Chapter One Proverbs

My soul appears disheveled

As I wear indecision like

Torn garments shredded

Draped over my body

and tied together in knots

Without consideration

To a design that fits me.

This is the life I have led

And yet you speak of the limits

To your wisdom

Which might be lost

If I do find new clothes?

Am I sentenced to live naked

Wandering in a void

Of lifeless energy

Devoid of your counsel

Abandoned and forgotten

As if you had cast me down

To the Sheol of the here and now?

My hands and feet bear

The scars of rusty steel traps

Which you say I set

For myself

Pealing the skin off my bones

Leaving me to hobble down the alleyway

Scrapping through the trash

Searching for the beginning

Of wisdom which right now

seems to be despair.

You talk in proverbs and proclaim wisdom

As if to celebrate yourself

While I say to you that despair

Is what humans need first

To breach the impenetrable wall

Or to puncture the morning fog

That becomes the moment of inconsolable grief and

Rage at the world and myself

Which opens a creaky old door

That I will enter and receive

The proverbial moment of insight

That has eluded me in this journey.

The soul is disheveled

And wears indecision like a torn garment,

Draped over the body,

 Tied in knots

Well suited for the perplexed

Who grow impatient for answers.

Is this the limit to your wisdom,

To let this spirit remain in tattered clothes

Never to wear wisdom’s precious apparel

Leaving this despondent one

At the city’s gates as a beggar?

  The soul is sentenced to live naked,

Devoid of your counsel,

Abandoned, forgotten,

As if you had cast it down

Into the Sheol of the here and now?

Hands and feet bear the scars

Of traps set for myself.

To catch the beginning of wisdom.

The sky rains despair

 The soul is depleted

Dried and parched

Thirsting for the dew

Of the new season

Awaiting your arrival

The soul walks out of step

Wisdom feels like a fleeting shadow

Trailing every thought and movement

Pursuing the embraceable moment

When wisdom and despair unite

Confounding the macabre designs

Of a restless night.

Poem-Chapter Two

You make wisdom sound so simple,
as if I could change myself
like a stream, reversing its course,
rolling over rocks of mistaken judgments.


You speak to me of wonder,
Is wonder a question
that swirls around,
like a pestering gnat  
until I swat it?’

 I speak to you as prey

Duped by my own designs

Where life itself has hunted

Me and I succumb to the kill.

So I petition you
 To remove the torment
Which I carry on my back each day

A bundle of discontent

Weighing down upon my spine.

Is the grimace of a contorted face,
And Blindness to everything but my own suffering,
Deaf to the sound of your call

Tasteless as I ingest your wisdom?

The Aroma of Elul-Proverbs Chapter Four

I visit the spice market in the old city

Carrying a modest pouch

Seeking out the choicest fragrances

Of aromas beckoning

As the Arab merchant cajoles

Me to enter his stall.

It is Elul and the spices emit

A sharper scent than

The rest of the year

That peppers my palate

 In this trading center

 Between confession and forgiveness

As though the time

Of repentance has

Its own flavor of cayenne

Spiced enough to evoke

A tear and balmy to

Revive the memories

Of past deeds.

God loves the pleasing odor;

The ascent of burnt offerings

Soaring heavenward

Swirling into an ecstatic prayer

Penetrating divine nostrils

Leaning back on a heavenly throne

Satiated and content with blissful countenance.

But the passerby

Gazed upon the jars

Inserting his nose

Every so gently

Into the aromas

Where each spice

Is a sanctuary

A whisper of history

A hint of rumination

A pristine temptation.

Elul is a spice of sorts

Masking the odor

Of words which reek

With intent and hide

From the breezes

That fill a room

With a foul trace of deceit.

Elul is the solitary spice

The last kernel of wisdom

Inside the human

Hiding amongst these shelves

Is the cluster of choices

The admixture of what we could be

And the scent of what we have become.

Chapter Three Proverbs

I am praying to you

For this moment of weakness

To cast the fallen branches

Down the river of shame

From which I float leisurely

Seeing that wisdom

Is not in the sky

Nor upon the land

But in the measureless undercurrents

Of life for when I extend

My hand into the ceaseless

Pathway of the lifelike waters

Pushing against primitive instincts

That spiral an uncertain conscience

Down to the very core of thought

And raise it to the summit

Of enlightened sapience

I realize that the possibility

Of being is within reach

And the conceivability

That I could change

The course of an undercurrent

In my life is as a pure

As the vision emanating

 From my eyes piercing

Through these tumultuous waters

Into the river bed

Of this troublesome tributary.