized, dehumanized, dull almost without conscience. Like arm chair communist we pledge our convictions on paper but it finds no place in our lives of free and elite pauper kings. We proclaim with our lips and lie with our lives. He few whose steps match their tongue are the ridiculed, The persecuted, The accused and assaulted. Profiled as if a mental ward escapee, A terrorist or extremist. As if an alien. The earth is sick, therefore we have become sick. What will we say when we stand before G-d? Will we stand as children who had a party and trashed the house while the parents were away? I do not even want to think of what He will say or do!
As if on the Lamb
Like an Indian or Brazilian street child; Neglected, Ignored, Used and Abused, Treated as refuse. Every hand extended I cringe expecting a blow. It is odd to be accepted by ones who abused me. For Ive trusted to quickly before and have been burned and rejected for who and what I am.
When I resist attempts to reform and assimilate, the hand rises to strike again. I am not the one who needs to research their facts. Im not the one who needs to be open minded. Friendly when approached. Stoic when not. I will not be unnecessarily and needlessly exposed. Im enough of a target already. Yet if I dont get out there, the Torah, the Real Messiah, the Truth doesnt get out. I walk on a tight rope of razor wire. I dash upon a fiery bed of coals. A mine field. I must walk among sleeping dogs. I feel like and IDF soldier that took a wrong turn in Palestine. The Ruach must be my night vision goggles. My recon scout. I am on guard like a fugitive on the lamb. Got to be clever like a spy. Yet I must be gentle as a sheep and innocent as a dove.
Please Tell Me
Please tell me Ill wake up soon. Please tell me I will not be alone. Please tell me the faces I see will not unmask themselves to be ghouls once the storm clouds come. Please tell me these friends wont leave once the sun is shrouded by thick dark clouds. Please tell the Promised Land is just over that next hill and family will be waiting for me there. Please tell me
There They Go.

Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr 9/11/08 Here is a poem I wrote in the airport coming home from my Fathers funeral.
There they go. Beautiful people I will never see again. I will never meet. I will never know. Walking with determined strides. Eyes fixed ahead. Their minds miles in front of them, almost lost in another world. Everyone diverse. Everyone with a story to tell. Everyone with a history. Each one could be a book or a film. All shapes, colors, ages, sizes, ethnicities. Countries, religions, regions, eras. Tall, short, delicate, stout. Languages, dialects, customs and cultures. A Mosaic of humanity at a world wide intersection. A mortal tapestry exhausting the color spectrum. But who all bleed red blood. This should be all we see as we revel in our diversity and embrace our commonalities. And like a dream they disappear down the concourse. Vanish in the foggy cacophony of now. There they go.
Almost Gone
It comes like the onset of a drunken stupor. Like an onslaught of a tireless war machine. It sucks ones shoes like a mucky mire. It makes one drowsy like carbon monoxide. It constricts like a straight jacket and causes one to think they deserve that attire. The brain seems clogged like a drain.
Stuck like something caught between two cogs. Ones vision is magnified and blurred. Moods seem eternal. Situations unchangeable. Obstacles irremovable. Wall impenetrable. Mole hills are mountains. Failure inevitable. And the light at the end of the tunnel grows ever dim. One thinks surrender to apathy and resignation of oneself to this defeat seems like the only way to get rest. To fall and to be consumed and absorbed into the inky abyss. Dangling on the precipice by a silky spiders thread. Hold on, theres a wind at your back. Feel it? Look closer, the thread is of three strands. Resist the urge to drop ones hands. Shout, scream in the face of despair. Refuse to succumb. I hear the army moving through the trees. I see the dust of a thousand horsemen on the horizon. I must squint, for the dawn breaks. From the hills He comes. His Arms are not too short. My footprint is swallowed in His. HE will carry me through the forest and over the pit. I will not die.
Like Water
Like the ant stumped by the twig which has fallen in its path. Like trying to make a wet and swollen puzzle piece fit. Like driving a moving truck under a drive thru awning, Or pushing a rope through the eye of a sewing needle. We push and strain against what G-d has permitted to fall within our path. Theres something numbing about the familiar and terrifying about change. Why must we be as a battering ram instead of like water? One enters the door before the other yet both enter by force.
Erode the ruts that scar my spirit and brain. May I roll and penetrate like a mist. May I be like water.
Threshold of Change
Use to, life flowed steady and virtuously unchanged. Like a river change was quick and passed by, It was forgotten in minutes and life went on as before. But I crossed a threshold. Where I cannot say. I wonder if I was the only one. Change was as drastic as an unpaved road of a shallow rocky stream. Fast paced; it al goes by in a confusing blur. I am left to ponder what I just say as I am blindsided with a barrage of new and strange things. Nephews and Nieces grow up. People die or move away. People fall away or step out of a leery closet. Who once were kids now give birth to strangers. A generation I do not know. Dont know if I can know. Dont know if I care to know. I see a poor carbon copy of generations past. People morph and evolve or devolve into people I am not sure I can get use too. From here it seems the world doesnt want to stay put. Nothing stays the same for long. Like a plant uprooted and replanted every five minutes, it seems impossible to spread out your roots. We are virtual nomads. Metaphysic vagabonds. Terrestrial transients. Cosmic thru-hikers. I suppose we will have the Next World in which to sink deep our roots. But I wonder if anyone notices and feels the same regarding these changes?
The Birthing Stool

