Author: lia

Providence and Predestination

While all by God is noticed and foreseen, We humans are created with free will; And thus, though helped, must choose between Evil and good; to live in peace or kill. So Providence is not, as some believe, Another word for narrow predestination, Which, being deterministic, doesn’t leave Us scope, concerning Blessing or Damnation. Indeed, […]

Milky (4)

The latest twist in this fairytale: She’s now a healer inside a jail. Ramat Gan 16 November 2023

Israel’s Nine-Eleven

Hamas’ heinous massacre Of innocents On October the Seventh (Israel’s Nine-Eleven) Has sealed its fate And jeopardized the lives Of countless innocent Gazans. No decent human being Throughout the world Would justify Such evil, unspeakable Brutality. This said, alas, It must also be stated That, just as Al Qaeda Was America’s Frankenstein monster, So Hamas […]

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The question is how the Israeli Left And the P.L.O. would react, If Netanyahu And fellow secular Revisionists Were to grant custody Of the Al Aqsa compound To Bin Salman In return for his consent To transform Jordan Into a Palestinian state. For their part, Israeli theocrats And Evangelical zealots Would no doubt regard The […]

Milky (3)

When first we moved to Ramat Gan, To help Tamar with her baby boy And better know her husband Dan, For Milky there was little joy. Restricted again she was by lead, Since dogs are multitudinous here; By her wrenching, I became knock-kneed And she a steadfast mutineer. Pedestrian highways span the park, Adjacent to […]

AI

Though wholeness is indeed my priority And the sensing function should be valued much, My intuition’s the chief authority Within the psyche and behaves as such. Therefore, I can’t ignore the fear AI Will make authentic artists obsolete: Since fail they may to prove what they supply Is not the work of a technocentric cheat. […]

If You Wish Not to Fall

My body now, alas, is paying the price, Together with our fading bank account, For my ensuing failure to heed the advice I gave when preaching sermons on the mount. Namely, the need to make one’s psyche whole By strengthening those traits which suffer dearth, As well as recognizing the sacred Soul, In order to […]

New Rome

Due not least to constant U.S. vetoes Of U.N. resolutions In New York, Israel’s occupation Of Palestinian land and lives Persists. Meantime, America’s Pander President, His eye on re-election And the impending threat Of a nuclear-arsenalled Shiite Iran, In the name of Abraham Is keenly brokering The lucrative marriage Of hubristic Israeli hi-tech And Hell-extracted […]

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The streets near the park In Ramat Gan, Traffic-clogged and polluted During the hot and humid day, At night Are filled with choiring Lean and agile Young jackals. Blessed by the balmy light Of the Moon And frolicking nimbly In communal yards, While ignoring the barks Of house-held dogs, These furry fairies Transform the stressful, […]

Technocratic “Democrats”

Israel’s soul is all but lost. For the most vocal And influential “Democratic” protestors Against the hell-bent Netanyahu And theocratic supremacists Care a great deal more About maintaining Their profitable Upstart hi-tech status, And thus the “Abraham Accords”, Than ending the unjust, Inhumane, Techno-dependent And undemocratic Occupation. Ramat Gan 24 July 2023

Ecclesiastes

Were he alive today, The holistic Qohelet, Or Ecclesiastes, Would tell Excessively sanguine Israelis Who’ve made Palestinians Unduly choleric Phlegmatic Or melancholic: Only by ceasing the Occupation Can you and they regain balance; And thus become whole And live in peace. Ramat Gan 22 June 2023

A Mystic’s Testament

The Soul of man Is a microcosm; A Divine spark. And therefore God, too, Is loving, good and one. Jerusalem 10 May 2023

A Religious Existentialist

Though Abrahamic faiths were spawned by menWhose potent words their fellows deeply movedAnd sanctified by priests, who chant “Amen!”,God’s actual existence can’t be proved.Another crucial point one shouldn’t neglect:Concerning His insights, feelings, thoughts and acts,Too many folk unconsciously projectOn God their dualistic psyche’s facts.As for conformists’ views on Divine willThey deem revealed through visions or […]

Sympathy For Sir Mick

                     I Now you’re allowed to introduce yourself As a man – nay, shining knight – of wealth and taste, The question’s whether all that fame and pelf Has laid your heart and precious soul to waste. If not, is it due to well-learned politesse, Or to some secret, bourgeois self-restraint; […]

Sonnets from Eden

                     Sonnet 1 I’m in the Garden thanks to you, dear Eve, Who never lost your childhood link with earth; And, if we’re wise, we shall not have to leave As did our namesakes, who it’s said gave birth To man’s fell quest for Godhead, which at last Has reached the […]

Shakespeare (1)

Like Rabbi Yeshu, he applied the artWe know today as depth psychologyTo a great people sadly torn apartBy man-made, paranoid reality.Like Jung, he showed projection is the causeOf seeing plots in alien persons’ eyes,Of waging God-forsaken holy wars,Of consummating prophecies and lies.Too bad he cannot come and write a playAbout our born again crusader kings,Who […]

Shakespeare (2)

Antipodean views of reality Within a harsh, authoritarian state Encouraged him to feed dialectically Rather than serve his creed upon a plate. Thus used he negative capability, Ascribed by Keats to the chameleon poet, Not to pay homage to relativity But to reveal the light and hence bestow it. If he were here, I feel […]

Shakespeare (3)

Like us, Will lived in fundamentalist times: Belief was tainted with literalistic science And thought police committed evil crimes Against those citizens that scorned compliance. By giving the world allegorical plays He paid great tribute to the golden mean: For only metaphor the truth conveys, Which lies not at the poles but in between. If […]

Shakespeare (4)

Even if, let’s say, his basic game in life Was to possess his cake and eat it too – That is, to lay at will a faithful wife And with dark ladies cock a doodle do; To be a sentimental, loyal papist When Protestants weren’t giving him the nose; A neo-pagan, Venus-struck escapist Should this […]

Shakespeare (5)

If Will had sought to eat and have his cake Beyond the years of ill-bred, greedy youth, He never would have chosen thence to make His art, through dialectic, show the truth That well-wrought egos should determine right When dealing with the psyche’s dark Sheol, Where dual, archetypal forces fight Their other side for mastery […]

Shakespeare (6)

Whoever wrote the verse on Shakespeare’s tomb May prove prophetic far beyond his ken: For that which was an all-reversing womb Might be in turn reversed by future men. Then blest indeed the man who’d spare the stones From hell-bent cloners bound to seek a way, Despite the curse, to move what once were bones […]

