A Love Poem to Jerusalem
I am writing a poem to you
Jerusalem the Beautiful
Wondering if it’s possible
That when God created you
He knew
I would fall in love with you
The moment I saw you
Forty-five years ago
Did he plant you in my dreams to create
A longing, an ache
For a place I’d never seen?
Until I was compelled to come to you
And walked your streets with such familiarity
That it must be
We’ve known each other for centuries
Perhaps for Eternity
Once, strangely, I saw me
Running in front of me
Wearing a white linen garment
Disappearing round a corner
In the Armenian Quarter…
Did God create your stones and gates
Your flowers and trees especially for me?
Knowing then
I would be inspired to paint them
Did he create your sweet clear air
To intoxicate me?
Often, I am certain, he is next to me
As I skip down the streets
Pleased with my elation
At the beauty of his creation
In the Spring especially
As my eyes bless the blossoms
Of the almond trees
And marvel at the carpets
Of wild flowers
And dance in the rain
For endless hours
My heart beats in tandem
To your heart’s rhythm
Jerusalem
My soul belongs to you
Now, at sixty-two
I am even more in awe of you
In the entire history
Of this exquisite City
I am absolutely certain
No one has loved you
More than I do
Helen Bar-Lev was born in New York City in 1942. She has lived in Israel for 36 years. She holds a degree in Anthropology from California State University, Northridge, 1972. Since 1976 Helen has devoted herself to art: painting, teaching and writing poetry. From 1989 until 2001 she was a member of the Safad Artists' Colony in the Upper Galilee where she had her own gallery. Helen is a member of Voices Israel English Poetry Society, the Israel Artists' and Sculptors' Association, the Canadian Federation of Poets, and the Canadian Poetry Association. She is the global correspondent in Israel for The Poetry Bridge, and Editor-in-Chief of the Voices Israel Annual Anthology.
Jerusalem Chronicle
More than five thousand years ago
Ancient Canaanites founded
Then as now and for eternity
The hills to the north and west
And the desert to the south and east,
With its
The Kingdom of the Israelites needed
A capital for their Promised Land.
Thus a city named for King David,
Tiny river flowing through,
Walls around built to protect.
But this fledgling enclave succumbed to
Urban planning and much worse fates.
Most ennobling, David’s heir, King Solomon,
Built on
A temple for the Jews, their Holy of Holies.
Perched on the mountain, this beacon shone
Securing the dominion
Of the future Kings of Judea.
But
Came to be known, fell prey to invasions
of nearly endless foreign armies.
Persians and Assyrians came,
Plundered, killed and dominated,
The fabled city never failing to
Find itself in the path of both trade and conquest.
Solomon’s original
Was obliterated only to be
Reconstructed by resilient Hebrews.
Even Greeks of Alexander the Great
Succumbed to resurgent Israelites
Lead by Maccabiahs, but later
Roman domination held sway in the Land.
Their Herod ruled and then the
Surrounded by a maze of tunnels,
Recently re-excavated, all that
Remained of that most revered by the Jews,
Was the western wall, closest to
Solomon’s original holy
Sanctuary on high, this place no less
Sacred after 3000 years.
The Romans changed the
Aqueducts were added, as was a
Commercial thoroughfare, the Cardo,
Its ancient columns now unearthed.
Grand Herodian palaces and
Opulent homes dotted ancient vistas.
An upstart vagabond with a following
Plied the ancient footpaths of
Walking the via Doloroso
Jesus met his end on the cross
At the hands of the Roman army.
Three hundred years later the Church of the
Holy Sepulcher arose on that very sight.
By then, Jesus’ followers had found their
Critical mass of new Christian believers.
After the Jews, these Romans too were
Vanquished from
Fourteen hundred years ago a surging wave
Of newly Islamic Arabs emerged.
Edifices sacred to Islam arose
On the
Mysteriously appeared there,
Transported, they say, on a magic carpet.
The Moslems ruled in
For centuries until northern
Christian crusaders returned.
