Good writing isn’t a profession.
It must reflect one’s own obsession,
disorder decomposed, compulsive,
impressing readers as impulsive.
Amateurs need not apply
if they cannot tell you why
they want to write, and tell you what
obsesses them, and what does not.
Their obsession only has
a single cure, and that is writing;
how it is done and all that jazz
is stage direction and back lighting
Adam Gopnik, interviewed by Charlie Rose on February 2, 2010 in a discussion of J. D. Salinger, told him that Salinger felt that a writer must recognize the story that speaks most closely to him, the material that makes the stars come out, as it were, and throw out all other material that is not authentic for him. Said Gopnik: “A writer’s authentic obsession is his real material.”
This was written after a very close friend came round to visit us with his wife to tell us that he had a chronic neurological disorder, not obsessive compulsive disorder to which I allude in this poem or Amyotrophic Later Sclerosis (ALS) which led to the death of our good friend Mike Robyn seven days ago, but Parkinson’s disease.
2/3/10
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
sources for geese
SOURCES FOR GEESE
A thousand thousand,
once Wellhausened,
call his sources
tour de forces,
though the Jahwist
won’t be missed,
and Elohist’s
non-exists.
The Deuteronomist
may head the list
for those who do not hold their noses
at Moses,
but works of P
work best for me;
Code of Holiness
raises lowliness.
Inspired by a discussion at the UCLA Hillel House of the largely discredited source theory of the brilliant nineteenth century Bible scholar Julius Wellhausen, more recently popularized by Richard Elliot Friedman, who was a college friend of Mark Kleiman, who chaired the discussion. David Lefkowitz had asked me to give a brief outline, which I do here, in rhyme.
2/2/10
A thousand thousand,
once Wellhausened,
call his sources
tour de forces,
though the Jahwist
won’t be missed,
and Elohist’s
non-exists.
The Deuteronomist
may head the list
for those who do not hold their noses
at Moses,
but works of P
work best for me;
Code of Holiness
raises lowliness.
Inspired by a discussion at the UCLA Hillel House of the largely discredited source theory of the brilliant nineteenth century Bible scholar Julius Wellhausen, more recently popularized by Richard Elliot Friedman, who was a college friend of Mark Kleiman, who chaired the discussion. David Lefkowitz had asked me to give a brief outline, which I do here, in rhyme.
2/2/10
hologram
HOLOGRAM
I shall be what I shall be,
says God: I am just what I am,
His a potential none can see
while I am just a hologram.
Inspired by the opinion of the nineteenth rabbi of Krakow Kalonimos Kalman Epstein. known as the Maor VaShemesh, related to me by Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, that when God tells Moses that His name is אהיה, I will be (Exod. 3:14), explaining the name by saying אהיה אשר אהיה, I shall be what I shall be, the text implies that God is telling Moses that He is becoming something He not been before. He is, as it were, a work in progress, like the Israelites in Egypt to whom God instructs to tell the name.
Monica Osborne’s comment was:
I think I like this especially because we can read it backwards and forwards. What I mean is that while the "I" of the poem is God, if we read the "I" as the I who is reading the poem, it is as if God is justifying who we are, in spite of ourselves. I don't know if that makes sense.
2/3/10
I shall be what I shall be,
says God: I am just what I am,
His a potential none can see
while I am just a hologram.
Inspired by the opinion of the nineteenth rabbi of Krakow Kalonimos Kalman Epstein. known as the Maor VaShemesh, related to me by Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, that when God tells Moses that His name is אהיה, I will be (Exod. 3:14), explaining the name by saying אהיה אשר אהיה, I shall be what I shall be, the text implies that God is telling Moses that He is becoming something He not been before. He is, as it were, a work in progress, like the Israelites in Egypt to whom God instructs to tell the name.
Monica Osborne’s comment was:
I think I like this especially because we can read it backwards and forwards. What I mean is that while the "I" of the poem is God, if we read the "I" as the I who is reading the poem, it is as if God is justifying who we are, in spite of ourselves. I don't know if that makes sense.
2/3/10
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
rust in the bones
RUST IN THE BONES
He who hears the overtones
of wisdom will encounter disbelief,
and the fractures in his bone
will never heal, and cause incessant grief.
The bone of such a man will rust,
once he’s been drenched by wisdom as by rain,
and he mourn the way he lost the trust
in the divine, preferring the profane.
Augustine said: "He who puts on wisdom puts on grief, and a heart that understands cuts like rust in the bones."
This poem is a revision of “Overtones of Wisdom,” written in 1999.
11/17/99
He who hears the overtones
of wisdom will encounter disbelief,
and the fractures in his bone
will never heal, and cause incessant grief.