Shakespeare (7)

If like most other geniuses he bore Within himself the genius of the age, At times opposing forces split his core Inducing fits of madness, fear and rage. This said, it’s clear his ego’s light was strong: Enabling him to differentiate, Despite his shadow’s weight, ’tween right and wrong; Creative art and schizophrenic state. He […]

Shakespeare (8)

Before those poets Milton, Keats and Blake, Will knew the web of life’s a mingled twine; That good and evil grow, for growing’s sake, Together, as indeed do joy and pine; That Mother Nature loves to make men whole Through her collaborator Mistress Art, Whose dialectic briefly heals the soul By synthesizing polar mind and […]

Shakespeare (9)

Will knew persona violates the soul, If from the wearer his own flaws it hides: For only he who owns his shadow’s whole, And he alone who’s whole the truth provides. Thus, while an actor Will for good remained, As poet-playwright he explored the heart: This basic extravert was therefore trained, By seeking truth, to […]

Shakespeare (10)

If Jews and Arabs in JerusalemWould read together Will’s collected works,A wholesome spirit should envelop them,Healing the wounds where sour infection lurks:For unkind dealings and divisive creedsAre shown in Shakespeare’s plays to be the stuffOn which insatiate hatred duly feeds –Commodities his sounder parts rebuff.It is for sanity the poet callsIn order to resist the […]

Shakespeare (11)

Like all the greatest souls humanity Has offered up to Nature’s sacred quest, Will knew the starting point is sanity Without which man by chaos is possessed. Yet sanity includes the truths of heart, So often seen as foes to those of mind: The natural need for love must play its part – In William’s […]

Shakespeare (12)

Through empathy, as if he were God’s spy,Will took upon himself the sum of things:This extravert and introvert could plyWith equal scope ’tween scholars, whores and kings.Like Rabbi Yeshu he perceived the factThat every situation is uniqueAnd, if one keeps each faculty intact,One knows the way to act or write or speak.At times he therefore […]

Shakespeare (13)

Although to make of situations sense The fitting faculty must take command, Will knew of wholeness one should not dispense When serving a dramatic scene’s demand. Thus, like the archetypes that in us rule, Each character both light and dark betrays – Not least the ever empathetic fool, Who maybe most the Bard’s own soul […]

Shakespeare (14)

Conspiratorial snobs that like to think He was not who he was, the Stratford man, Enchain themselves by their desire to link The Bard with Oxbridge chair or noble clan. Elizabethan playwright Robert Greene Discharged a pamphlet just before he died About young Will; but this old fart had seen An upstart crow and beast […]

Shakespeare (15)

In Shakespeare’s plays self-knowledge is the taskHe sets for those he wishes to achieveIntegrity behind whatever maskWith which themselves and others they deceive.To some a new persona will be lent –Of peasant, for example, priest or page –But all on self-revealing quests are sentWithin the mind and in the world on stage.Yet, more than this, […]

Shakespeare (16)

If “mercy seasons justice” is the heart Of William’s creed regarding human sin – Providing penance true performs its part, Like him we ought with Yeshu to begin: For, though no doubt apocalyptic, he In practice taught the truths of natural law; And though to him the terms psychology And art were Greek, he wielded […]

Shakespeare (17)

When in that chamber of Jerusalem Where Jews with Arabs read the works of Will, How often I have wished to speak with them About why peace eludes some nations still: Why West revives the spirit of Versailles, Which triggered Hitler’s psychopathic state; Lets victims’ awesome heirs here occupy Their scapegoats’ lives, and vengefulness create. […]

Shakespeare (18)

When Shakespeare wrote his lines would outlive stone, The prophetic soul had not yet dreamed on chips Which in computers (also then unknown) May render sonnets obsolete as pips. For who, today, will spare sufficient time To tear himself away from all the screens, Or generate the thought to ponder rhyme Now thinking’s done for […]

Shakespeare (19)

Why bother writing? Shakespeare said it all, And in a manner one could never match; Yet, when I stop, I slowly shrink and fall Until new images inside me hatch. Meantime my soul’s made pregnant by a thought, An intuition sharp-eyed as a bird, And hence the brood by midwife Fancy’s brought Through pen to […]

Shakespeare (20)

Kinetic are the lines our poet writes For the feisty queen of fairies in his play About a dream in summer, when the nights Are long and moonshine holds its potent sway. Prophetic too: Though vexed with Oberon, Titania’s intuition gleans the fact That their behaviour’s made its mark upon The seasons, which with turbulence […]

Hear, O Israel!

Oh cease the Occupation totally, And let the Palestinians build a state; By taking back our shadow, we could be A catalyst for peace instead of hate. For they, if given justice and respect, In turn might stop projecting onto us Their own dark side, and so at last reject The Jaffa Syndrome: self-delusive truss. […]

Synchronicity

If one has truly exercised free choice, And utilized the natural faculties; Exempted God from sandwiching His voice Between one’s will and lustful tendencies; Released the wounded conscience from its snare, Through penitence and resolution new To help illume the world by being fair To those on whom one’s shadow once one threw; The stage […]

Hippocrates

(Dedicated to my father) The wise Hippocrates of humours wrote (Viz: choler, melancholy, blood and phlegm) These fluids the four temperaments denote, And we in us should try to balance them. Today, its plain the third and fourth prevail – The practical and scientific kinds – While the romantic and nostalgic fail To move pragmatic […]

Hananiah

I knew that through his pain he wished to give Some thing appropriate to me a friend: But wearing such a watch I felt a spiv – To be an extravert I can’t pretend. Just then I grasped how tied he was to Time And humbly took the diary he presented, Not guessing, though, how […]

Yokhanan

When first we met in Nineteen eighty-eight Outside the P.M.’s house in Balfour Street Along with other folk to demonstrate Because the P.L.O. he would not greet, I knew at once from Yokhanan’s shy smile, Which spiced his earnest, sage and witty saws, He was a man without a trace of guile: A Jew that […]

An Aspiration

Never again should my dread of nuclear war Or of environmental catastrophe; The imminent collapse of civil law And steady rise of hard pornography, Allow me to forget the awesome truth That life itself is brief and rests on blood; That man has always feared the serpent’s tooth And seen the worm corrupt the virgin […]

“Eden”

I’m much too vulnerable and immature To directly be of help to fellow souls; Too self-absorbed, intense and insecure To spare the time or thought for other goals. The best I can achieve is not to harm, And through my verse to advocate the good: For thus at times I earn myself some calm, And […]

