still talking, probably not making sense

what i think i had planned to talk about
was shifting schedules
and time

where i feel you
from a distance

what happened the last time
the emperor card
started showing up for you

things not visible

and why

thoughts, and i've only got a few minutes so there may be more later

i was reading that book about the exodus
and it was poetic
and beautiful
but intense
so
i had set it aside for a while
but
i'm reading inventing jewish ritual
which i really really love

and today i read a section
which referenced
what i'd already read in the other book
in relation to a ritual among lubavitcher women in ny
their use of tambourines
in 1994 when their rebbe was dying
and they thought he was coming back
moshiach

it being their responsibility
to keep the faith, as it were
and the whole thing again
with the little fishes

and i'm not sure why, but
i wept

i was in public too
reading while having lunch
and it wasn't anything to do with belief
in a moshiach
because, as far as that goes
i think i only very weakly believe in messianic consciousness
or, well to be honest, i'm not really sure how to take all that
i'd have to err on the side of:
o. k. ummmm
if asked

so it wasn't any burning religious fervor

so i'm not sure what it was

but i suspect
it had something to do with you

so
do you suppose
i should take that as a good sign
or a bad sign
because
i really am not sure what emotion that was
i'm going with moved
but

i don't know
i don't really believe their messiah is coming
and that made me sad
maybe for them
but maybe for me too
that i don't believe

this wasn't really what i planned to say
and now i have to go

and there's something i'm worried about that i can't ask
and even if i could how could you answer

so
just imagine
i'm bringing you a jug
half full of little fishes

i find that image so evocative

ok so i said there'd be more later, so i'm back

the touch screen maps
were part of some system
i was working with this guy
to set up some sort of fan based system

i was asking him:
what is the thing
the thing that'll take it to the next level
i was concerned that the guy we were building it for
should finally get what it was he wanted
from his life
his career
not because i wanted it
not even because i wanted to say
that i had any part of it
i wanted it for him

then
i was hanging out with the family
and the sunflower was part of the family


today
i wondered about that
and i wondered
if you read it
if you wondered
if i had something i was trying to say
and i didn't, naturally
it was a subconscious manifestation

but
i wondered:
does she represent a part of me
or
am i saying i'm too old

maybe

i could actually make either case

i also thought
because i still actually think
crazy as it may be
that some part of you was thinking of me
as an oklahoma sunflower
and i picked it up in my dream

because i really, actually think
that our minds are partially linked
that's not some metaphor
it's just
that
it's not a complete and perfect link
so only things you think very strongly
are at all clear
but
those are not the only things i pick up

anyway
maybe that isn't [any of it] right

i certainly can't tell you what you're thinking right now

my meditative attempts just now
brought up my second grade elementary school lunch room
with the mondrian prints
and some performance of a snoopy play

i had brownie meeting in that room too
after school
and school photos were taken there
actually
it wasn't just mondrian prints
there were prints from a bunch of artists
but those
are the ones i wanted to know who painted them
badly enough to go examine the print closely
piet mondrian

i didn't like girl scouts
i think i thought we'd camp
or learn wilderness skills
but it was just weaving pot holders and
making piggy banks out of bleach bottles
and selling cookies
it was total crap

we bought my clothes at sears on main st
or at woolworths

i got my ears pierced at the end of that year

is any of this something you wanted to know
i don't know why i'd think of that stuff

really wild dream

can't finish now
but i gotta get this down

there were touch screen maps

there was a really pretty
and nice
and young
woman

who

had had your baby
i'm not sure what connection that gave her to me

i was a little bit jealous
but she was one of those oklahoma sunflower girls
sweet and blonde and impossible not to love
only she'd been groomed in california
so she was flawless as well

and i thought:
maybe she's better
she seems to have unlimited energy

she and the toddler also
seemed to be nudists

i said something to her about her
superior energy and stamina
and she said:

don't be silly
all you need to do
is massage the energy point on your ring finger
see, like this
[and she showed me]

more later gotta go

so today i went to synagogue

i was kinda scared
so i started with what i thought would be
biggest and most anonymous most reform-y
it's supposed to have like 1700 families membership
i figured i'd get lost
but there were not more than fifty people there
and the first thing i got asked:
are you a member

but the little flyer thingy said:
guests welcome

so when i got asked
i was prepared:
i am what you'd call a guest

but, i mean, everyone was nice

but i didn't know the songs
and i don't know the communal prayers
and the parshat discussion didn't move me

the only thing that did move me
was when people got up to say their yahrzeits
it made me want to hug them


i have very limited experience with religious services of any kind
i tried to go to metropolitan community church for a while
to try to meet someone
but then it occurred to me
that what i'd probably meet was a christian
so i kinda lost interest then
but the music had notes
and even though i can't really sight read
it helps