The bone of such a man will rust,
once he’s been drenched by wisdom as by rain,
and he mourn the way he lost the trust
in the divine, preferring the profane.
Augustine said: "He who puts on wisdom puts on grief, and a heart that understands cuts like rust in the bones."
This poem is a revision of “Overtones of Wisdom,” written in 1999.
11/17/99
persian fallow deer
PERSIAN FALLOW DEER
In Israel ecologists are bringing back
all animals which Bible writings mention.
Of Persian fallow deer there was a total lack,
as there is now perhaps of decent menschen,
but there were many in Iran. The deer stand at the shoulder
some three feet tall, white spots on tawny coats,
and antlers that are flattened. Israelis who were bolder
than those Iranians who found antidotes
against the Shah, the homicidal ayatollahs
introduced by them in ’78,
thinking that imams and medieval scholars
would help defeat the enemies they hate,
concentrated not on revolution and
the fight against Great Satan, Friend of Jews,
but on bringing Bible beasts back to the Land
which God had promised they would never lose.
Four fallow deer were captured while Iranians dem-
onstrated in the streets, and all were flown
to Tel-Aviv. About five hundred who from them
descend now live in Israel, a zone
where the priority is always peace, not war,
all lives considered there to be as dear
as those of animals that have a Bible spoor,
found in the famous Farsi fallow deer.
Charles Levinson (“"How Bambi Met James Bond To Save Israel's 'Extinct' Deer": It Took Cloak-and-Dagger Effort to Return Creatures From Iran to Biblical Home,” WSJ, February 1, 2010) writes about how Israel restored a population of Perian fallow deer to Israel after these animals were thought to be extinct:
On Nov. 28, 1978, as Iran was hurtling toward Islamic revolution, zoologist Mike Van Grevenbroek landed at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, coming from Tel Aviv, carrying a blow-dart gun disguised as a cane and secret orders from an Israeli general. His mission: to capture four Persian fallow deer and deliver them to Israel before the shah's government collapsed. It marked the daring climax of a years-long cloak-and-dagger effort to reintroduce the animals of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism to Israel. In December 2009, Israeli wildlife officials added another chapter to the endangered ruminant's unlikely comeback when they released four descendants of those original deer into the Jerusalem hills. The animals joined the nearly 500 fallow deer that now roam freely in Israel. The deer are the crowning achievement of a program that has also returned biblical onagers, oryxes and ostriches to the wild.
Wildlife preservation was a low priority during Israel's early years of statehood that changed with the passage of a conservation law in 1962. An active-duty general, Avraham Yoffe, a founding member of Israel's pre-statehood militia, the Hagana, and commander of the army division that captured Sharm al-Sheikh in 1956, was appointed head of the newly created Israeli Nature and Parks Authority.
Conservationists say the general, who died in 1983, waged war in defense of wildlife with the same zeal he had brought to the battlefield. The 1978 Iranian "deerlift" remains his most daring feat and his biggest success.
The Persian fallow deer stands about 3 feet tall at the shoulder, with a tawny coat, white spots and flattened antlers like those of a small moose. In the book of Deuteronomy, the deer was listed as one of the hoofed animals the Hebrews were allowed to eat. The Book of Kings says the animal was tithed to King Solomon by his subjects. The last of the fallow deer in Israel were believed to have been hunted to extinction in the early 1900s. The species was thought to be extinct until the late 1950s, when the deer were rediscovered in Iran…
After arriving in Tehran on Nov. 28, and taking a day to pull together supplies, Mr. Van Grevenbroek left for a game preserve on the Caspian Sea, a 10-hour drive from Tehran. His report to the Israeli nature authority concerning the trip shows he spent five days tracking, capturing and crating four deer before returning to Tehran late on Dec. 4. Meanwhile, Mr. Segev says he went to the Tehran game department to get the necessary export licenses for the deer. The streets of Tehran were erupting. On Dec. 1, the Ayatollah Khomeini wrote a letter from exile in Paris calling on Iranians to spill "torrents of blood." On Dec. 2, more than one million Iranians marched through central Tehran. Mr. Segev recalls burned-out storefronts throughout the city, burning tires and the acrid smell of tear gas lingering in the air. Fearing the angry mobs chanting "Death to America," he says, he ditched the Chevrolet Impala favored by VIPs for a low-profile Iranian-made Paykan coupe. He says he exchanged his starched military uniform for civilian rags as he moved stealthily about the city. "There was shooting all over the streets, and here I am, an Israeli general, going to the zoo," says Mr. Segev.