Jerusalem

It’s true my verse is short of imagery, And too diluted by metaphysical thought Through which I try to fight idolatry Wherein mankind today is clearly caught: And no more so than in Jerusalem – This artful city of myths “upon a hill” – That naturally most seduces them On whom she can inflict the […]

The New Babel

When a thousand channels will comprise TV, Parents will find with impotence and pain There’s no way left to keep their children free From evil images which stamp the brain And corrupt innocence before it can flower Into deliberate kindness, hope and trust: The opposites of brutal will to power That threatens to reduce the […]

Survival

Whether because the written word might die, Due to the “audio-visual” revolution; Or since the world might be ignited by Atomic bombs – what chance their dissolution?; Or as my verse might be considered trite, I often feel it will not me survive While knowing well I’ll never cease to write: How else could I […]

For Over Twenty Years

For over twenty years my soul I wrought Upon the anvil sacred to the Jew; An actor in God’s drama truly caught: No mere aloof observer of the view. Indeed, in one scant quarter century, Amongst the toughest nation on the earth, I lived four thousand years of history In which the spirit knew more […]

To a Californian Friend

When sit I midst the fumes and noise that fill My flat from traffic, fires and roaring planes, Or see, when walking, persons idly spill Their garbage in the city’s parks and lanes; When read I that our future lies on Mars, Or contemplate the simple, sordid truth That peace to philistines means faster cars, […]

The Hymn of a Computer Programmer

O Supercomputer, paragon of sense! Adjustable, efficient, rational; Endowed with mind so lucid and immense, Your mood is never unpredictable. In short, unlike with Homo Sapiens, Imagination sabotage can not Your calculations grave on which depends The future health of everything we’ve got: For, far from Mother Terrible or hag, You Goddess Reason (born of […]

“Virtual Reality”

Each year the camera another word Supplants in human minds intent on thrills, And God’s communication is more blurred For lack of truth the word alone fulfills. As literature’s surpassed by crass TV, Imagination active yields in turn To passive Virtual Reality, Which programmed is by technocrat concerns. When I am old, I fear, our […]

To Abie Nathan

I oft recall with sad and tender smile The day I first did hear your noble words, Which reaching were Euphrates and the Nile, From Voice of Peace upon the sea reposed. Since then I’ve read about your dovish gall, Like flying freely into Nasser’s net Or sailing solo through the barred Canal With streetwise […]

End of Spring

Again the time has come to moan the loss Of grass and plants which but a month before Bestrewed the naked Valley of the Cross But now lie mown and parched upon the floor. It’s time to brace oneself for longer days Of mute blue skies and diesel engines loud, For mindless deeds performed in […]

Democratic Prophets

Today in Israel we see once more The archetypal, psycho-social fight ‘Tween prophets, priests and kings, regarding law, Political power, and meaning of wrong and right. Unlike before, however, prophets now Tend to be secular, though no less humane – Indeed, their democratic ethics endow The kin of Esau with equal rights, not pain. Bigots […]

Netanyahu’s Extrication?

Presumably Bibi believesThat, since Iran has all but madeAn atom bomb,Were he to order a pre-emptive strikeFactious Israelis would uniteAnd then reprieve –Nay, release himFrom judicial judgment. That this war could sparkAn apocalypseIs a risk he, it appears,Would be willing to take.Indeed, his “prophecies”Regarding Iran’s objectives,Though paranoidAnd possibly self-fulfilling,Might well be justified. Needless to say,Should […]

Milky (2)

Few humans Milky fails to greet,When walking or balking in the park.The problem is those dogs we meetWhose hints her paranoia spark. Then she will snarl and bear her teethAnd, if attacked, will fiercely fight;The trampled enemy beneathUnable to dispatch a bite. Speaking of bites, here’s freaky foodFor thought, regarding Milky’s mind –In short her […]

Bouli (2)

Before we had Bouli, our first dog, I’d visit each day the Botanic Garden – For me a natural synagogue, Or Eden, where I’d feel Earth’s pardon. Since dogs are not admitted there, The local Valley of the Cross Became instead our thoroughfare, With its ancient aura and modern dross. Dear Bouli is an easy […]

Palistrael

While climate change is clearly ominous, Regarding the future of humanity, Another threat is no less dangerous – Apocalyptic religiosity. Since the two-state solution is now dead And Revisionists their zealous fight have won, Evangelicals believe they hear Christ’s tread: Their countdown to Armageddon has begun. Meanwhile Islamic eschatology Provides its own, ingenious “End of […]

Apt Symbols

In spite of the rubbish bins,Under every bushIn my local parkLie plastic bags, bottles,Cups, plates, forksAnd knives.Apt symbolsOf the capitalist unconscious. Needless to say,The first act of far-RightSnotrichAs Finance MinisterWas to toss away the taxOn these very items. Jerusalem4 January 2023

Shakespeare (21)

While refugees from freedom keenly look Towards the Holy Land for the Messiah, And mad apocalyptists scan the Book For prophecies of all-consuming fire; While ruthless businessmen in turn exploit These manic souls, by linking faith with wealth (Thus making them in practice most adroit At helping to enable Mammon’s health); An antidote to such […]

Barata

While, to stay out of jail, Netanyahu overrides And undermines Israeli democracy By empowering theocrats (Who project onto God Their collective, authoritarian, Patriarchal bent), Some ultra-Orthodox dissidents Find sanctuary At Barata, An open house in Jerusalem, Which celebrates freedom, Creativity And the divine Soul. Jerusalem15 December 2022

Self-Fulfilling Prophets

In order to retain power Netanyahu and Trump With the help Of their autocratic Evangelical and “Abrahamic” allies Will continue to enable Self-fulfilling prophets In Jerusalem And the West Bank To realize Their theocratic dreams. Jerusalem 8 November 2022

Milky

Instead of our saintly, snow-white dog, We now have a jumpy, stubborn “bear”. Taking her for walks is always a slog, Since to her each path’s a potential snare. That’s not surprising, given her past Spent on the loose for several years. Who knows how long her trauma will last, For haunted she is by […]

H.M. King Charles III

Inspired by Shakespeare, Jung and other sages, Who told how shadow can be turned to light, And prophets, who have warned throughout the ages, When Prince he voiced dismay at Earth’s dire plight. Since he was also able the Soul to reach And see accordingly humanity’s best, Once crowned, some subjects will hope he’ll preach […]