i might
i'm working up my nerve
go tomorrow
to the second oldest
which is a (i understand fairly liberal) conservative synagogue
which is actually supposed to be the largest member base
in the state
i think

i have actually been there before
when i was in college
i went with kelly
but all i remember was this:

everybody looked at me like i was dressed like
the whore of babylon
and men and women sat "together"
on opposite sides of the room
and i was so uncomfortable
i just wished
i could fall through a hole in the earth

so this might be a good week to go back

is it wrong that i really prefer english
is it wrong that if i have to sing in hebrew
i feel like i should at least get to sing quarter tones

i was not feeling it
i wanted to feel it
i just wasn't

random stuff

sometimes
random coincidences
seem so prescient that i think
they can't any of them mean anything
or they all do
or some of them
or none of them
or some combination

but
when you've seen something
maybe dozens of times
and suddenly
you see something

that never meant anything
and suddenly it does
but
in a way
that reminds you
of other things
that meant something
in something that was not itself without meaning
it can get pretty confusing, actually


totally unrelated to that
or
maybe, really, it isn't...hmmmm

i am so happy with my new thumb
i never realized how much i worried it
rubbing and mashing and irritating the knot

i've been trying to remember to be
specifically grateful
for each time i notice
a decrease in chronic pain
an increase in flexibility
because that's just right

but
i never realized
that the thumb was much of anything

just
now
the absence
makes me realize
it was almost continually painful
just on such a low level that it never really registered

lack of pain
makes me happy

i dreamed something i thought was interesting
but i can't remember now
i'll write more later
if i can remember

do something nice for yourself today
i'm not with you and i can't
but i'm feeling the kind of bubbling of
whatever it is
that would make me want to do something special

i'm about to see my mom
which might suck it right out of me
so i wish it for you, now

inky blankets and diamond stabbings

i was a detective
or
possibly
i just worked for a detective
not totally clear on that

there was a couple in the office
they were shopping for a blanket

that seems out of place
in a detective office

they were looking at
a crocheted number
not like granny-square crocheted
like all one color
all one texture
black, with a sheen like fresh ink

and i wanted it

the texture made it
ripple across the bed
in a way that drew me
magnetically
distractingly

then they were gone
and i don't know
they must have gotten the blanket
because it was gone
but there were other blankets
and bags of stuff
scattered

and one of them had a bag of diamonds in it

i don't know if that was a strategy
or what

but a guy came into the office
and he went right to them
i fought him
and he stabbed me in the hand

in the side of my fist
down at the base of my palm

i continued to fight him off
and maybe i cut him
or maybe he just
was gonna come back
with fire power
but he left

i had to pee
probably because i actually needed to
but i was trying to stay asleep

the bathroom in the office was up by the front doors
they were broken and wouldn't lock
and people were trying to come in

i was alone
and i was telling them:
wait just a minute
i'm the only one running the front
let me just pop in the restroom really quickly
then i'll take care of you

i went into the bathroom
and tried to figure out what to do



kinda scary, and
when i got stabbed
i didn't bleed at all
and
when i'm looking at it now
[my hand]
i can see that
when i make a fist with my left hand
it pulls in and makes a weird jagged dent
pretty much where he stabbed me
i'm sure i'd notice that before
but it was still weird to see it like that
the other hand doesn't do it

and
would that still be a blanket
if it's all crocheted
or would it become an afghan

i have a bunch of thoughts, so here is where i blah blah

all my blah blah sounds kinda dorky

i keep deleting it

some is torah portion stuff:

this week
is the spies sent to canaan

and wandering another 40 years
not because they're lost
but
because
they are lost
children of slavery

and
it made me feel
closer to you, strangely
and
i'm not sure
never sure, really
if you get me completely
but
i had this moment

these two guys i know
they were talking to each other
while i was talking to someone else
and then i turned
and they both
shut up
and
looked vaguely guilty
so maybe they were talking about me
who can say
and
i said:
you know even if you were talking about me
it's fine with me
because there's nothing wrong with me

and
it wasn't awkward or anything
but i realized later

it wasn't really them i was telling

and
i'm not sure why i'm telling you this now
something to do with
giving people ammunition
and how they don't really understand me

it's hard
people not understanding me
but it doesn't always work against me

i never told you this
but i had
sort of
a plan b
i had this sperm donor all picked out
he was a scientist
from israel
with strawberry blonde hair
and
i don't know if you know
but the donor profiles
they're like playboy or penthouse
they tell you
he has pianist hands
and plays sports and guitar
stuff like that

but i could never do it
and now
he retired his juice
so i really can't

and
i don't know why i told you that either
maybe the kid thing works out
and maybe it doesn't
but
for whatever reason
it's gotta be you

