“Tel Aviv” (a love poem?)
roadside otherside Hebrew
mixed by guttural English
slapping people with words,
outdoor syncopated collegiate lifestyle
suckin on too many cigarettes,
new, no, aging future generations uncertain
while kibbutzim babies lithely surf beach postmodern waves,
and curly black haired pregnant Semitics gyre and hiphop
while the Mediterranean Sea sparkles indifferently
“ehh” (searching for words):
witness this backgammon masterpiece
this unveiling
this harmonic convergence of Golda’s greatgrandchildren!
including me:
bearded disheveled wordsmith
tipper of yogurt granola waitresses
representing golden shekel Rebecca masterpieces
yes, bearded me again,
this time Reuven
Judaic to the core
inhaling this shuk masterpiece,
where everyone’s a savant
here in this epitome of wonder,
where each lightbulb glows on brilliantly
so please explain this audacious beauty
inherent in these crowds,
careless maniacal cousins set on cruise control:
who scat through piano teeth laughing
who hug like lovers in languages intimate
who drift between prayerbooks and Assyrian bluster…
cousins finely sculpted in Yemenite loveliness,
who sashay and sway strung out on techno rhythms
wired on Kabbalah with long black hair and Microsoft,
who demand resolution for Gaza and Golan,
whose exquisite two-tone accents blast the skylight middleast clarity,
and, who do not compromise:
“you rain on us, we flood you” consciousness,
who continually foil an enemy’s ineptness,
who assume insulation,
who seep straight from multifarious Haifa beaches,
who converge as one from all night Tel Aviv bars:
Shabbat, Shabbos, Sabbath, Monday no difference
elegantly defiantly reclining in Pesach chairs,
who persist forward,
who solve algebraic puzzles
lifting and exalting the rest of us
far beyond our fears,
their dark fecund eyes all the while wide open,
kicking ass
embracing colored lights
bluepurpleredorangegreen Sudanese eyes dazzling,
who bombard the European and American firstworld in rosepetals and yellow daisies,
who Shabbat or not to Shabbat,
who squeeze Judaic juice right down to her Abrahamic pulp
and all the while
there is celebrating extinguishing rebuilding and planting
from those who deny and defy the suffering,
from those who feel the contemporary procreative exultation
right here in this city,
buried fathoms deep inside this ground,
a straight ahead defiance
an unabashed decadence,
from those who sport psychedelic yarmulkes
while draining funky Israeli beers,
and from these suntanlotioned sunglass soldiers
guarding this green desert,
constantly wandering and always coed
who sometimes may pause,
sniff then pause a moment
to visit the cool embrace of our ancestors,
their descendants,
who were disembodied pilgrims
yet somehow connected
to contemporary way-distant cousins like me