To Elliot Israel Cohen

When Joyce chose Bloom to be his Ulysses, His favourite character in literature, Like Homer he mocked the cult of Hercules, Which, needless to say, in Zion is secure. Thus when we met that day on Balfour Street, I knew my Bloom, the Joycean mensch, I’d found: Loyal, observant, earthy, kind, discreet, Prophetic, modest, jocular, […]

James Joyce’s Daughter

Though Nora had inspired his Ulysses, Jim’s daughter Lucia threatened her mother’s role When she his deep dejection seemed to ease And he her fitful mental state console. Old Jung believed her father was its source: A “latent schizoid”, saved by ingenious art, Whose anima projections in due course Made her his soul mate, him […]

In Response

If, as seems likely, In Israel and America Pluralistic democracy Will be trumped By autocratic theocracy, The West Bank Shall be annexed, A Third Temple built And Messianic expectation Reignited. In response Jewish and Christian dissidents Would acknowledge Jesus Not as “Messiah ben Yosef” Who’ll return as “ben David” Or Apocalyptic “Son of Man” With […]

Since ‘Sixty-Seven

Since ‘Sixty-seven I believed my vocation Was to encourage Israel to be a light By letting the Palestinians form a nation And thus transcend the tragic need to fight. As time went by, inevitably I became A tired dreamer, rancorous and sad To witness politicians without shame Make the dire situation increasingly bad. Indeed I […]

Gandhi’s Anima

Like other males who end up being whole, Within his psyche Gandhi duly found The Anima that leads men to their Soul And thence to deeds of love and words profound. Yet first the shadow needed to be owned, So evil could be sublimated well; For his violent thoughts and outbursts Gandhi atoned Until the […]

Ireland’s Vocation

Were Joyce alive today he wouldn’t leave His Mother Ireland, to live and write abroad; For with good reason he would now believe She’s grasped the truths he dauntlessly explored. Moreover, pleased he’d be that she belongs To Europe’s league of nations, the E.U., And with her partners on the quiet longs To forge a […]

Mother Russia’s Potential

Were Russia governed not by ruthless men But empathetic folk who sanction peace, Democracy and freedom would flourish then And invasion of her neighbours at once would cease. For Putin’s lust for empire is clearly seen By all enlightened souls as will to power – A patriarchal urge that has always been Their bane since […]

Macrocosm-Microcosm (2)

It’s no surprise Many more men than women Are violating, abusing And exploiting Mother Earth. Due to the “Abraham Accords” — Patriarchal phallicies – The U.A.E. shall pump Their crude oil, Their filthy fossil fuel, To Europe Via an inevitably leaky, Long and tumid Pipeline Penetrating Israel through Eilat. Meanwhile Jerusalem’s municipality Converts curvaceous paths […]

“The Abraham Accords”

(Dedicated to Samer Sinijlawi) Though Jacob, Ishmael and Jesus seem To have discovered how to live in peace And share an erotic, hi-tech, fiscal dream, The region’s ancient nightmare will not cease. For not only did this deal at first arise Thanks to the threat a Persian Ali poses, But its sponsor Trump, a veritable […]

Sholam

If Esau and Jacob’s kin would but unite And form a single state, Palistrael, Some citizens would seek to spread the light And try to save us all from needless hell. For they’d emerge with hope from this brave land To heal mankind with words of love and peace; Backed by good deeds and the […]

Enlightened Beings

I dreamt our planet was about to die Because of human violence and greed; Enlightened beings landed from the sky And brought with them the news we sorely need. Namely that, far from coming here to quell Through force or, via “Doomsday”, to sternly judge And send the guilty to a cruel Hell, Their role […]

James Joyce’s Muse

Considering the sheer variety And literary genius of Joyce, When looking for kindred spirits and parity One hears the myriad-minded Shakespeare’s voice. And though he loathed the autocratic Church, Jim’s other twin was Aquinas, whom oft he quoted; Like Will, this saint is central to the search For that to which Ulysses at core’s devoted. […]

If

If Israel were led not by callous men But women whose priority is peace, Inclusiveness and fairness would flourish then And the fell Occupation at last would cease. Moreover, global warming would be heeded And refugees from Africa treated well; Teenagers given the love and empathy needed To counteract this patriarchal hell. “A foolish dream!” […]

Christian Fundamentalists

Since they regard The archetypal, Greek inscribed New Testament As the objective biography Of Jewish Jesus And the blueprint of God, They inevitably accept And condone A temporal interpretation, With its bloody implications, Of Armageddon And “The End of Days”. If, on the other hand, They would view This multi-layered, Multi-dimensional Hellenistic Mystery literature Not […]

Binyamin Netanyahu

For power’s sake This Zionist Revisionist And master manipulator Of the collective unconscious Has forsaken and betrayed Those prophetic precepts That throughout the ages Have enlightened the Gentiles And saved the Jews.   Jerusalem 21 May 2021

Intifada

Every now and again The elephant in the room Breaks his chains And, until subdued By his briefly awakened Captors, Goes on the rampage. Jerusalem 13 May 2021

“Ulysses”

A massive portrait by a panentheist And fitting myth for perplexed males today; Like God, the author dwells within its midst While living beyond its limits far away. Moreover, since each creature contains the creator And vice versa, Stephen, Boylan and Bloom Lead us to realise we, like Joyce, are greater Than our own sex: […]

Panentheists

Like pantheists, panentheists maintain Almighty God is everything that is; The universe is holy and each brain Is basically a single cell in “His”. Yet, like theists who indignantly react To the conclusion God is also clod, Panentheists accept the simple fact Despite his status man can not be God. So, if everything isn’t God […]

The Prophet Jesus

No God the Son Or Messiah of mine, Despite the creeds Of Constantine, But prophet and sage. For the words he spun And his loving deeds Bear the image-Divine Humanity needs In this nuclear age. Jerusalem 20 March 2021

The Prophet (2)

Dictator not he, But midwife and nurse To the Word that is born Through his deeds or verse. Jerusalem 15 March 2021

The Mystic-Poet

No demiurge he,But midwife and nurseTo the Word made fleshIn the womb of his verse. Jerusalem14 March 2021

An Epitaph

No “poet” he, But thinker terse Who dressed his thoughts In measured verse. Jerusalem 9 March 1998

Gandhi’s Wholeness

(Dedicated to Ben Skoler) Just as beloved wholeness was his emphasis Regarding the individual’s spiritual quest, So Gandhi strove for that sacred synthesis: The macrocosmic marriage of East and West. And to those who said he was an incarnate god He stressed his natural birth and earthy side: A son of Adam, or soul implanted […]

