Reflections for sabbath (5)

To get off scot-free, the creator of the golden calf must have had good connections.



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Bacon border revised

I solemnly announce:
Above $10/oz,
in my gastronomical life
nothing is treife.

(Revisionistic) Reflections for sabbath (4)

How would we see Jacob and Esau had the family’s chronicles been published by the other’s offspring instead?



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Friendship (4)

Distrustful of new ligations.

Biding the toll,
watching new relations
scratching off
the callus of my soul.

Confident

"With a statement like this, I’ll never get quoted." - Circumspection

Obviation (8)

The Hoaxy Coaxy

"Put your venom in,
Stinger out,
In and out
And take it all, no doubt.
You do the Hoaxy Coaxy
And ache them all around,
That’s what it’s all about."


Freely rendered from "The Hokey Pokey" by Roland Lawrence LaPrise.


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Orgasm

Delighted by the anticlimax of the word-hoppers that come here.

Friendship (3)

More like a
quarry in the glory
of my yore.

Friendship (2)

What will I reap
when I keep
one go deep?

Friendship (1)

I wonder
if the sunder
from my nigh,
cured my
blind mind’s eye.

Midlife (14)

Alone in the dark
where exit signs mismark
I managed to abide
and further
the spark inside.



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Shgatzim...

Caught
in a lifelong detention
by surrounding generations.

Holocaust survivors, the second generation (7)

April 13th 2004

An irrational fear took possession of me when I finally found the courage to visit the squalid nascence of my regressive melancholy: Bergen-Belsen.

I had mixed feelings about my partner and two eldest accompanying me. On the one hand I wanted to be alone in the confrontation with my demons, on the other it could be good to have the support of my family. It might also be good for the kids to see what should be fought: man’s cruelty to fellow man. Maybe I also wanted them to see, what might be the source for my outbursts of anger… to get some empathy, or at least to sow some, for later when they reach the age of discretion.

Although I don’t usually drive the long distances, this time I did... I didn't want to be brought there; I wanted to be in control.

It was very emotional; we walked around and saw the mass graves. Our kids left a pebble on every one of them... Then we went back into the museum that is built against it and saw the horrifying movie shot at the liberation of the camp.

In the museum there was also a book, with the names of "just" a few thousand people of the tens of thousands who arrived in Bergen-Belsen, together with the date they arrived, their nationality, profession, date of murder or further deportation.

My mother (may she rest in peace) never told me much of the war. But I remember something she once told me: “At the end of the war, just a few days before liberation, we were packed in cattle trucks to be driven into a river to drown when the Russians stopped the train just a few hundred meters before the river...”.

There I stood, in Bergen-Belsen, browsing through that book and I found the name of my mother (12 years old then), her sister and their parents. According to the book, my grandfather was killed two months before at February 16th - mauled to death by dogs in front of his family (as I recently found out). Also in that book, the date of their departure in the cattle truck...

April 13th 1945

Date to date... in some odd way it felt as close as I could get to the essence of my mother...

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Reflections for sabbath (3)

"I am Jewish!"

So what?
How good a Mensch are you?



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Being ridiculous

"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous, everyone hasn't met me yet."
- Rodney Dangerfield (1921 - 2004)

Midlife (13)

Swimming,
like a captain,
trying to catch up
with his boat.


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Holocaust survivors, the second generation (6)

Beach fun

I remember my mother in her early forties, playing in the sand at the beach with an unfamiliar child of around 10. They had fun as kids can have while playing with each other...

She was happy and it made me sad.

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Obviation (7)

Host or parasite....

Who’s the real sucker?



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Compassion

I’m sorry to hear about your misfortune,
But it could be worse...

It could have happened to me.

Always look on the bright sight...

“...ill luck is just temporary..."

As is life.

Most...

hunt pleonasm,
like orgasm.

Cheer up!

For my friends who find me too dark,
A cheerful thought:

I won't live forever.

Midlife (12)

The fight
to relight
Gloomy Ardors.


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Obviation (6)

Lice in disguise
stoop till their dupe
turns wise.



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Reflections for sabbath (2)

Halacha
as excuse for
abject moral behaviour?


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Midlife (11)

Open windows...
A sign of weakness?


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Lo lishma (1)

Magical thinking:
“Many articles in neuroscience have shown that the human brain excels at pattern matching, but that humans do not have a good filter for distinguishing between perceived patterns and actual patterns. Thus, people often are led to see "relationships" between actions that don't actually exist, creating a magical belief.”

Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas
Il faut oublier
Tout peut s'oublier
Qui s'enfuit deja
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus
Et le temps perdu
A savoir comment
Oublier ces heures
Qui tuaient parfois
A coups de pourquoi
Le coeur du bonheur
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

Moi je t'offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Où il ne pleut pas
Je creuserai la terre
Jusqu'apres ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D'or et de lumière
Je ferai un domaine
Où l'amour sera roi
Où l'amour sera loi
Où tu seras reine
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas
Je t'inventerai
Des mots insensés
Que tu comprendras
Je te parlerai
De ces amants là
Qui ont vu deux fois
Leurs coeurs s'embraser
Je te racont'rai
L'histoire de ce roi
Mort de n'avoir pas
Pu te rencontrer
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

On a vu souvent
Rejaillir le feu
De l'ancien volcan
Qu'on croyait trop vieux
Il est paraît-il
Des terres brûlées
Donnant plus de blé
Qu'un meilleur avril
Et quand vient le soir
Pour qu'un ciel flamboie
Le rouge et le noir
Ne s'épousent-ils pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas
Je ne vais plus pleurer
Je ne vais plus parler
Je me cacherai là
À te regarder
Danser et sourire
Et à t'écouter
Chanter et puis rire
Laisse-moi devenir
L'ombre de ton ombre
L'ombre de ta main
L'ombre de ton chien
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

- Lyrics by Jacques Brel -

Midlife (10)

Once upon a time there was a poor farmer with a very small orchard.

It was a bad season and the farmer had just enough water for one tree. And he didn’t know which one of his trees (if any) would carry eatable fruits at harvest time.

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To the next post in the "once upon a time" sequence

Midlife (9)

At rebirth:
Rolling in euphoria !
Afloated with mirth !
Soul is cured ! Gloria !

After rebirth:
Recovering from euphoria,
Arriving back on earth,
Sense matured... Victoria.


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