Prince Abdol Reza who had promised the deer to Israel had already fled Iran. Mr. Segev says government officials told him he would instead need to speak with the senior government veterinarian, a man named Mueller—nobody remembers his first name—to secure the necessary licenses. "I said, 'Mueller doesn't sound like an Iranian name,'" says Mr. Segev. "They told me, 'Mr. Mueller is from Germany.' "They encountered a man who "was very pro-Germany and very anti-Israel. He was hysterical and screaming, 'I don't want these animals going to Israel,' " Mr. Van Grevenbroek recalls. Mr. Mueller said he would sign the license but only if the deer went to the Netherlands instead, according to Messrs. Segev and Grevenbroek. They said Mr. Mueller also conditioned his signature on their agreement to take the shah's prized cheetah and leopard to Germany as well since angry mobs were threatening to kill off the shah's menagerie. They agreed to Mr. Mueller's demands, but when they swung by to pick up the two big cats, the crowds had already broken into the zoo and killed them, they both said. At dawn on Dec. 8, the deer's crates were nailed shut, loaded onto trucks and taken to the airport. They were loaded onto the last El Al flight out of Tehran, packed between mountains of carpets and valuables that fleeing Iranian Jews and Israelis were taking with them. "I arrived to the airport in Tel Aviv, unloaded the deer and there's the big general waiting with tears in his eyes," says Mr. Van Grevenbroek.
2/2/10
In Israel ecologists are bringing back
all animals which Bible writings mention.
Of Persian fallow deer there was a total lack,
as there is now perhaps of decent menschen,
but there were many in Iran. The deer stand at the shoulder
some three feet tall, white spots on tawny coats,
and antlers that are flattened. Israelis who were bolder
than those Iranians who found antidotes
against the Shah, the homicidal ayatollahs
introduced by them in ’78,
thinking that imams and medieval scholars
would help defeat the enemies they hate,
concentrated not on revolution and
the fight against Great Satan, Friend of Jews,
but on bringing Bible beasts back to the Land
which God had promised they would never lose.
Four fallow deer were captured while Iranians dem-
onstrated in the streets, and all were flown
to Tel-Aviv. About five hundred who from them
descend now live in Israel, a zone
where the priority is always peace, not war,
all lives considered there to be as dear
as those of animals that have a Bible spoor,
found in the famous Farsi fallow deer.
Charles Levinson (“"How Bambi Met James Bond To Save Israel's 'Extinct' Deer": It Took Cloak-and-Dagger Effort to Return Creatures From Iran to Biblical Home,” WSJ, February 1, 2010) writes about how Israel restored a population of Perian fallow deer to Israel after these animals were thought to be extinct:
On Nov. 28, 1978, as Iran was hurtling toward Islamic revolution, zoologist Mike Van Grevenbroek landed at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, coming from Tel Aviv, carrying a blow-dart gun disguised as a cane and secret orders from an Israeli general. His mission: to capture four Persian fallow deer and deliver them to Israel before the shah's government collapsed. It marked the daring climax of a years-long cloak-and-dagger effort to reintroduce the animals of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism to Israel. In December 2009, Israeli wildlife officials added another chapter to the endangered ruminant's unlikely comeback when they released four descendants of those original deer into the Jerusalem hills. The animals joined the nearly 500 fallow deer that now roam freely in Israel. The deer are the crowning achievement of a program that has also returned biblical onagers, oryxes and ostriches to the wild.
Wildlife preservation was a low priority during Israel's early years of statehood that changed with the passage of a conservation law in 1962. An active-duty general, Avraham Yoffe, a founding member of Israel's pre-statehood militia, the Hagana, and commander of the army division that captured Sharm al-Sheikh in 1956, was appointed head of the newly created Israeli Nature and Parks Authority.
Conservationists say the general, who died in 1983, waged war in defense of wildlife with the same zeal he had brought to the battlefield. The 1978 Iranian "deerlift" remains his most daring feat and his biggest success.