A steady parade of so many
Invaders came within the walls
Of Solomon’s city. Much later
Those walls gave way to newer ones,
Armenian Christians and orthodoxy,
After the schism, all found homes in
Later yet, there were hundreds of years of Ummayids,
And then there was Turkish rule in the Land.
When the Ottomans fell in the first World War,
The British received a mandate for
By then, over hundreds of years,
Jews of a very broad diaspora
Had found their way back to
As had newer sects of Christians.
In 1948, when
Became a modern
Old
Broke out in ‘67,
Today, a modern city,
And an ancient one besides,
Of a vibrant nation, it
The heir to Solomon’s once great city.
Holy Jewish remnants sit aside
Those of the Moslems and Christians.
But this bastion of glory and
Veteran of history, is once again,
Forever, the capital of the Jews.
Lost Harmony of my Homeland
I came to the
for Peace and prosperity, but rather
I found a vengeful and virulent violence,
This the rhetoric of the reality
Of a genocidal jihad of a
Zealous annihilation.
No blessings or benedictions for this
Ignorant, fanatic quest for
Extermination by homicidal bombings
And random missile firings of this
Indiscriminate incendiarism of Islam.
Poisoning, shooting, exploding,
All spirited means for extinction,
The mass murder and mayhem of this
Devilish dogmatic destruction.
Kenneth Richard Fox was born in New York City and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University. He practiced Medicine and Surgery for 25 years, invented a host of patented laser medical devices and was the CEO of two laser medical devices companies. He has been a professor at Bar Ilan University, Haifa University, the University of the West Indies and St. George’s University, in both Medicine and Business Administration. He has published dozens of medical and scientific articles and a number of short non- fiction articles including “Mirage in the Desert” and “A Monster in Our Midst” (World and I Magazine, Washington, D.C.).
Jerusalem
If I were to walk the streets of Jerusalem
I would wear a bag big enough to carry
History
On every street I would stop
to see the footprints of those who came before me
to see if mine has any place in them
Israel
The dead sea is disapearing
the shores are no longer water and salt
just rocks formed by both
We are in Tel Aviv and the sun is shining
In between streets you can see the ocean tumbling
Palm trees are sweating in the heat
Everyone is walking down Bograshov
Like beads they spill onto the sidewalk
making their way through the city
Tova Gardner born and raised in St Paul, MN always knew she wanted to live in Israel. After graduating high school in 2000 she made Aliyah. Tova lives in the south of Israel near the Red Sea on a small kibbutz with her family. She is currently finishing her first collection of poems titled Stranger In This Land.
Israel at 60
by David Greenspan
I imagine Abba Kovner
as an old man
pointer to the temple
and legs crossed
still engrossed
with the thoughts
of a free land he could call home.
In the echo's of the cantor
on Yom Kippur
legs crossed
and stomach turning
thoughts of young girls
running through the forests
of German winters
knapsacks on their backs
and Stars on their arms
twist coolly and circle
the walls of a Fall day
in New York City.
I imagine Abba Kovner
still working out
the maps of underground escapes
as railcars scrape
through the moonlit trees
of hidden frozen graves
yearning for others
he wished he could have
but could not save.
I imagine Abba Kovner
tasting freedom
in the dates and olives
he grew on land
he could call his own
even as I'm sure
somewhere he
feared that it all
might be taken away
at any moment
with his fists in the air
and his heart beating Hatikvah!
David Greenspan is the editor in chief of Butcher Shop Press, as well as a special ed teacher in New York City and a restaurant manager in Queens. Over the years he has published more than 250 poets while running his magazine, The Butcher's Block. He plays guitar and sings with his band, The Brooklyn Blues, and paints when he can afford to.
Do Not Worry
The burned bus will repaint itself.
It will spring brand new seats and new tires.
The windows will all be reglazed.
The steering wheel will turn easily
and the gas tank will straighten itself.
The Ford sedan will throw out the explosives
and the homicide bombers
and return to its rightful owner in Jerusalem.
The eucalyptus tree will regrow its burned roots,
put forth new branches,
The asphalt will repair itself with a shiny black coat.