Gandhi’s God

(Dedicated to Hanan Ashrawi) The greatest prophet to have blessed mankind Since Bahaullah’s quest for unity, Mahatma Gandhi clearly left behind The means to build a strong community. Through nonviolent acts against the power That occupied his nation and sapped its might, He showed how the oppressed will cease to cower If fortified by faith […]

Ancient Alien Theorists (2)

Like religious fundamentalists, These pseudo-scientific, Technocentric messianists Interpret imaginative Ancient archetypal myths Not as poetic legends, Expressing psychological And spiritual truths Gleaned only in part From specific historical events, But as literal, objective facts. Jerusalem 5 December 2020

To Save Humanity

Only belief In the good and loving One God And in the Divine spark, Or Soul, Within each person Can save humanity From the theocratic Supremacists And technocratic Atheists Striving to enslave the world. Jerusalem 4 December 2020

“Pompeo the Great”

Is it mere coincidence That the evangelical Would-be President Of the United States Who has set the stage For Armageddon Should of all names Be called Pompeo? Jerusalem20 November 2020

A Vision (3)

Hand in hand In a circle A multi-national, Multi-racial chain Of individuals Share in silence The wholeness, Courage, faith And love That stem from the Soul, Or Divine spark, Within each one And know they can heal The world. Jerusalem 16 October 2020

In the Valley of the Cross

On the narrow paths Of this valley of the shadow of death, Though dodging panting joggers, Side-stepping puffing cyclists, Fleeing from family gaggles, Preventing friendly souls From stroking my gentle dog, I feel I am still stalked By the invisible, Silent and fell Coronavirus. Jerusalem1 June 2020

A Poem by Leopold Bloom

Just when I felt my life was absurdAnd was heading for a dreadful fall(Since none with “Bloomusalem” concurred)I found, it seems, the new Saint Paul. Jerusalem 21 May 2020

To Israel’s Lawmakers

Only a just peace With the Palestinians, Or “Children of Esau”, Can bring to pass Israel’s Long-awaited redemption. If, as the Trump Plan urges, You choose to bow To the blackmail And sheer idolatry Of Jewish settlers And evangelicals And annex the West Bank, You’ll steer – nay, plunge Our nation Into the dark abyss […]

Opportunists

While most of humanity Is preoccupied With the invasive Coronavirus, With the blessing of Donald Trump — Possessed by his joyous, Deterministic and supremacist Evangelical base — Corrupt Israeli secular nationalists And theocratic Messianists Are poised to annex The West Bank. Jerusalem22 April 2020

Coronavirus

Few could tell World War Three Would be an apocalyptic showdown Between humanity And a microscopic virus Hell-bent, Like some of our leaders, On becoming King of the World. A crisis may be disturbing, But it’s also a crossroads – A crucial opportunity. Time is running out. The human race, Therefore, Must choose right now […]

Evangelicals

It’s no coincidence Evangelicals Who can’t distinguish Fact from fiction, And thus make real “The End of Days”, Are the truest believers In Trump’s fake news. Jerusalem 19 February 2020

“The Deal of the Century”

After apartheid has failed, Rather than agree to equal rights, Spurred on by evangelicals And dismissing prophetic cries The hateful heirs of Joshua Will surely feel inclined To drive the Children of Esau Across the River Jordan And declare a Palestinian state. Jerusalem 30 January 2020

A.D.

Of the many things That must make The kind angels weep Perhaps the foremost Is the memory of how A non-violent, egalitarian Jewish prophet Was converted, or transformed, Into a divine and immortal Roman emperor. Jerusalem 1 December 2019

To Israelis and Palestinians (2)

Time to stop fighting On the decks Of our male-made Titanic! Enter the lifeboats; Unite And combat global warming. Teach mankind how to live In harmony with each other And Mother Earth. Jerusalem 5 October 2019

The Sonnets of Stephen Dedalus

Pre-Bloomsday Sonnet 1 For sure a priest I’ll never now become: I’m through with sado-masochistic faith; A Church with clergymen puffed-up or glum; A blood-stained Father, Son and Holy Wraith. Instead I’ll grow into my pregnant name And “cunning artificer”, poet, be; Then my imagination can form and frame The words that will this nation’s […]

A Riddle (comic relief)

What do Americans take; The British have; South Africans make, Israelis too – Though they also do? Boggled? Well, here’s a clue: The answer lies in the jakes, The lav, Or the loo. Jerusalem7 May 2019

A Meaningful Coincidence

The timing of Israel’s Intended conquest of the Moon Was of course deliberate. The arrival of “Genesis” Was supposed to coincide With “Meshiach ben-Yamin’s” Expected victory at the polls. But the fact that it crashed And disintegrated, Just after a black hole In deep space Was for the first time Exposed, To me, at least, […]

Hijacked to Armageddon

Whether he knows it or not,In his lust for powerAnd prestigeBinyamin NetanyahuHas enabled patriarchal,PyromaniacDonald TrumpTo deliver IsraelTo apocalypticSo-called evangelicals. Only a quantum leapIn collective consciousnessCan now saveOur sacred Mother EarthFrom rampant climate changeAnd a thermonuclear warWaged in the nameOf that hijacked, abusedSpiritual midwifeJesus of Nazareth. Jerusalem7 April 2019

Purgatorial Pilgrims

Jesus saves. But only in the sense He may inspire one To choose good over evil, Love over hate, Heaven over hell In the purgatory of life, And thus discover The living God In one’s own and others’ Divine, immortal Soul.   Jerusalem 4 March 2019

Greta Thunberg

On the brink of the tipping point, To arouse the prophetic soul Of the wide world, Mother Nature brought forth An enlightened, articulate girl, Who, after striking alone For months, Finger in the dike, With her resolute ethical sling Has stunned the global Goliaths And corporate Cyclopes And stirred her peers To combat climate change […]

Gandhi’s Soul

(Dedicated to Salih Diab) Now that the world is wracked by climate change, Created by hubris, will to power and greed, And democratic nations gladly exchange Their heads for populists who always mislead And literalists dictate religious life, Paving the way for ruthless false messiahs, It seems we’ve condemned ourselves to endless strife While feeling […]