The Persian fallow deer stands about 3 feet tall at the shoulder, with a tawny coat, white spots and flattened antlers like those of a small moose. In the book of Deuteronomy, the deer was listed as one of the hoofed animals the Hebrews were allowed to eat. The Book of Kings says the animal was tithed to King Solomon by his subjects. The last of the fallow deer in Israel were believed to have been hunted to extinction in the early 1900s. The species was thought to be extinct until the late 1950s, when the deer were rediscovered in Iran…
After arriving in Tehran on Nov. 28, and taking a day to pull together supplies, Mr. Van Grevenbroek left for a game preserve on the Caspian Sea, a 10-hour drive from Tehran. His report to the Israeli nature authority concerning the trip shows he spent five days tracking, capturing and crating four deer before returning to Tehran late on Dec. 4. Meanwhile, Mr. Segev says he went to the Tehran game department to get the necessary export licenses for the deer. The streets of Tehran were erupting. On Dec. 1, the Ayatollah Khomeini wrote a letter from exile in Paris calling on Iranians to spill "torrents of blood." On Dec. 2, more than one million Iranians marched through central Tehran. Mr. Segev recalls burned-out storefronts throughout the city, burning tires and the acrid smell of tear gas lingering in the air. Fearing the angry mobs chanting "Death to America," he says, he ditched the Chevrolet Impala favored by VIPs for a low-profile Iranian-made Paykan coupe. He says he exchanged his starched military uniform for civilian rags as he moved stealthily about the city. "There was shooting all over the streets, and here I am, an Israeli general, going to the zoo," says Mr. Segev.
Prince Abdol Reza who had promised the deer to Israel had already fled Iran. Mr. Segev says government officials told him he would instead need to speak with the senior government veterinarian, a man named Mueller—nobody remembers his first name—to secure the necessary licenses. "I said, 'Mueller doesn't sound like an Iranian name,'" says Mr. Segev. "They told me, 'Mr. Mueller is from Germany.' "They encountered a man who "was very pro-Germany and very anti-Israel. He was hysterical and screaming, 'I don't want these animals going to Israel,' " Mr. Van Grevenbroek recalls. Mr. Mueller said he would sign the license but only if the deer went to the Netherlands instead, according to Messrs. Segev and Grevenbroek. They said Mr. Mueller also conditioned his signature on their agreement to take the shah's prized cheetah and leopard to Germany as well since angry mobs were threatening to kill off the shah's menagerie. They agreed to Mr. Mueller's demands, but when they swung by to pick up the two big cats, the crowds had already broken into the zoo and killed them, they both said. At dawn on Dec. 8, the deer's crates were nailed shut, loaded onto trucks and taken to the airport. They were loaded onto the last El Al flight out of Tehran, packed between mountains of carpets and valuables that fleeing Iranian Jews and Israelis were taking with them. "I arrived to the airport in Tel Aviv, unloaded the deer and there's the big general waiting with tears in his eyes," says Mr. Van Grevenbroek.
2/2/10
Monday, February 1, 2010
three golden eagles
THREE GOLDEN EAGLES
FIRST GOLDEN EAGLE
Like DDT for golden eagles is the venom
that cracks the shells of eggheads incubating thoughts
they’ve patched together like a pair of pants of denim,
declaring that they think it’s time that you abort.
SECOND GOLDEN EAGLE
A golden eagle love to live near where it hatches,
but as our thoughts soar higher than these birds
we float not on a magic carpet but on patches
transporting us to nests we build with hollow words.
THIRD GOLDEN EAGLE
Remaining faithful to one’s spouse for all one’s life
is typical for golden eagles, which is strange,
because a man who thinks he’s tired of his wife
will often flap his wings and try to make a change.
Jane E. Brody writes that golden eagles have returned to the Lower 48 (“At Last, Eagles Regain a Perch in the Lower 48,” NYT, April 3, 2001). She writes that young eagles typically set up housekeeping within 100 miles of their birthplace and remain faithful to those nesting sites and to their mates to the end of their reproductive years.
4/3/01
FIRST GOLDEN EAGLE
Like DDT for golden eagles is the venom
that cracks the shells of eggheads incubating thoughts
they’ve patched together like a pair of pants of denim,
declaring that they think it’s time that you abort.
SECOND GOLDEN EAGLE
A golden eagle love to live near where it hatches,
but as our thoughts soar higher than these birds
we float not on a magic carpet but on patches
transporting us to nests we build with hollow words.
THIRD GOLDEN EAGLE
Remaining faithful to one’s spouse for all one’s life
is typical for golden eagles, which is strange,
because a man who thinks he’s tired of his wife
will often flap his wings and try to make a change.
Jane E. Brody writes that golden eagles have returned to the Lower 48 (“At Last, Eagles Regain a Perch in the Lower 48,” NYT, April 3, 2001). She writes that young eagles typically set up housekeeping within 100 miles of their birthplace and remain faithful to those nesting sites and to their mates to the end of their reproductive years.
4/3/01
Sunday, January 31, 2010
lubavs
LUBAVS
Hosanna in excelsis sing
the Christians with their lulavs;
very like the Rebbe thing
performed by many Lubavs.
1/31/10
Hosanna in excelsis sing
the Christians with their lulavs;
very like the Rebbe thing
performed by many Lubavs.
1/31/10
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