The red soil will become smooth and shiny after the rain,
The barbed wire will rid itself of the torn clothes and the
Arab laborer will be its old rusty self again.
The bereaved parents will open the shutters
and put flowers on the windowsill.
The amputees will grow new hands and feet.
The torn limbs and torsos will form young and muscular bodies.
The purple school bag will be clean and new
and contain neatly the tasty cheese sandwich
together with the sharpened color pencils.
Bus number 730 will resume its regular route and
the old train will carry orange crates and old auto parts to port
and whistle by the rail crossing.
Hanoch Guy spent his childhood and youth in the small town of Hadera, Israel surrounded by citrus orchards, olive groves and wheat fields. Hanoch explored the deserts of Israel and Sinai and was inspired by their powerful landscapes. He is a bilingual poet in Hebrew and English. Hanoch published poetry in Genre, Poetry Newsletter, Visions International, Feile Feste, Schuylkill Valley, Tracks, The International Journal of Genocide Studies and Poetica, where he won an honorable mention. He is an Emeritus professor in Temple University.
Sinai
by Brad Jacobson
What is the meaning of these rocks
The voices
The silent voices
What are they trying to tell me
Sound of silence
Quietness all around me
Look
Listen
What is the silence trying to tell me
Feel the wind
Blowing against my face
The wind
My thoughts
are empty
Look at the peaks and wonder
Look at the mountains
Are they looking back
Do they have wisdom
The rocks
The whispers
Silence
The rocks
The whispers
What are they trying to tell me
Forever
Desert Time
Staring
I kept staring
Looking back
A camel's grunt
Sweet Bedouin tea
I am a bird
On a peak
Sun setting on red sandstone
Signals from seven million stars
Hiking in Desert Time
A seashell fossil
A lion's trap
Gortex-hiking boots
Bedouin's sandals
A tourist bus
Visitors clean and shaven
Miles apart
Maybe aliens
Hiking in Desert Time
St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai
Inscriptions in the rocks
Events thousands of years ago
Menorah, goats, travelers
Hiking in Desert Time
Into the room staring
Staring
Lost
Hundreds of skulls and bones
Monks secluded
Since the 4th century
Once alive
Looking back
Mirrors
Hiking in Desert Time
Turning Away
Looking at the flesh of tourists' cheeks
Seventy years
Just a glimpse
Hiking in Desert Time
Brad Jacobson has been a volunteer in Israel in the Sar-El program for many summers. His Israel travel experiences are published in the American Development and Internationalization at the University of Missouri. Two poems have been recently published in Tikkun (Jourmal of Spritual Progressives). He has a M.Ed in literacy from MU and currently studies teaching English to second language learners in the graduate program. Both Sinai and Desert Time are taken from his experiences hiking in the high mountain regions near St. Catherine Monaster and Mount Sinai in the Sinai desert.
In a twilight dusk, there is a place in
In the West, we witness as ancient two thousand year old forest of Douglas Fir and Hemlock are decimated by modern greed; two thousand year growth
wiped out in one fell swoop. Wildlife and delicate balance of tree owl and fur creature run homeless as millions of acres of spruce and pine are wiped out
forever with no regard, not a second thought to their unique preciousness, to their irreplaceable beauty.
There in the East, in the Land of Israel, every solitary branch and root and trunk is whispered to by prayers to nourish its growth, to coax it into existence.
This existence is so fragile, yet sturdy; the newly planted trees, silent sentinels, like our ancestors standing guard over the land, witnesses to our ancient past.
By the Northern Galil, and in the Southern Negev, the mounds of dust, dirt and rock radiate eons of life and death and tower over, beckoning us to remember we are but as the dust. We watch as millions of layers of earth rise and extend down to the shores of the sea, the Dead Sea, of salt,heavily concentrated salt where nothing lives, the lowest point in the world. Along the road bordering the Dead Sea, opposite Jordan we ride, as the sun dances on the surface, glinting gold in the early morning, while palm and date groves appear and recede into the approaching noonday heat.