Leopold Bloom

Aired kindly Bloom his tragic-comic streak As he wandered through the hostile, lively city, While playing existential hide and seek In a psychic stream of logic, mirth and pity. And haunted was he by Rudy, his lost joy, Whose sudden death had doomed the marital bliss; He’d now be eleven, the cloud-capped fairy boy They’d […]

Stephen Dedalus

Post midnight from a brothel on Tyrone Lower, To which flushed Lynch and he had drunk their way, Like guardian angel or a modern Noah Kind Bloom delivered him into the day. It seems his mother’s ghost he’s exorcized: For in the afternoon, while he conferred On Shakespeare’s final plays, he realized He’d solved at […]

Macrocosm-Microcosm (1)

While, in Brazil, Israel’s Revisionist, Messianic PM Fervently attends The inauguration Of her patriarchal President – A hell-bent evangelical, Who, inspired by Trump, Has vowed to exploit Commercially The Earth’s most essential Rain Forest And move his nation’s embassy To Zion, Here, despite the protests Of outraged citizens, In the name of “fire prevention” The […]

Chinese New Wave

We shall edit What is shot; And thus produce And direct The best boys. Jerusalem 30 November 2018

Archetypal Atom Bombs

Amalek and Magog: The two most divisive, Explosive and destructive Archetypal images In the undiscerning, Literalistic, Exclusive, combative, Vindictive, Deterministic, Paranoid minds Of Jewish, Christian and Muslim Fundamentalists.   Jerusalem 21 November 2018

Unholy Alliance

Till justice to the Palestinians Is done And climate change addressed, All this jubilant trumpeting Of a ground-breaking alliance Between Messianic Israel, Evangelical America And Sunni Saudi Arabia Against far from angelic Shiite Iran Should be regarded As Machiavellian will to power, Economic opportunism And yet another step Towards Armageddon And the creation Of Hell […]

The Rising Feminine Principle (2)

Of the knowledge of good and evil, Or the forbidden wisdom The Shkhináh gave to Eve Under the Tree of Life, And of Woman’s latest uprising Gainst patriarchal sway Sing Heavenly Muse!   Jerusalem 7 November 2018

Sea Change

On the moonlit shore Of the pregnant sea, When the heartless men Have withdrawn, Hagar and Miriam Shall midwives be Of the twins who wait To be born. Jerusalem 6 October 2018

Only Belief in the One God

Only belief in the One God And the indivisible Soul Can enable us now to preserve Our common humanity And defend ourselves From techno megalomaniacs, Who’d turn us into automatons, And from anti-democratic leaders Whose full-faked, newspeak News tweets And gilded, facebooked selfies Gull dyslexic, narcissistic souls Charmed by a graven image And thrill autistic-seeming […]

Out of the Big Bang

Out of the Big Bang, The offspring of Divine Love, Came the piercing, prolific Light Of innumerable suns And the silent, fertile Dark Of Nature’s cosmic womb. Jerusalem 9 July 2018

To Tamar and Tal

Blessed are you, My daughters, For helping to ensure The long-awaited Sacred marriage Of West and East, Whose offspring – Universal Theocentric Buddhism – Will finally free Our hijacked Mother Earth From world-rejecting gnostic souls Who crave for death; From foolish, self-fulfilling Fell apocalyptists Determined to enact Symbolic Biblical verse; And insatiable Deluded materialists Condemned […]

Womb-man

The time has come To publicly confess All my life I have suffered and borne, Periodically, The wistful pangs Of irrepressible, Inclusive, compassionate, Empathic Womb-envy. Am I perverse, Or might this condition – Though in most men Still unconscious – Be universal? If so, May each oblivious soul See the light And like myself become A […]

An Archetypal Dream

(Dedicated to Salih Diab) And Jacob lifted up his eyes And looked. And, behold, Out of Gaza Into the light Came Esau And with him, unarmed And on foot, A multitude of men, Women and kids. And Jacob, Knowing the time had come, Passed over Before his armed men And bowed himself to the ground […]

Trump’s Next Pledge?

I’ll build a Temple In Jerusalem And the Palestinians Will pay for it. Jerusalem 23 December 2017

Fulfilled Monotheism (4)

I dreamt that after fleeing An apocalyptic battle I found myself On Mount Moriah At the entrance To a beautiful and radiant Sanctuary In the midst of a fragrant garden. I then heard whisper An angelic voice: Apart from the gardeners, Redeemed Adams and Eves, There are no priests; No liturgy, Blood sacrifice Or need […]

Bouli (1)

When on our midnight walk Along a path overlooking The Valley of the Cross My granddaughter Bouli Suddenly sits And with ears flattened White fur ruffled Visage mournful Silently stares Across the hushed highway At the ancient monastery, Because she’s such a kind Angelic soul My imagination starts to soar. Was she perhaps in a […]

Jerusalem Trumped

I cannot but suspect That behind the proclamation Of this ego-possessed Gambler and showman lies An unholy alliance, Or cabal, Of literalist Jews and Christians Who think, if a Third Temple Is built on Mount Moriah, The Messiah will come To rule the world. Whether he was here before As healer and peacemaker Is irrelevant: […]

Time, Space and Soul

If the distant past Of deep space Can be seen in the present And the future Of the Cosmos gleaned In the life and death Of stars, All seems predetermined And finite – Unless, of course, we acknowledge The Soul: The sacred fount Of selfless love that sees, Or feels, Through time and space To […]

Blue Peace

Blessed are the friends Of Moby-Dick: For they shall save The sunken Soul Of Captain Ahab And salvage The Blue Planet.   Jerusalem 12 November 2017

As Then…So Now?

Moriah Mount, Site of a complex Supposed to be sanctuary For God and man And symbol of Self and womb, Appears to many Of its current tenants, Who elsewhere have been defeated, And other opponents Of the Occupation To be on the brink of siege. Is history, With an ironic twist, About to be repeated? […]

Black Jubilee

Fifty years of Occupation, Corruption, Shadow projection And unofficial apartheid! Doublethink and doublespeak Distend: ballooning Like psychic bubblegum; Spinning ever wider The fatal web Of collective denial, Complicity, complacency And insensitivity; Tongue-tying those souls Who try to protest Peacefully. Brazenly, Like the Trumpadors And Brexiteers Who would rather reign In Hell Than not at all, […]

Ancient Alien Theorists (1)

Like all idolaters And religious literalists, These techno-polytheists And cyborg advocates Project their fragmented psyche And will to power Onto the Creator, Whom enlightened souls Throughout the ages Have chosen to regard As Loving, Good and One. Jerusalem 28 March 2017

The Christian Right (2)

