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1. Messes Of Men

“I do not exist,” we faithfully insist, sailing in our separate ships, and from each tiny caravelle. Tiring of trying, there’s a necessary dying, like the horseshoe crab in its proper season shed its shell.

Such distance from our friends, like a scratch across a lens, made everything look wrong from anywhere we stood–and our paper blew away before we’d left the bay, so half-blind we wrote these songs on sheets of salty wood.

Caught me making eyes at the other boatmen’s wives, and heard me laughing louder at the jokes told by their daughters. I’d set my course for land, but you well understand, it takes a steady hand to navigate adulterous waters. The propeller’s spinning blades held acquaintance with the waves, ‘cause there’s mistakes I’ve made no rowing could outrun. The cloth low on the mast, as to say I’ve got no past–I’m nonetheless the librarian than the secretary’s son.

With tarnish on my brass and mildew on my glass, I’d never want someone so crass as to want someone like me–but a few leagues off the shore I bit a flashing lure, and I assure you, it was not what I expected it to be! I still taste its kiss, that dull hook in my lips, is a memory as useless as a rod without a reel, hooked to an anchor, ever-dropped, seasick yet still docked, the captain spotted napping with his first mate at the wheel,

Floating forgetfully along, with no need to be strong–we keep our confessions long and when we pray we keep it short.

I drank a thimble full of fire and I’m not ever coming back–Oh, my G-d!

“I do not exist,” we faithfully insist, while watching sink the heavy ship of everything we knew. If ever you come near, I’ll hold up high a mirror, Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as You.

2. The Dryness And The Rain

First came a strong wind, rippin’ off rooftops like bottlecaps, and bending lampposts down in the ground, then came the thunder shattering my windows–but you were not that strong wind, nor that mighty sound that left the barn in shambles, the rabbit hutch in ruins, the split-rail fence splintered and the curtains torn, all the cows out from their pastures trampling on the pumpkins, and the horses from their stable ambling in the corn.

Isa ruhu-lah ‘alaihis-salat was-salam

(Translation: Jesus Christ, peace, we pray, be upon you) [1]

And I’ve flown unnoticed just behind you like an insect, and I’ve watched you like a falcon from a distance as you passed, and swooped down to be nearer to the traces of the footsteps, to pick the fallen grain from the pressed-down dirt and crooked grass–and I’m gonna take that grain, I’m gonna crush it all together into the flour of a bread as small and simple and sincere as when the dryness and the rain finally drink from one another, the gentle cup of mutual surrender tears! C’mon!

A fish swims through the sea while the sea is in a certain sense contained within the fish! Oh, what am I to think! What the writings of a thousand lifetimes could not explain if all the forest trees were pens and all the oceans ink.

Nastagh-firuka ya Hokan, ya Dhal-Jalah wal-Ikram Isa ruhu-lah ‘alaihis-salat was-salam, ya Halim, ya Qahhar, ya Muntaqim, ya Ghaffar! La Ilaha ilallahu, Allahu Akbar![2]

(Translation: We ask for Your forgiveness, O Judge. O Lord of Majesty and Generosity. Jesus Christ, peace, we pray, be upon you. The Patient One, The All-Compelling Subduer, The Avenger, The Ever-Forgiving. There is nothing worthy of worship except G-d, G-d is the greatest!) [1]

• [1] Sources of the translations of the Arabic prayers in this song come from this blog.

3. Wolf Am I! (And Shadow)

It’s the smell of hot summertime trash, it’s the city noise of a busy street, it’s a train derailed and a two car head on freeway crash each time we meet.

“And if it comes as some sort of surprise,” she said “that I seem so composed, I’ve kept this moment closer to my eyes,” she said, “than the glasses resting on the edge of my nose.”

Shadow am I! Shadow am I! A question of a person with no sent reply. Wolf am I! Wolf and shadow cast on the sheep as I pass by. Shadow am I! Shadow am I! Or like a wearing-black-socks-and-white-woolen-locks, wolf am I, and shadow.