Layers upon layers of rock and sand and earth mark the ancient passages of time, and witness the love of a people who have given their blood for centuries to live in its desolate wasteland, unforgiving, unfathomable and magnetic through to the very core of the earth's time; witness to such infinite struggle and love of a land so unforgiving, unyielding, magnetic.
We ride along the precipice of time and hover there at the brink of disaster, never knowing how close we are approaching the edge, only to pull back to safer retreat where we think we are safe, always speeding up ever closer to the edge. The towering layers of dust layered time layered life can be toppled with a single drop of rain.
We are in the middle of nowhere amidst mountains of sand, after riding for hours. A young girl in army greens gets off the bus in mid-desert, hauls her heavy sack across her shoulder and walks down the road far, far into the hills. One sees traces of low buildings barely discernible in the distant haze. We are defending the Israeli- Jordanian border as one lone girl walks into the dunes. This lone girl is our defense.
Next are palms, rows upon rows;a farm of tall palms and then cypress groves. How do they get them so green?
No nation has conquered this desert like Israel. The land gives to no one and never has through all the ages of conquest of the mightiest nations on the face of the earth: only to us. The land belongs to Israel. It grows for no other hand.
The cacaphony of loud music and raucous teenagers is disturbed by the sudden appearance of an Israeli soldier. He stands in the aisle looking at the tourists who take all the seats who find themselves suddenly seeing him for the first time. He stands proud and tall like a lion; it is also upon him the future of world Jewry hangs.
He fights the wars, he lives that life and still he waits for us to give him a seat. I fight also, my own private wars on another plane. I don't know which future of the world depends on their outcome. His is more evident as he stands there waiting, black eyes flashing, nostrils flared, breathing long, slow, deep breaths and waiting.
Be careful and watch yourself that you do not forget what you have seen with your own eyes. Do not let what your eyes have seen pass from your minds as long as you live.
Barbara Kitai has been teaching Writing and Literature at City University of New York for over ten years. She has written about
Yerusholayim
Things did not always go
our way
It often seemed
as if this is the end
And it happened
in a trice
Hope drained
from our soul.
Yet
we never gave up
Convinced
that in the end of days
We shall
return
And the white and blue
will flutter again
In the City of David --
YERUSHOLAYIM
Abraham Linik is a retired school principal from newton, MA. His poetry has been published in Midstream, Judiasm, Poetica, Jewish Spectator, Art times, Black Buzzard Review, Pudding, among others.
I Pray
I pray to always be blessed,
Not only my spirit should rest,
Upon her holy stones and trees,
Within her limitless boundaries,
But also my body of flesh and blood,
Should tread upon her holy mud,
Should drench itself with holy sun,
And reside in the quarters of the Only One.
Yocheved Meth is founder and editor of The Newcomer's Guide, The Directory for The Religious English Speakers in Israel and Butterfly, a magazine published for religious single mothers. She lives with her family in Jerusalem.
Birthday Hora
A little frayed at the edges
a brazen minx at sixty
she is still dancing.
Her costume, a skirt of courage
and a cloak of patched promises.
(She tries to mend it daily.)
Her partners may change,
each have their own agenda.
The choreography may vary, but she
can follow or lead, and is not afraid
to solo. In moments of quiet
she reflects on the melodies she hears
and still dares to live and laugh
closing in on six decades.
Helen Padway's most current work can be found in the May issues of Writers' Journal, and Echoes, as well as the "WFOP 2009 Calendar" being published in The Jewish Women's Literary Annual. She is part of "Sparks," a band of poets and fabric artists who have created a show and reading called, "Threaded Metaphors," which travels to museums and public venues throughout her state. They are preparing their third show at the present time. Helen started in theater and migrated to television and radio doing voice-overs for public TV and radio commericals. She still thinks poets can help make the world a better place.
Holy City Home
O Jerusalem, how unlike any other!