Beware, O Israel, of our flatterers’ mesh: The Christian Right shall have their pound of flesh! Jerusalem 15 March 2017

God’s Gardener (2)

When one finds God Within the garden that is the Self, One cannot but become God’s gardener. Jerusalem 1 October 1999

God’s Gardener (1)

Only when it is understood by most That one must find within the sacred Self The truths discovered by the founders of faiths, Will man at last become God’s gardener. Jerusalem 25 November 1996

Our Titanic

The question is whether our Titanic Will be blown to Kingdom Come By apocalyptic hijackers Before he strikes the iceberg Detached by global warming – Which can still be reversed. Jerusalem 7 March 2017

To Hadassa

Like Yeshu (Who was probably “illegitimate” If not half Roman), You are a wounded healer; Prefiguring thus Israel and Palestine’s true vocation. “Blessed are the peacemakers: For they shall be called The children of God.”   Jerusalem 3 March 2017

To End the Occupation

If only the Palestinians would produce A Gandhi, Mandela, or Martin Luther King. Passive resistance is the surest way To move the heirs of Joshua and David, Whose conscience yet can hear the prophet Isaiah. Jerusalem 2 March 2017

The Fall Fulfilled

And scientists created cyborg And said that all was well; And Man became immortal In his soulless, treeless Hell. Jerusalem 27 February 2017

The Soul (2)

If, as I believe, The Soul is a Divine spark – An offspring, or child, Of the Creator – , When the mortal body And dualistic psyche Expire, This spark returns Perfect, pure and whole To the Divine Light, Or God, Who loves and receives it Absolutely and unconditionally. For, like all opposites, Innocence and […]

To Oxfordian Usurpers

It seems quite likely Shakespeare knew de Vere, Through marriage of true minds or mutual friends; That this enlightened Hamlet and powerful peer Ensured the playwright met his noble ends. If so, like snobbish churl and scholar Greene Whose nose by Time was beaten out of joint, In thinking Earl was Bard behind the scene […]

The Trinity Reinterpreted

The “Father” is the Creator, The “Spirit” the Revealer, And the “Son” is the Soul, Or Divine spark, In every living creature.   Jerusalem 3 January 2017

The Valley of the Cross

To reach my Garden of Eden I must traverse the equivocal Valley of the Cross, With all its garbage Din Smoke Ancient olive trees Mysterious wild life And indomitable humanity.   Jerusalem 21 November 2016

To Donald J. Trump

What’s in a name? In your case a great deal. Of course, There are many names Pregnant With meaning, Such as Yeshua And Amadeus. The name Shake-speare Alludes to Athena The goddess of wisdom And defender Of  civilization. These men fulfilled Their name’s potential. Although not Midas Or Goldfinger – Archetypal Pecuniary alchemists – Your […]

Gnostics

Blessed were the Gnostics In “knowing” The true God Is Loving and Good; But how destructive In thinking An evil demiurge Created the world! If they had heeded Yeshu’s precept To own one’s shadow, They would not only Have “known” The Soul will see God But seen The Earth is good. Jerusalem 28 January 2007

Robot Birds

Before the Earth Was hijacked By the demiurge Real birds, Which so inspired The lovers of nature, Were widely regarded Or perceived As symbols of the Soul. Jerusalem 30 January 2007

Fulfilled Monotheism (3)

When those archetypal twinsEsau and JacobShare in peace the Promised Land,Ishmael and Isaac will uniteAnd the heirs of Abraham,Spread  across the Earth,Will finally acceptThat the One God  –Indivisible and Whole  –Is God and Creator of all. Jerusalem12 September 2013

The Two Poles

Precisely because of the radiant SoulA shadow embodies our opposite pole. Jerusalem11 April 2012

The Religious Life

The Religious Life means serving the Creator By choosing to project one’s sacred Soul. Jerusalem 13 January 1996

The Death of Solitude

Solitude was wounded by the mobile phone;It died with the advent of the personal drone. Jerusalem25 July 2013

PHOTOGRAPHY ADVICE I GIVE EVERY TIME

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit sed quia consequuntur.

FILMING IN THE MOST WILD OF LOCATIONS

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit sed quia consequuntur.

MOTHER NATURE WANTS TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit sed quia consequuntur.

Occupational Suicide

In letting the Occupation persistIsrael is losing her fight to exist:As her shadow’s compounds steadily riseThe light within her sets and dies. 6 November 2010

The Human Equivalent

The human equivalent of Divine Love,The offspring of Indivisibility;Absolute, infinite and universal,Perpetual and unconditional,Is not “love” (with its lurking shadow hate,That can turn the radiant Jekyll into Hyde),But empathy: which, though indeed fallible,Through candour, imagination and projectionCan feelingly see in others not just the wholeRegarding the natural dualistic psyche,But also the spark of God, eternal […]

Unsustainability

Technology that’s wrought by selfish menPrevents the wheel from turning round again.                         Jerusalem            10 March 1995

Nature’s Sacred Cycle

Like "The Fall" itself, the Christian Myth reflectsUnconscious acknowledgement by urban manThat he belongs to nature’s sacred cycle.                Jerusalem15 March 1996

When You Smile

Unlike a Shakespeare dissembler,A hungry shark,An angry ape,A dog with a stolen bone,When you smileAnd bare your whole, white teeth,You do soFrom ingenuous, generousEmpathy;Disarming the defensive,Aiding or piercingThose soulsWho have lost or neglectTheir holy child within.    Jerusalem13 September 2013

Breaking the Joshua Syndrome

To avoid another ExileOr holocaust –Armageddon, This time the indigenousInhabitantsMust be grantedIndependenceAnd a fair shareOf the land.Then, were a new mythComposed,It could truly reflectThe Mosaic visionOf freedom, justice,Mercy and peaceUnder the One God.                 Jerusalem2 June 2013

Echoes of Jeremiah 31:33-4

If all would findWithin their SoulThe Revealer-Creator,They’d hear and heed the LawReceived-conceivedBy Moses when withdrawn;The need for priests, messiahs and prophetsWould surely cease – yea, die –And peace on Earth be born.             Jerusalem7 December 2012

Idolaters

The idolater worshipsAn embodied archetypal imageRather than the invisible,Indivisible Creator,Who reveals OneselfIn SpiritTo those that, via their creativeImagination and sacred Soul,TranscendThe invisible, dualisticArchetype itself.                 Jerusalem7 November 2012

To S.R.W.