She was graceful and green as a stem, and I walk heavy on delicate ground, and oh–there I go showing off again, self-impressed by how well I can put myself down!

And there I go again, to the next further removed level of that same exact feigned humility–and this for me goes on and on to the point of nausea.

Shadow am I! ike suspicion that’s never confirmed–but it’s never denied. Wolf am I–no, “Shadow,” I think, is better, as I’m not something but more like the absence of something, so Shadow am I!

The whole material world seems to me like a newspaper headline, it explicitly demands your attention, and may even contain some truth–but what’s really going on here?

One day the water’s gonna wash it away! One day the water’s gonna wash it away! One day the water’s gonna wash it away, and on that day…

One day the water’s gonna wash it away! One day the water’s gonna wash it away! Nothing clever to say–one day… There’s nothing else to say.

4. Yellow Spider

We took the twine we used to use to tie up tight our tattered shoes, twisted twigs, a crooked cross, a necklace for the deeply lost.

The builder with the broken bricks, mother to the baby chicks, you made this world to look so nice–I wonder what the next one’s like?

Yellow spider, yellow leaf, yellow spider, yellow leaf, yellow spider, yellow leaf: confirms my deepest held belief.

5. A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contain

A cat came drifting to my porch from the outside cold, and with eyes closed, drinking warm milk from my bowl, thought, “nobody hears me, nobody hears me, ‘cause I crept in so soft, and nobody sees me, nobody sees me, as I watched six steps off.”

Like the peacocks wandering the walkways of the zoo who have twice the autonomy the giraffes and tigers do, saying: “No one can stop me, no one stop me, no one clips my claws! Now everyone watch me, everyone watch me, scale these outside walls!”

Oh, you pious and profane, put away your praise and blame! “A glass can only spill what it contains!” To the perpetually plain and the incurably inane: a glass can only spill what it contains!

What new mystery is this? What blessed backwardness–the Immeasurable one is held and does not resist! Struck by wicked words and foolish fists of senseless men, the Almighty One does not ascend!

I was halfway listening to what she thinks she knows. We’re like children dressing in our parents clothes, saying, “nobody knows me, nobody knows me, no one knows my name! Nobody knows me, nobody knows me, nobody knows me…”

I half-heartedly explained, but gave up peacefully ashamed–a glass can only spill what it contains! We went through Portugal and Spain, and in her mind the entire time it rained–a glass can only spill what it contains!

What new mystery is this? An overflowing emptiness! The invisible is seen among the shadows and the mist, before my doubting eyes, the infinite appears this time… The unquestionable remains questioned but makes no reply!

What new mystery is this?

“My rabbi,” my lips betray with a kiss…

What new mystery is this?

6. Nice And Blue (Part 2)

You were a song I couldn’t sing. Caught like a bear by the bees with its hand in a hive, who complains of the sting, when I’m lucky I got out alive! A life at best left half-behind–the taste of the honey still sweet on my tongue, and I’d run–Lord knows I’ve tried– but there’s no place on Earth I can hide from the wrong I’ve done.

Then I saw a mountain, and I saw a city, steadily sinking but suspiciously calm–it wasn’t an end, it wasn’t a beginning, but a ceaseless stumbling on. There, strapped like a watch on my wrist, that’s finished with gold but can’t tell time! Was all or what little pleasure exists seductively sold and uselessly mine?

(I was once the wine, you were the wine glass. I was once alive when you held me)

Our horse was fast and first from the gate with the lead of a length at the sound of the gun, and the last of our cash laid down to fate–at 17 to 1. But by the final stretch in the rear of the pack, that nag limping bad in the back, we reluctantly gave all the money we’d saved… A fifth to the commonwealth and the rest to the track!

Then I saw a forest grow in the city, and a driftwood wall of birdhouse gourds–and I’m still waiting to meet a girl like my mom who’s closer to my age… The true light of my eyes is a pearl: equally emptied to equally shine, and all or what little joy in the world seemed suddenly simple and endlessly mine.