With the heat of persecution I fight the closing of my mind like a hair dryer to shrink wrap. With the icy chill of the human heart at large I fight to resist shattering like glass. Now merciful is the L-RD, for we are like a fragile tea cup which will shatter with boiling water and fracture with cold. Therefore G-d balances the heat of judgment and the cooling effects of mercy (Based on Rabbi Jose words from the Midrash). I fight the urge to run like a skittish cat at the sight of wide eyed screaming toddlers when confronted with the cruel demands of this world. I work feverishly to patch a breech of my hermits wall with a trough and sword, mistaking it for the Wall of Jerusalem. Hands that reach through I find are not hostile hands but needy hands. I warily drop my sword and pick up a ladle. I find I must trade my trough for a Shepherds staff. Thrust me from my cave as if Eden and teach me to fly as I fall from this nest in the rocky heights. I constantly fight contraction. I strain to maintain dilation. This labor of my New Self has been years of false pangs. I pray this is really it. Is that birthing water trickling down my leg, or frightened piss? Like a struggling butterfly I want no assistance. For that would be the end of me. Despite the loathing of this cocoon I must continue to fight it to be rid of it. Beating my head against this wall is finally paying off. I see a small thread of light piercing this cracked shell called the Klepah. Give me the vigor of a tireless chick. L-RD, I will trade you my selfish fear for bold humility. Distrust for Discernment. Lay my hills low and make the valleys rise to kiss my feet. Let fall the caked mire of my resignation to defeat as I strain upon the birthing stool.
The Leprosy of the Soul

Lost Lost in a sea of clouded gauzy haze. Swirling and bubbling like a slow simmer. Suffocating nothingness. Nagging numbness. Aching empty headedness. Like molten lead and hot wax, It all runs down the interior of my skull. Collecting and settling in, stagnating and fermenting in the crevasses of my heart. Heavy laden. Sticky and warm, like blood soaked rags. Like a scarecrow or a tin man or a twice dead Vulcan, an empty dark void. No rest. As if my heart is forced to carry its burden and walk the earth alone with no stopping, no respite. Wandering nomadic and aimless, beholding no pleasure, unable and afraid to self impose the sentence of death. Alone among millions is much different than voluntary solitude of a secluded mountain cabin. Like the Elephant man, a Quasimodo, a mutant or an alien or a sad and lonely disfigured man, there is no one to be my friend. Tortured, tormented, no solace in work or rest. Enslaved and restless. Wandering, wondering. Is there no more pleasure of getting lost, of time standing still? Like leprosy of the soul I can no longer feel, yet tortured by the desire to.
Melencholily Mourning the Morning

