Tel Aviv (a love poem?)

roadside otherside Hebrew

guttural English

slapping people upside with words

outdoor syncopated urbanely millennial lifestyle

suckin on too many cigarettes

new (aviv), no, old (tel) future generations uncertain,

here kibbutzim babies lithely surf beach postmodern waves,

curly black haired pregnant Semitics gyre-wave-hiphop

while the Mediterranean Sea sparkles back indifferently

“ehh” (searching for words)…

witness this backgammon masterpiece,

this unveiling,

this convergence of Golda’s greatgrandchildren!

including me again,

bearded disheveled wordsmith

tipper of yogurt granola waitresses

golden shekel Rebecca masterpieces,

yes, bearded me again,

this time Reuven

Hebrew to the core

inhaling this shuk masterpiece,

where everyone’s a genius

epitome of wonder

lightbulbs shining on brilliantly

so someone please explain this audacious beauty

inherent in these crowds,

careless 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, long brown hair, and Microsoft,

who demand resolution for Gaza and Golan,

whose exquisite two-tone accents blast through skylight middleast clarity,

and who do not compromise:

“you rain on us, we flood you” consciousness,

historically

 continually

 foiling 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

who lift and exalt the rest of us

far beyond our fears,

their dark fecund eyes wide open,

kickin ass

embracing colored lights

bluepurpleredorangegreen Sudanese eyes dazzling,

who bombard that firstworld in rosepetals and yellow daisies,

who Shabbat or not to Shabbat,

who squeeze Judaism juice right down to her Abrahamic pulp-

and all the while

celebrating extinguishing rebuilding and planting,

who deny and defy the suffering,

who feel the contemporary procreative exultation

right here

buried inside this ground

straight ahead defiance

unabashed decadence,

who sport psychedelic yarmulkes,

drain funky Israeli beer,

while suntanlotion sunglass soldiers

guard this green desert

constantly wandering,

who sometimes may pause

sniff

and bow

to visit the cool embrace of our ancestors,

our descendants,

disembodied pilgrims

somehow connected to

those way-distant cousins like me

May 25, 2018