(I was once the wine, you were the wine glass. I was once alive when you held me.)

G-d became the glass, all things left are emptiness. Oh, little girl, you’re just a little girl. If you look out and see a trace of a dark bed that was once my face, in the clarity of such grace, you’ll forget all about me.

7. The Sun And The Moon

Daniel broke the king’s decree, Peter had stepped from the ship to the sea, there was hope for Job like a cut down tree– I hope that there’s such hope for me.

Dust be on my mind’s conceptions of anything I thought I knew, each word of my lips’ description, and all that I compare to You.

The preference of the sun was to the south side of the barn–I planted to the north in a terra-cotta pot. Blind as I’d become, I used to wonder where You are–these days I can’t find where You’re not!

Mine’s a yard surface-tended, foxes burrowed underground. Gardening so while self-recommended–what could I have done but let You down?

The sun and the moon, I want to see both worlds as One! The sun and the moon, I want to see both worlds as One! The sun and the moon, I want to see both worlds as One!

Mine’s a story dimly remembered, and by the time it’s told, halfway true, of bad behavior, well-engendered… What good is each good thing we think we do?

Daniel broke the king’s decree, Peter had stepped from the ship to the sea, there was hope for Job like a cut down tree– I only hope that there’s such hope for me.

Find a friend and stay close and with a melting heart tell them whatever you’re most ashamed of–our parents have made so many mistakes, may we forgive them and forgive ourselves.

The sun and the moon, I want to see both worlds as One! The sun and the moon, I want to see both worlds as One! The sun and the moon, I want to see both worlds as One!

The Sun and the Moon are my Father’s eyes.

8. Orange Spider

A note we wrote the other day to any mice who pass this way, “on crumed and sugared countertops wWe must insist your traffic stop.” In their defense, they don’t refuse, but nonetheless we’ve come to use snapping traps and poison beans–far less diplomatic means.

Orange spider, orange leaf, orange spider, orange leaf, orange spider, orange leaf, confirms my deepest held belief.

9. C-Minor

Our house wrapped in disrepair, a small mouse peeked out from a hole beneath the stairs, nearby, to where my dad sat in his favorite chair, thinking about the government and muttering a prayer. I scattered some oats in hopes she’d stay, then sat still to stop from scaring her away–but she hurried on her little way, and scurried around my mind ever since, every day.

Open wide my door, my Lord, my Lord, to whatever makes me love You more, while there’s still light to run toward.

I’m water, you’re the dry wood, equal parts misguided, misunderstood. All the neighborhood watched the fire burn from where they stood, as the smoke said “We’re not half as bad as G-d is good.” Still, there’s a whisper in my ear, the voice of loneliness and fear, and I say: “Devil, disappear!” I’m still technically a virgin after 27 years–which never bothered me before, what’s maybe 50 more?

Open wide my door, my Lord, my Lord, to whatever makes me love You more, while there’s still light to run toward.

She came back for the oats but she brought along a “friend.” The harder the rain, the lower the flowers in the garden bend. I’d rather never talk again than to continue to pretend that this never ends.

10. In A Market Dimly Lit

The bird that plucked the olive leaf has been circling like a record ‘round the spindle in my mind, where the needle’s worn the grooves too deep, and scratched the wax that’s blistered from the heat, besides, from any movement in the room–if my cat walked by the arm skipped, but to my surprise, my interrupting cat improved a sound already so severely compromised.

The needle’s worn the grooves too deep.

I’m a donkey’s jaw on a desert dune beside the bush that Moses saw that burned and yet was not consumed. She’s the silver coin I lost, I’m the sheep who slipped away… We pray with fingers crossed–yet you listen patiently, anyway.

I wrote a little song for you, with a melody I’d borrowed put to words that didn’t rhyme, to repeat what you already knew, as the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation. You kept a distance out of fear you’d break, but what good’s a single windchime hanging quiet all alone? The music our collisions would make is the sound that turns the road-that-leads-us-back-home into home. The music our collisions make!