My eyes crack open in the murky light of the predawn. As the fog of my mind disperses as the boat carrying my thoughts of the coming day as immigrants from the world of thought to the shores of reality, leaving dissipating night visions in its wake.
I fear to open my eyes to spy the time. I try to ignore the call of nature about as well as one would a mosquito buzzing in the ear. The room lay still and chilled as an ice rink. I force myself upright, already wishing the day was at an end. Work: an annoying tedious mountain that daily I must climb in order to spend time with my Love at the summit. Oh, to recite Letters of Love to one another. To taste of the sweet lips, To experience the ecstasy of intimacy. I breathe a short pray to say Im on my way. I down a last drink from the dark morning cup of confidence. Im off!
Diaspora Disintegration
Like breeches in the wall, Cracks in a dam, Dry-rot on a rubber seal of an old mason jar. Like dirty masking tape, Patchy grass under a heavy, shady oak. Like a pool of water becoming beaded in the heat of the hot sun. Like watching a spotty blackout from a hill over looking a city. Like strangers in the mall. Like a vibrantly colored poster-board washed out by the sun. We walk about in our self inflicted cages of isolation. Built by selfishness and mistrust. Built by ear phones and movie theaters. Built by the inner god. We are masters at solitaire. Beating ourselves again and again. Babel was thwarted, So the evil one works the dispersion, the hand he was dealt. Like debris flying far away from its point of origin, We are all like nomads of one and everyone is an alien and stranger. Where is the Collective? Where is the Community? We has been inverted to Me.
Is this the way we will go; apathetic and alone? L-RD, sift us like wheat, that our klepot, our shells, our chaff fly away with the wind and may we fall together in one bin as grain.
The Waiter
I crane my neck ahead, past bodies and shoulders to see how far the line goes. Yeah, I tried all the standard time killers: I crossed my arms, tapped my foot, huff, puffed and sighed, rolled my eyes and slowly shook my head with annoyance. The line is long. The office dont open till ten! Out to lunch. The cashier is a newbie and the current customer has a million coupons and wants to pay in pennies! The restaurant is packed and its been over 30 minutes since we put in our order. What!? The car, TV, Computer will be in the shop for how long!? I thumb through worn out, out dated magazines I havent the least bit if interest in. Waiting. What a waste of time! Waiting. Waiting around. Just a waiter like everyone else in this line. Wait a second. Im a waiter? A waiter! I strike up a conversation to the guy behind me. Im a friend. I listen. I sympathize. I serve. I share. I hold. I encourage.
I advise. I carry. Before I know it, theres the door I never thought Id see. Here is what you have been Waiting for. Enter in my good and faithful servant. Says my L-RD!
Like Oz
Like in Oz there are controls behind that curtain Thats said to not exist I clamber to find the place while the two curtains meet Or the rope that cleaves them in two All the while the chaotic pyrotechnic show continues Unabated in an effort to intimidate me The curtain is multi-ply and thick Do I have to be a wizard, priest, or king to journey beyond this velvet iron wall? Good thing Im a son of the king born into a nation of priests and I do posses an inherent magical spark with me I seem trapped in this narthex of misty apparitions and beyond the dim glass is the contrast of sharp reality not yet seen by mortal eyes Like a wall of radiation, this mortal lump that incarcerates me cannot pass from here to there without annihilation So I must shed this straight jacket of flesh and though propulsion of thought my spirit journeys behind the curtain To find the ornate control box which within it lies what has been inside me all along Tables of stone translated to etchings in my flesh If only I can grasp and decipher I can tame the chaos in this dream like state in which my body finds itself
Walking Tall
Like a Prophet Im trying to convince myself it doesnt hurt. Like a child to want something so badly only to be denied and to reply, I really didnt want that dumb old thing anyway.
But my eyes, like a rank on my sleeve gives away my heart. My secrete diary of lamentations found. My hard nose is easily broken like a delicate porcelain doll. My stony heart like a papier-mch piata. Judahs silence like cold iron walls like the prison camps they survived and Israels heated words like red hot pokers barb and burn. The camp is divided. The messenger boy takes the brunt of what is aimed at the Messenger. Like mobsters killing the family of the one they really want to get at. You might be able to knock off His sons but you cannot dethrone the King. Yet like a vast Empire stretching from sea to sea the farther the palace; anarchy stands in proxy. Like a deputized vigilante trying to uphold the Law I fight in a perpetual twilight, vague and shadowy apparitions who sequester in the high places of exile and rule by their own brand of law. Taking their badges from off the dead in self-righteous coronation. But like Buford Pusser I walk tall and carry a big stick with Ezekiel 37 inscribed on it and slowly I see backwater towns change. I will never give up!
The Anti-Climax of Achievement