If I were you I would blush red
At all the words written about you
At all the lyrics singing your praises
Every sojourner entered your gates
And explored your ancient wonders
Every army has been your lover
Some more gentle than others
You are nothing if not resilient
In the face of epic epochs
Your hills are ever alive
With melodic sanctity
I extol you in the East
As I exhalt you in the West
I lift my eyes to greet your face
I touch your walls with ten thousand thoughts
For this generation's Jew, wandering still
A few words offered in the spirit of goodwill:
Though I hope you will travel and faraway roam
I hope more that you'll call the Holy City home!
Israel Isaiah Sarna is an actor, playwright, screenwriter and poet from Ottawa, Canada. He received his B.A. in Drama from the University of Toronto in 2000, and has since performed in Toronto and Montreal. His poetry has been published in Canada and the U.S. in various publications including The Canadian Jewish News, Streteaters, Poetica, Yalla Journal and The Bulletin.
Ten a.m., Haifa Bay bus station
green buses lined up like panting athletes
at the starting line, dirt, diesel fumes
and oil slicks greet passengers sipping coffee
smoking, talking into cell phones
soldiers lean on railings, rifles
and submachine guns slung carelessly
between their legs
Everyone here has cell phones, each with
its own musical overture, the air is so thick
with conversation, you could slice it
with a metronome into scintillating fragments.
Where are you,
you said you would be here at nine?
The said to me,
I said to her, she said to me, the bitch!
Did you give the
children to eat? And don’t
forget your keys again.
and soldiers’ slang repeated everywhere
in acronymic anagrams of military shorthand
that only parents of conscripted children
can attempt to decipher
Here we all commingle, zealots and hobos,
gum-chewing youths with pierced tongues and nostrils,
mothers with bottle-fed babies, all rubbing shoulders
in the rush to go home, back to the base, visit friends
in hospitals; three dozen and more assorted life stories
thrown together for two brief hours into a green, caged
tiger on wheels
The morning paper tells the news that might have been:
a terrorist was captured on his way to explode his body bomb
at the central bus station in Tel-Aviv
Three dozen cell phone users continue their conversations
almost uninterrupted. They’re
used to this routine,
tomorrow they’ll be repeating it again
If you can crawl, nose to bumper, up Rehov Agripas
twist wheel across oncoming traffic
into the rancid alleyway behind the kosher emporium,
avoid hungry-eyed cats and sidelocked bikers
to find a sandy parking in Uncle Ezra’s lot,
where for ten shekels you’re treated like King David’s charioteer,
then wend your way back along Jaffa road,
the dusty internet hostel,
the chicken giblets fry man
scraping browned onion rings across his grill,
the sticky dough confection stand
where angry bees and flies are shooed
from borekas and baklava with cheese filling,
pistachio greened or oozing mushrooms
and mashed potatoes into brown paper bags.
If you pass the ticking blind pedestrian crossing before the shuk
and escape the gum-chewing guards scrutinizing you as you
enter, then and only then will the cacophony of abundance
that is Mahane Yehuda market burst into your vision,
alive and raucous with humanity and shouting vendors.
But beware, it’s Shabbat eve and in front of every stall a buzz
of shoulder bumping, fruit inspecting housewives
and black-coated zealots with whom you must compete
to snatch the choicest specimens into your bag,
scoop after luscious scoop, raise your right hand
clutching booty and declare at the top of your voice
"Please weigh this."
When you’ve repeated this ritual the required number of times,
fighting your way through cucumbers, tomatoes, plucked
chickens, mounds of fish on ice and carp nosing for air
out of water tanks, when you’re through with choosing
green onion, parsley, celery root,
you may gratefully dump your treasure in a shady corner
and stand in line for one of Jerusalem’s delicious moments –
Dod Levy’s falafel, where once again you are treated
like King David’s direct descendant, as between insertions,
he asks you, "Tehina, salad, chili paste, pickle, French fries?"
Quickly you translate; a dollar and a quarter.
King David himself never had it this good.
Johnmichael Simon has lived in
Zionism
"And we would often talk of Palestine. Their parents, like mine, had lacked the courage to wind up their affairs and emigrate while there was still time. We decided that, if we were granted our lives until the liberation, we would not stay in Europe a day longer. We would take the next boat to Haifa."