so you just be
however you need to be

hey, ya know what

i love you

and

even though

i'm not a bad writer

i hope

that also

i'm not a bad ego stroker

cause i never said i was against that

just that i was more than that

don't know why i'm telling you that

but

you're still a pain in the ass

please take care of yourself

weird stuff that probably only interests me

ok
so
the other day
maybe four or five days ago
i noticed that my thumb hurt

i have this spot on my thumb, that
gets irritated occasionally
when i was like 23 or 24 i got this
i wanna say wart
and
i cut it out
with a razor blade
twice
so
i've had this little knot of scar tissue
and sometimes it gets irritated

so i thought it was just that

but then
it got to really hurting
so
i looked at it
and it's got this big bubble of pus
coming up under it

so i figure i musta gotten a splinter or something
and not noticed because
the skin is so thick and callus-y
so blah blah blah
i soak it in hot salt water
and i try to find something that'll puncture it
but i couldn't
without slicing it open
so i just went to sleep and went and got a needle the next day

and
you know me
i was thinking
what the hell is this shit supposed to be telling me

so i punched it four or five times
drained it
soaked it in salt water some more
and there was a hole underneath the knot now
which seemed to be healing fine

but today
today there's a white ring around the whole thing
and i'm all like:
what the fuck is this now
so
of course

i pick at it

and the whole thing comes off
knot and all
and
i have completely new skin
that twenty year old knot
gone

and
i never did find the splinter
or whatever
so
i really don't know what that was all about

breathing under water

shavuot, thoughts

i wrote this whole long thing
but it wasn't very good

i didn't make cheese cake
i didn't want it for myself

what i really wanted was to make it
for you
to eat it with you
taste the milk and honey

in my mind
the first fruits
coming at the end of the count down
festival of weeks
standing at sinai a bride
with the torah some sort of cosmic ketubah
all swirled together with my love for you, beloved
it all assumed a magical realism quality
which, here, without you
i have failed to bring off


i have been thinking about you


and tonight, beloved
it is your skin
your face
there is some quality now
which is refined
starkly handsome in some way
that makes the man you were eight years ago
seem unappealingly under-ripe

and i stand at sinai
feel the rush as the world spins
through space and time
my neshama in the very breath of god

and i pray
i am black but comely
may it please you that he long for me
that he forever seek and find the taste of milk and honey
and i also, our tongues eternally joyful

i touch your cheek
twine my fingers behind your neck
and finally kiss you
with fearful trembling
at the offering of first fruits

random writing

a homeless woman gave me
a beautiful
large
cutting
of purple wandering jew today

i'm not sure why
i was talking to someone else
when she came back and left it for me
i didn't see it until she had already left

i tend to see it as a sign
of what exactly, i'm not sure


i've got shit going on with me
have had
for a while
that
i keep thinking is coming from somewhere else
maybe you
if you're sending
thoughts
images
emotions
through the ether to me
maybe that's possible

maybe i've just lost it completely
i'm having these long periods of electricity
like you're working on something ongoing
rather than just the surge i get
when you read something
or whatever

sometimes i have thought i knew what was going on
and then i thought of something else
which made me question
whether i have any clue

it may be
that none of this makes any sense to you
that you have no idea what i'm talking about

in fact
if i wasn't crazy
i'd probably know
that it's all in my head

even though
i guess
technically
i'm kinda old
i feel like i'm always just a little bit
more naive when it comes to you than i really should be

i have this new title swirling around in my head [may be inappropriate, but] feels right

i have this story that's trying to write itself in my head

i am almost afraid to write it though

it's about going to see my dad
several years ago now
some stuff i never told you

and
really
i don't think the whole thing can be about that
i think it just has to start that way
but
it's disturbing to me
so i both really want
and really don't want to write it

which means, maybe
that it has the potential to be good

the title that wants to stick
but only if it's a longer work:

half kaddish for rain

and it starts
[i only like to write in poem-y format]:


it wasn't the first thing he asked me
there were greetings
there was small talk
my mother had had her [artificial] christmas tree up all year
i had seen her the day before
he and i both looked at the wreath, unadorned
the one concession to the season
just a mild indication, really
that any sort of life
still existed anywhere

and when i woke the next morning
he was painting watercolor ornaments
cutting them out
hanging them
on the wreath

now
he said
now we're ready for next year

no no no
my brother said
scattering the effort
and bursting the bubble of the moment

maybe it was after that
or maybe
maybe it was the first possible moment
on the first day
i can't remember
so as i recount it
i place it after this first touch

he asked me
and i had answered
before i knew i heard the question right

can i brush your hair
yeah okay i said aloud
but
really
it felt more like:

dear god yes, please

and that
was when
the whole thing
started to fall sideways