Today I held a moment in my hand and I had only one person that I desired to share it with. One whom Id know would truly appreciate it. Like a kindergarteners homemade hallmark youd hang on the fridge. But no one was home. A moment where I know the reward wouldnt be in the accomplishment but the praise. But the door was locked. This city boys growing self sufficiency and accumulation of automotive and mechanical knowledge mean little if I havent the one whom I desire to show it too. The porch light is off. Ive always been the philosopher, theologian and artist while my Dad took pride in what he created with his hands. When I got married and had a place of my own Id purposely leave stuff broke around the house until Mom and Dad came to visit so Dad and I could fix it together.
I used to call Dad when Id do mechanical or construction work on my own and Id hear his smile and Id see the light in his steel blue eyes beam through the phone as he tried to hold back a chuckle of joy and say, Im proud of you son. Today I roofed my shed, took me all day. I couldnt call for the number was disconnected. I can only hope Dad was looking down with a laughing smile and said, Im proud of you son.
The Prophetic Comedian

There is an under lying knowledge of Justice and of right and wrong. Practically innate within us. So many want to speak but fear has raped their voice. Some excuse their silence and say the obvious doesnt need attention. Yet the obvious tends to have a knack at lulling one into complacency. The obvious fades into the fabric of normalcy and we further excuses injustice by saying, It is what it is. With a shrug and a look the other way. Some fear to stand, drawing attention to themselves only to be knocked down by this illusive tyrant. Yet some have found the secret to invulnerability and immunity. It is the cloak of foolishness and idiocy. Taking a stand and having a voice behind the banter and rhetoric. Coating the strong elixir if Truth with a sugar coated candy shell. Making censors smile and tying the tyrants hands. Kill the prophet but the foolish jester yet lives. Making the prophets shadow dance out of step on the wall. Through no fault of his own the prophet breeds denial and fear while the comedian can make one admit and laugh about their faults. Change will take place where its doubled over in anguish or laughter.
Sparrows Sing of Sukkot

As I sat in my Sukkah in the early morning hours of the First Day, after I made the proper Barachot and invited Avraham Avinu and Imma Sarah in and once I engaged myself with Mishnah Sukkot; more unexpected, but gladly received guests came. Tap, Tap, Tap, come the knock on the roof of my Sukkah. Cheep, Cheep, Cheep, come the greeting of a family of Sparrows who curiously peeked in and sang songs. Their songs were welcomed as carols proclaiming the birth of Messiah Yeshua, for He was born in a Sukkah made for animals on Sukkah as the Scriptures say, He tabernacled among us. I interrupted my studies to indulge in their holy song, christening my Sukkah with melody and Shalom. On Sukkot, even the animals wish to fulfill Torah Mitzvot!
Her Name is Wisdom