Eli Wiesel's Night
Then, there, at that time, Palestine was only a dream
but the word "dream" only belittles the severity of the circumstances
It was "the" hope--the heaven amid Dante's Inferno
it was unrealizable, unfathomable, just an idea, a name
a place, a home, a goal, a pulse . . .
. . . "the" pulse that rang through the skies while
black smoke copulated
And now, now, the eyes that were never
able to see her naked, illustrious body,
see her through my brown eyes,
and they see her figure even more defined
at night by the candlelight
The longing of a million x 6 throbbing hearts
can still be heard tempting G-d;
the souls who were never fed
the souls hanging in Israel's hands
passing in and out of us
looking for breath to get them there
through us and with us
And sometimes the sounds are deafening
their voices are like shrieks of piercing wind
winding up and down a subway tunnel
and then thinning out
because now, some of us are deaf,
blind, mute, dumb and numb
We can't decipher their voices
the English is too loud
too many are indifferent
and wrapped up in the "self"
to fathom that they are here because of them
to fathom that they are a link in a chain --
a chain that leads to Judah's tribe
Lindsay Soberano-Wilson holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in English and Creative Writing from Concordia University and a Masters of Arts degree in English from the University of Toronto. Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have been published in various Canadian publications, such as The Jewish Tribune, The Canadian Jewish News, Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, Running with Scissors, Canadian Woman Studies Journal, and Yalla Journal. She teaches high school English and Drama in Toronto.
Jerusalem Golden
Over the eastern hills,
early in the morning,
the newly-risen sun
glows an orange ball.
Golden light spears up
though a pale, blue-grey sky,
almost white.
Their eastern faces golden,
cardboard cutout blocks of
square stone buildings
dramatic geometry
against the sky.
Omar's gold blue hexagon,
Sepulchre's double domes,
sharp in the morning light
the city nestles in its walls.
Its people
hating,
loving,
living.
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (2001)
Yesterday there were terrible bombs on Ben Yehuda,
Two, one on each end, and then one more.
Children, teens, killed, maimed, wounded.
This, no honourable fight of a proud people,
hatred, killing for killing's mad joy,
there is no sense to it, none, none ...
Today, here in Cambridge, it was warm,
a balmy day for December, with Fall's yellow
but a wintery date. Trees unclad for winter;
Squirrels fat and busy, gathering, playing.
beautiful quiet day, walking on the Common,
and there - bombs black bitter blood.
Tomorrow, what will be there?
Here they will argue with passion
about things. What a fortune!
Our life is beaten on other forges.
Michael E. Stone was born in England, grew up in Australia and have lived in Jerusalem, with the odd year abroad, since 1960. He has been reading poetry all his life and writing it since he was fifty-nine (about ten-years). His poetry has been published in many venues. His translation of the medieval Armenian Adam Epic, 6000 or so lines long, has been published by Oxford University Press (2008). he is a retired university professor, still learning, teaching and writing.
In Exile
by Steven Weiner
We were born in Babylon.
In exile
We were home.
The walls of old Jerusalem
Now confine our days.
In the temple
They are slaughtering lambs
The sound of the axe
And the squeal of bone
Is too much to bear.
It reminds me
Of my mother
Chopping angry onions.
I sit by the waters
And weep.
I am a stranger
Forever in foreign lands.
May small moments of courtesy
Bring us some peace.
The roosters of violence
Called their flocks to another feast.
The Jews of Babylon wandered
Out to another fate.
What became of our exile
When we brought exile
Through Jerusalem’s gates?
Steven Weiner is a nurse practitioner, hospital administrator, father, and poet. He writes mostly at night while his family sleeps, on the train, the sidewalk, when he wakes up, and after he lays down. He has written for years, but worked at the craft seriously only the last few years. Most recently he has been in a workshop at the 92nd Street Y in New York with Rachel Wetzsteon and a group of about ten incredibly talented and generous folks. His poetry has been published previously in Bridges, Ellipsis, and the Journal of the Central Commission of American Rabbis.