I had a rusty spade, but I’m not the fighting sort, if I was Samson I’d have found that harlot’s blade and cut my own hair short! Then in a market dimly lit I come casually to pay. You see my coins are counterfeit–yet you accept them, anyway.

So spare me your goodbyes, your waving-handkerchief-good-byes! Given my tendency to err, so, on the sentimental side, I’ll spare you my goodbyes, the truth belongs to G-d–the mistakes were mine.

11. O, Porcupine

Without a queen the locust swarm turned the ground to black, descending, like a shadowy tower on a fish’s back, and scattered the sticks who crawled like snakes in the sand, as the red clay took the form of a lizard who rushed like a moth to the flame of my open hand.

In my little world, in my sad, little world…

Then a speckled bird, humbly inspired, ran across the road when it could have flown, and it made me smile–and at the water’s edge, Babylon, as we lay and slept, the river wept for you, O’Zion! The stones cry out, bells shake the sky, all creation groans…

Shhhh!!!… Listen to it!

Messes of men in farmer poverty… Not much for monks but we pretend to be. We share a silent meal and a pot of chamomile–gypsies like us should be stamped in solidarity. And I held you in my fond but distant memory while waiting for the Mother Hen to gather me, who regretfully wrote, “you have a decent ear for notes, but you can’t yet appreciate harmony.”

O’porcupine, low in the tree, your eyes to mine, “you’d be well inclined not to mess with me.” And at the garden’s edge beneath a speechless sky, as his friends slept, Jesus wept–maybe it’s no wonder why… You wanna be set free? You wanna set me free? Well, that can only come from a union with the One who never dies.

In my little world, in my sad, little world, I patched a plaster wall in my little world. In my little world, I was waiting, just dying to take offense at something in my little world. In my little world, in my sad, little world, this is all there is in my little world…

In darkness the light shines on me. In darkness the light shines on you.

And I never gathered figs from off a thorny branch, and I never picked a grapefruit off a bramble bush, but for the past five–almost six years now–you know, you haven’t once looked at me with kindness in your eyes, and you say Judas is a brother of mine? Oh, but sister, in our darkness the light shines! And all I ever want to say for the rest of my life is how that light is G-d, and though I’ve been mistaken on this or that point, that light is G-d.

12. Brownish Spider

Every thing I thought I’d learned, ambition, and illusion turned to drawings on a loose-leaf sheet of figs and fruits I couldn’t eat.

What in her do I require? The face of gratified desire–so, what in me does she require? That face of a gratified desire…

Brownish spider, brownish leaf, brownish spider, brownish leaf, brownish spider, brownish leaf, confirms my deepest held belief.

No more spider, no more leaf, o more spider, no more leaf, no more spider, no more leaf, no more me, no more belief…

13. In A Sweater Poorly Knit

In a sweater poorly knit and an unsuspecting smile little Moses drifts downstream in the Nile. A fumbling reply, an awkward rigid laugh, and I’m carried helpless by my floating basket raft. Your flavor in my mind swings back and forth between sweeter than any wine and as bitter as mustard greens, and it’s light and dark as honeydew and pumpernickel bread–the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

As you plow some other field and try to forget my name, we’ll see what harvest yields, and, supposing I’d do the same. I planted rows of peas, but by the first week of July they should have come up to my knees, but they were maybe ankle high. Take the fingers from your flute to weave your colored yarns and boil down your fruit to preserves in mason jars, and the books are overdue, and the goats are underfed–the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

You’re a door-without-a-key, a field-without-a-fence, you made a holy fool of me and I’ve thanked you ever since. And if she comes circling back well we’ll end where we’d begun, like two pennies on the train track the train crushed into one. But if I’m a crown without a king, if I’m a broken open seed, if I come without a thing, then I come with all I need. No boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head–the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!

I do not exist, I do not exist, I do not exist…

I do not exist, only you exist, I do not exist…