Like a school girls puppy love crush turned full on fatal attraction. Like a Hollywood crazed stalker. Like a teen idol wallpapering walls, lockers and book bags. Like a sleepless obsession. I want to spend every waking moment with her. The necessities of life become like the annoyance of a gnat one hastily brushes away. Her name is Wisdom. She signs here love letters, Torah. All I want to do is to read her letters, drink in her words, remembering her warm sweet kiss. Like a lovesick solider gone to war when we have to be apart. Like the banker who locked himself in the bank vault to steal away and read only to emerge like Rip Van Winkle to spy a war leveled land.
He was the only soul left. Ah, time, time enough now! Only I need no glasses that can break to make such a paradise a living hell. All else dissolves fast like cotton candy. Leaving a disappointed sticky entanglement, yet still wanting. Everything of this world has strings attached. Torah, she is like a cool mountain stream, always available, always constant, and always satisfying. Indeed, Moshiach was right that man does not live by bread alone.
Infinite Strands
Infinite strands emanate from a singularity No mathematician can predict their courses More complex than the paths of a shattered windshield, micro fractures ever in expansion Time is the ultimate equalizer Always take the high road The un-groomed road The one with the most resistance For it truly is the shortest path to your destination Like isolating a Beta fish with in an aquarium We are unwillingly isolated for our own good Encased in the Fall Like fish in the water and birds in the sky Two worlds kiss but rarely mix Sometimes we cant tell if we are breathing or drowning Swimming or flying
The Leaf
By Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr Dedicated in memory of the passing of my Father
The Leaf was the color of maze, wilting and buffeted by the wind on the Tree. Canker worms had nibbled the edges and bore holes in the leaf here and there.
The Leaf was tired, its grasp weak and loose, like a fatigued climber hanging on the edge of a cliff with no one to rescue him. The Leaf fell asleep and rides a spiral vortex to the ground below and what remained of the moist life begins to turn to dry brittle decay. With a gasp of breath, like one breaking the surface of the water, or breaching the womb, the leaf awakens to find as if it were an all to real bad dream. Its color moist, green, radiant and vibrant, you can almost see the veins in its leaf pulse. It is whole. Even the strong wind that once buffeted feels as if it were a gentle caressing breeze. Its grip as a stalactite. The Leaf awakens to see bright, almost glowing Leaves he hasnt seen since his dream which he only vaguely remembers; Leaves who fell asleep before he did and had been nearly forgotten in the mulch below. The Tree he had occupied before was fading and sparse. But this Tree is lush, thick boughs and alive; though he cannot find the vibrant leaves that surrounded him before he slept. The Leaf looks below to see if he can see the vibrant leaves he left upon sleeping and what should he spy, but a dim rippling pool, almost like tinted glass. He sees a pale, yet opposite portrait of the tree he now thrives from. He sees as a soaring hawk who spies a grey mouse in the thicket of the field and sees those who surrounded him as he fell asleep now droop. HE begins to see leaves from the faded Tree fall as if up, only to touch the surface of the dark mirror below and make ripples in the sheen of the glass only to disappear and instantly sprout near him, as if a butterfly spreading its wings as it emerges from the cocoon. Then the Leaf notices that the wind passes through the collective foliage as if a flute. This Tree does not clap, clamor or rustle with complaint, but sings, vibrates like strings on a harp. The sheen of the collective Leaves is iridescent, shimmering a rainbow of color. Then the Leaf rubs its eyes only to wonder if he is not still dreaming. But he says to himself that he has never felt so real in all his life! He sees various different species of fruit hanging from the Tree in which he find himself. Even the Leaves are a collage of variety. This never occurred, that he noticed, in the Tree reflected below.
The Leaf then discovers an amazing thing. At will, he could close his eyes and open them to find him self at any point of the tree he desires. From afar it looks as if the Tree had countless dancing flames, for the Leaves traveled as he did at will from branch to branch. The Leafs eyes began to examine the branch from which it effortlessly held to, and he traced it all the way down the trunk and he was awed at what he saw; a pattern as if black fire on white fire, and intricate design of an ancient holy tongue that weaved itself up and down and around the Tree making the bark look like a royal tapestry. And low and behold it appeared to breathe! As his eyes pierced the murky mirror below and as he continued to trace the Tree to its opposite image, the trunk appeared to be as chiseled, petrified stone, faded and peeling like the parchment of a birch. Then he noticed the pulsing sensation surge pleasantly through him as if he could feel light! Warm serenity and indefinable love radiated through every fiber of his new being. This he thought is the Tree of Life that Adam should have tasted first. This is the burning bush that was not consumed that Moses saw. This is the Tree that heals the nations in the book of Revelation in the World to Come. Then my Dad realized he was finally home.
Mimicry in the Mirror

I see someone I do not recognize. Or I see someone I know that I dont like. Their actions kindle a smoldering pyre in my gut. Like a child tugging on your pant leg during a phone call, or the constant poking of a child to illicit attention, the kettle whistles. As I thrust an accusing finger the dislikes stranger points back at me and scowls. Tit for Tat, accusation for accusation, my antagonist responds in kind. This person of disgust I see before me looks like many people. But I peer beyond the visage to look behind the skin only to see myself.
I find what angers me about others, what disgusts me about others are things I find in myself. My opponents eyes may water and twitch because of the splinter in his eye, but mine bleed because of the branch protruding from mine. The only reason I see read is because my eyes are stained with blood.
Wolves and Falling Skies

