The Dead Do Rise

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Rosh HaShana 5783

The earth beneath and stars on high,

The gusting winds that grace the sky,

Migration of the butterfly,

Trees and flowers that beautify,

The depth of seas and deserts dry,

Attune the soul and sensitize;

Some spend their life asking why,

Why, why, why, why, why, why,

I tell them this they should abide,

Our place and purpose are sanctified,

We were not cast out from Paradise,

This is the first of many lies,

From texts that we internalize,

And the Judgment that they sermonize,

Another lie, another lie, 

But one truth can never be denied,     

And this you may memorialize,

Everything survives, everything's alive,

Survey the expanse of your insides,

The circuitry of heart and mind,

There’s no doubt you will find,

The dead do rise, the dead do rise.

Man of Steel

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It was like kryptonite

when they said

this is what you need 

to know to succeed:

Algebra and trigonometry, 

force equals mass times acceleration,

how to spell 'committee'

and conjugate past-imperfect,

Wolfe versus Montcalm,

and who won the war of 1812,

did everything they could

to press the crap 

into my half-formed brain.

But it was futile,

another disappointing report card

and I stopped caring

felt the strength drain from my body

my superpower leaving me

said goodbye to leaping tall buildings

bullets bouncing off my chest

and could feel my X-ray vision 

begin to dim

went from seeing through walls 

to hardly seeing anyone 

or anything at all,

these days I can't save a soul from trouble

if you paid me. The world's on fire

and here I sit

a man of steel

in my ice-cold

fortress of solitude

incapable of giving a damn.

All of the Above

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You say I'm 

passiveaggressive 

and I say yeah

because I lovehate:

There's no such thing

as eitheror

everything's always 

all of the above

like the moon

in the sky

always there 

just brighter at midnight

the phenomenon 

is in every atom

the physicists call it

superposition

the cat is alivedead

and the best we can ever do 

is guesswork

gravity isn't a force 

it's warped spacetime

we've all felt it

life isn't like shifting gears

it's both

forwardreverse

blackwhite

goodbad

pastpresent

every virtue is also a vice

every sin a blessing

I am spiritflesh

I believedoubt in God

and when we make love 

I givetake

you takegive

the answer is

always

all of the above.

Come sit near me

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Come sit near me 

and speak your truth 

say what you believe

We'll drink our tea

and peel our fruit

until it's time to leave.

Truant

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September sharpness in the air

summer's end

hurricane season and

la rentrée scolaire

boxy yellow buses

red lights flashing

block traffic flow

kid faces pressed against glass

their paperbag lunches 

stinking of tunafish and egg salad;

the time of year

I feel the truant 

my thoughts turn rebellious

my body aches 

to break out

of life's schoolyard fence

soul fills with wanderlust

and the world is a whirlwind 

carrying particles of freedom

a scent that were I not feeling 

so penned-in 

like soon-to-be table meat

I would collect in myself

breathe in and sing out

delight in and run with 

call to anyone with ears

inclined to hear it: 

Damn your policy 

and forced education 

I live for truth!