The boy who cried wolf has been hired as town crier. The monotone man and the tone deaf woman report the news. Chicken Little forecasts the weather. The infomercial man makes signs and gives news briefs. This set the townspeople in a panic like War of the Worlds. But soon sensationalism becomes normalcy Desensitized, apathetic and dull, the same hoax does not work twice. Now the wolf lurks on the outskirts of town. The Beast has been seen slipping in and out of alleyways. Like buzzards enemy planes circle overhead. Like frost bitten toes the people are numb. Like staring into the sun the people are blind. Like Californians sleeping through earthquakes. The whole of the people have become lukewarm, grown stagnant, has faded and is bland. Like swill only fit for the pig trough. When the wolf does come, When the sky does fall, When it is the real deal, Eyes dont blink, heads do not turn. No one is roused from the comfortably numb stupor, as the wolf nibbles on frost bitten feet. As the Beast breaths down the neck. As we hear the whistle of the bombs that fall like hail from the sky. Only those blind and deaf to the world could feel, smell, and taste the air and know it was time to get out of Dodge and head for the hills.
The Crevasse
The world through the acidity of its inherent, repugnant nature has eroded a groove and there we have made our home. We have insolated ourselves in gilded cages, overlaid is a dome of glass. The longer we read by candlelight the more dim our vision becomes. Through the dampness of a pseudo-grave the gilded cage has rotted to barbed wire. Our glass house frames jagged shards. Our panic room sanctuary has become our prison. But Im not dead yet. Why should the wicked walk in the sun? I will climb, I will crawl, I will bleed. My pasty skin will turn bronze. I may squint at first but my vision will become resolute. My frame has bulked by the climb. Show me the mandible of the ass or the sword of the decapitated juggernaut that I may claim this land so that the hosts will follow. So that the trenches will vomit us up like lava. So that we will be an unstoppable wild fire birthed by the bolt of wrath from the Almighty G-d! We have not been born to live in a crevasse, but the crevasse was born to swallow those of Korach.
It is a grave they dug with the venom of their lips. It is the smoke of their words that darkens the skies so they fall into the pit of their own making. Walk forward and the sea of the wicked with part before your hand to fall like dominos into Sheol and be no more. Arise, for our time is now.
Monsters in Mister Eschers House

Nightmares of old slither about the grey folds of my mind after dark like a campfire ghost story as the campers make their way back to their cabins in the dead of a moonless night. My back feeling exposed and naked as a babies backside, wondering when I will feel the cold steel of a shadowy assailant, sink deep into my back. I look over my shoulder as my eyes meet grey streaks and my ears hear the rustling of clothes or the shuffling of feet. Like a house whose blueprints are from an M.C. Escher drawing, I loose my way in my own head, running on a stair case that circles back to where I have been and I meet myself. Then I hear menacing metallic sounds echo of the walls of what seems to be a live wire; sputtering and crackling. My hairs begin to rise as feelings of nausea rolls down my throat like slime and falls to the floor of my gut with a sickening, wet thud. I turn to see soulless compound eyes, hair like the snakes of Medusa, and multiple limbs. What is this hound from hell that stalks me!?
What is this demon that taunts me!? My breathing is labored, the whole house seems to shrink and closing on me as all around me fades to black. I awake as if a stranger unto myself, waiting for my memory to catch up to my consciousness. I almost forget what caused me to faint. A tiny ball of annoyance circles my head like electrons about an atom. I swat at it in disgusted anger as my eyes follow its hasty retreat. In this House of Escher, even the glass is distorted like a funhouse mirror. The fly clumsily escapes to a nitch in the house where the acoustics are magnified and hides behind a sun catcher to reveal my hideous tormentor. I become the stalker and the assailant that shows no empathy, sympathy, no conscience or remorse. SPLAT! This Goliath has fallen. But there are swarms not yet sent by the Lord of the Flies.
The Resurrection of Trees

Take me to the forest; I want to hear them speak. Take me to the leafy sentinels who stand erect and proud, safeguarding knowledge. Take me to the wrinkled sages who wisdom is locked inside. As I sit in silence they speak to me, divulging wise secrets. But there are those who are deaf to the dialogue of trees. So desperate for the knowledge they posses, they kill these prophets and sages to unlock what they hide. Only when they grind them to pulp and press them sore do the trees give up their secrets they horde, written in their sappy blood.
These threes are resurrected like the phoenix and they now age and stand tall in a new kind of forest; grown for those who cannot decipher the tongues of trees.
Holocaust or Hermit?
Trapped by a dome of brittle bones, In constant view of the stars that always seem just out of reach. Insolated by layers of skin of dead presidents so no one can hear me scream. Leave a hint of my corpse behind. Let the world devour itself. Tame me to virgin forests that I can easily get lost in. Can and will a new holocaust arise? Will I pant myself a quick target, securing my escape pod? Or will I, like a rattler, colored like the desert sands, blend in to strike and an opportune time? Will I be a Noah, Elijah or a John the Baptist? Where then is my Ark? Where is my cave? Where is my silver platter? Tell me so I can tread the path marked for me, sure footed and strong. For Nimrod, Jezebel and Herod may soon ascend the footstool.
Questioning the End

Like waiting, camping out in line for tickets for your most favorite band, only for them to close the window as you step up to the counter and it reads, Sold Out! To envision a once in a lifetime meet and greet, like no other to come to naught on account of a nasty fit from mother nature. To bid and at the last second to be out bid. To race in the store for the last what have you only to have it snatched by an arm longer than yours.
To dream of a place all your own only to awake into a nightmare of an economic crash. Someone has to loose. Someone has to be late. There has to be a cut off point. So is this generation it? Will we be the ones haunted by dreams and visions unfulfilled? Like the visions and dreams of those before the Great Depression? Before the Holocaust? Before the Inquisition? Will we be forever taunted by the Goyish encroachment upon history and the sins of others? What if we are of nine righteous instead of ten? Will we burn with the rest? Go into exile like the rest? Restless, like a blind man stepping into the unknown. If so, then for what purpose was our climb? Is this what is meant for being born for such a time as this? Is this what is meant by being called to start a work but not necessarily to finish it? Will working undercover of night be just as important as the day?
Will we start walking away from the line as a band member opens the curtain and says, Pssst! and waves us on back? Will the one we so desperately wanted to meet come to meet us personally after the storm? Will we walk away only to have a clerk alert us that he pulled one off to the side just for us? Is there something better to bid for? Is there a property greater than what our heart was set on? Will our be forced to see our visions, dreams and callings murdered before our eyes only to resurrect from the dead three days later? I can only hope. I have no other recourse than to believe this is indeed so. L-RD, I believe, but help thou my unbelief. Let me see and know the way it will unfold, that it will be better than I had set it in my head to be. Oh, let me not be disillusioned.
Forgotten Power
I often forget the power that I posses, the art that sustains me and the various motions that unleashes its unmitigated power. Fearful of being carried by the wind and torrent I brace my self and busy myself with the task loosening my self from the carnage and wreckage of the coming head on collision. This is why drunks live and the sober die broken. Let me be drunk with the Holy Power and let me drink not of the Sobriety of this lesser world. This dark and gauzy dreamland that we trod dulls me with its amnesic qualities of forgetfulness, threatening to drift me into dark dreamless sleep
so as to walk sonambuosly through the realm of the fallen and be raped and tortured obliviously numb. It becomes hard to remember my birth and that which is my destiny. Like a fairy tale or myth I carry and wield this weaponry fearing mockery or accusations of insanity if I dare breathe the Name on account of the ones who used it and abused it and have failed, only to survive as senile shadows to be pitied. The thick, pungent, earthy smell of mildew and decay neath the canopy of concealing branches rises from the spongy forest floor and threatens to smother me and drag me to the shadow lands. Release me from this stale blanket of foliage, heavy and damp for I am pulled by the odoriferous emanation of sunlight and apple blossoms, airy and fresh, whose fragrance has weaved its way though the web of shadow and light that the forest has weaved. The burning in my lungs subside and I breathe in virgin snow, like throwing off nights thick blanket of fear in which children cocoon themselves in at night to stay boogie men that stand just behind closet doors. I wish to walk unrestrained in the Light and wield the Unlimited Power which neither ferments nor corrupts to leave nothing but tyranny and greed, but brings stability and restoration of all things. Let fall the flesh like a soiled and tattered robe, wash me in the crimson Sonlight and clothe me in Radiant Light. Teach me the formulation of the Power that builds and levels, kills and heals. Let my tongue be a Sword to the enemy and a Scalpel to the sick. Sprout wings where the devils scourge once feasted on my flesh and fly like a razor across the veiled sky that keeps us from The There. Take off the cowl that is like cloudy scales upon my eyes, which curse the mind with whispers of fear, confusion, failure and doubt and cloaks the heart with dismal black smoke of smoldering dreams.
I curse you, Tangible Darkness and command that which is meant to be to rise like a Vengeful Phoenix from the ashes which The Void has made. Your destruction Oh Shadow, unleashed upon me, will be your own undoing. Shout! For The Name will shake the core of the Abyss and like a fallen star will collapse in on itself and cannot be undone. Yet I will escape from its demise like the Novas shockwave. Be careful how you molest me Dark Ones, for this Unfathomable Power is contained in this container of fragile, brittle clay and once unleashed it is like a corrosive acid upon your foul being. Yah so Great, teach me to be the conduit of Your Power, let me not fall asleep by You in this familiar yet undesirable Garden. For I wish to ride at Your Back and be that weapon housed in Your quiver and released by Your bow to find its final destination in the heart of the enemy, to be lodged and twist like a serrated blade and to feel the Alien Fire of Evil be extinguished with a whimpering hiss. Let me walk tall the path between the Second Adam and Angels and be that formidable Maccabee that storms Hells Gates and take back the Temple of Thy Glory. Loosen my tongue and let me never forget, nor let the fire in my eyes grow dim. I sign this prayer with the very fiber of my being. In Yeshua Ha Moshiach I pray this. Ameyn and Ameyn!
Spiritually Autistic, Blind, Deaf and Mute

I am like Helen Keller who violently and animalisticly bats and bites the hands of help; perceiving them as a threat. I am like Rainman who has a melt down when YHWH is trying to direct my steps out of a stale routine. Interpreting the Spiritual realm can be like trying to live in the physical world as an Autistic, blind and deaf mute.
Oh how Elohim is patiently merciful with this feral like child, born into the darkness of a fallen world infested with sin like a leper, whose mind is at times beside itself. I have to be taught to channel my limited finite senses to open up to a greater sense beyond my understanding to see, hear and understand in the spirit. To move and operate in such is almost like somnambulist and surreal. Oh grant me the patience with others such as You have with me Father.
Cant Nail it Down

In the moment when I have nothing I realize I will have everything Born for such a time as this Born not of this world Hunted as a strange son or feral child Sanhedrical cages could not hold it Roman prisons could not hold it Spanish, Nazi and Communist regimes could not hold it The anti-nomian, anti-semitic consensus cannot hold it The politically correct, assimilating global village cannot change it The catholic and protestant replacement theology cannot hem it in Like rocks made like piatas, nothing can harness these flames These weak, temporal and fearful cages are training grounds and think tanks And open full on rebellion covered with the fleece of Goyish, over confidence, blinded to the revolt before their eyes These iron fences will yellow and flake like aged parchment and fall like the ashes of charred newsprint We will be the sages in the time of confusion We will be the stable force in a world gone a rye We will be the survivors as evil feasts upon itself We will be the lowly and humble rulers of earth The crucible in perspective is short yet it seems painfully long Our crucible is their comfort and our peace is their crucible The tender plant that has been trampled and paved over and long forgotten will break through the asphalt and sprout to be a mighty oak that no one can remove
I am a Jew
I am a Jew, maybe not a Jew like you, maybe not a Jew like you, or you, but I am a Jew. I am not bound by the numerous intricate and fabricated nuances made by the myriad of traditions and sects which often clash with one another and form annoying webs in the entry way of fellowship that detract from the union of activities that take place in that hall; but I am only bound by and will only adhere to my own, though acknowledge, appreciate and respect yours. I will not walk as on ice or eggshells to accommodate via deception your expectations. I walk the same narrow path as you but may not choose the same mode of transportation upon that road. I will not acknowledge the ludicrous dissension over which vehicle I take as I travel on Highway 613. I worship an Elohim who allows me to think and gives me room to move my elbows; Who is specific and yet give many choices on how to accomplish one holy thing. I worship and serve an Elohim who walks in the now in an acceptable manner and does not force me to walk in the ghosts of yesterday that corral and blind the heart and mind by fear and ignorance. Your opinions, defamations and unfounded claims of illegitimacy do not change the fact of who I am. I am a Jew, maybe not a Jew like you, maybe not a Jew like you, or you, but I am a Jew.

Poetry Ray Bash

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Poetry Ray Bash

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The Poetry of RaYBaSH Katan Volume I

By Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr

REVOLT AND REBEL!

Untitled Free Verse

These are Some Days

The Trouble with Prophecy

The Fate of the Yidden

The Great Escape

Enoch whispers. Moshiach is coming.

The Last Exodus, The Last Holocaust

A Mountain Called Today

Bleached Silent Bones

To the Point of Blood

Born into the lap of luxury only Solomon knew:

From Diamonds to Emeralds

It glistens like wet, fresh laundered wool.

Evils Self Made Doom

Between the Doors

The Man I Never Knew

Running this race is no easy task,

The Sonambulous Serenade

Sometimes I Wish I Could Run.

Alone in the Expanse

Kiss the Son

To Those Who Did Not Bend

There They Go.

The Birthing Stool

The Leprosy of the Soul

Melencholily Mourning the Morning

The Anti-Climax of Achievement

The Prophetic Comedian

Sparrows Sing of Sukkot

Her Name is Wisdom

Mimicry in the Mirror

Wolves and Falling Skies

Monsters in Mister Eschers House

The Resurrection of Trees

Questioning the End

Spiritually Autistic, Blind, Deaf and Mute

Cant Nail it Down

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