For more than forty years my soul was wroughtUpon the dual altar Isaac knew:At times unbound, at others truly caughtAnd forced to choose between two points of view.Hence I in less than half a century,Amidst the nation chosen for this role,Lived out four thousand years of historyAnd glimpsed the One that Israel will extol.For, though […]

Abrahamic Priesthoods

Though prophets such as Jesus show that GoodNeeds sacrifice of “ego” not of blood,As circumcision, Mass and altar say,Our priesthoods would, if Abram, Isaac slay.At very best they’d kill for God a ram,Thus bless and feed the cult these prophets damn.                 Jerusalem11 September 2012

Mount Moriah

 (Dedicated to Gershom Gorenberg)   With David’s conquest sprang a type of fable(The Mount had been a sacrificial site):Right here, they said, slew Cain his brother AbelAnd Abram thought his son he ought to smite.Such myths were literalized throughout the ages,Which saw the Roman armies and Islam’s;Since Sixty-Seven some Jewish and Christian “sages”Prepare for Temple […]

Before the Cell and Web

  (Dedicated to Barbara Yifru) Before the mobile phone,Unless they were addressed to us,We were not fetteredBy intrusive, trivial thoughtsOf solitary strangers,Attached to cell,Riding on a train or busOr walking closeIn some secluded paradise,Where creatures still fared well,Or simply in the dark. Before the internet(With its silent, virtual,Cyberspatial waves,Pervading the globe,And plastic, mouse-shaped bait),Except in […]

When Blake Meets Einstein

Of Godlight and stardustWe are made;And when this one rightly knows,Enfirnity rousesOne’s earthdrawn, earthborn, earthworn,Ego-shroudedSoul.               Jerusalem12 April  2012

To a Cheery Israeli Writer

I cannot decideWhether you’re a NeroFiddlingWhile Israel’s cities seemAbout to burn;Or, like a player-heroIn the bandOf doomed Titanic,You’re striving to consoleYourself and othersSoon to drown;Or are simplyA natural optimistUnmovedBy prophetic obligationTo incite our nationBlinded by occupation,While still it can,To turn.               Jerusalem14 April 2012

God and Man Images

  The kind of God and man imageOne conceivesMakes all the differenceIn the world.                Jerusalem25 February 2012

The Soul (1)

The wise don’t dread or dwell upon the tomb, When lying wide awake at dead of night: For body only it’s a black-hole womb – The Soul by then well borne again to Light. Jerusalem 7 December 2011

The Christian Embassy

When Begin let them in, they did pretendThat, like all “Chosen Folk”, he was their friend;But in the end the Jews will suss perforceThe Christian Embassy’s a Trojan Horse.                 Jerusalem13 December 2011

Beyond Words

As Shakespeare ripe and wiseWould cordially admit,Some feelings are too deep or largeFor words to fit:To hear and speak and write with eyes,To cite the Bard,Belong to love’s fine wit.                 Jerusalem15 October 2011

Elegy

  Despite "Lament":His shadow’s last standIn that ramshackle shedBy the marey sea,When trousers were tight;And Promethean rageAt his blind, dying,Mock-stoic father’sPitiful plight;And eighteen straight shotsOf false-spirit’s smiteIn that bright-dark cityOf nine days’ night;If my views on GodAnd Soul are right,At the very endDylan went gentleInto the Light. Jerusalem29 July 2011

Before the Advent

Before the adventOf soulful Anima,That led at last to Milk WoodAnd glimpses, at least,Of wholeness and true love,Dylan’s adopted museWas demonic Demiurge:No humble poet-prophet he,Awaiting impregnationBy the Holy Ghost,But a thrusting, spouting,Phallus-penned Lucifer incarnate, Who bodied forthHis hubristic, fragmentedShadow-spiritIn showers of sharp, dark, spinning,Spellbinding verbal shards –Words, he believed,For word’s sake –Which almost shattered his […]

On Israel’s Redemption

End the Occupation, Israel, cease the fallAway from God and our integrity;Reject outright the evil beck and callOf Christians who’ve perverted Prophecy.Like them we foolishly believed the LordApplauded, when we took from Arab handsThe rest of Eretz Israel and ignoredHis word that justice is more blessed than lands.Thanks to its sacred democratic creed,A major step […]

The Messianic Age (4)

When the Torah, New Testament And Koran Are no longer hijacked By theocratic sadists, Messiah-making masochists, Shadow-possessed, “fact”-obsessed Apocalyptic literalists, Or regarded By passive-aggressive partisans As exclusive repositories Of Divine revelations, sacred laws And various vicarious acts, But are acknowledged Universally As holistic collections of ancient Archetypal myths Reflecting the active human psyche And its […]

The Wounded Healer

(Dedicated to Dr. Michael Avishai) I dreamt I met an old manIn the Jerusalem Botanic Garden,A volunteer named Israel.I’m a Holocaust survivor, he confided,And ex-settler on the West Bank.I’m also a healer, he added quietly,And activist for peaceBetween nations. Before I could respond he continued:A year ago I came up to Jerusalem.On the first dayI […]

The Shadow

(In response to "The Hollow Men")  Between idealAnd actualityBetween potentialAnd fulfilmentBetween insightAnd expressionBetween inspirationAnd creationBetween geniusAnd integrityBetween revelationAnd responseFalls the shadow –The alter ego archetype – Claiming its place in the sunDemanding its sacred dueProviding the soul with choice.                Jerusalem16 March 2011

The Messianic Age (3)

I dreamt I was aboardAn international space station,The lofty headquarters of the UN.I watched as the representatives(Respected stewards of the One God)Conveyed the resultOf their nation’s vote,Regarding a resolution. Beneath us Mother Earth,No longer plaguedBy insatiable capitalists,Dialectical materialists,Religious terroristsAnd other apocalyptists,Performed in peaceA natural revolution. And I saw that it was good.                                          […]

The Mystery

                  And the mystery                      Sings aliveStill in the jackals and streaking birds.              Jerusalem31 October 2010

A Would-be Jonah

Lord, let me be a Jonah! Only, since I’ve refused to flee, When my tedious warnings About the Occupation And global warming Are haply heeded And no-one needs to wail Or gnash his teeth, May I not be abusive – Nay! I shan’t be indignant, Whine, Or sit and sulk In sackcloth and ashes Beneath […]

Tan-man

Like daughter, which in Hebrew’s rendered bat,The word for jackal’s tender: namely tan;And nascent night’s the time most often thatI meet these creatures in the Garden (gan). As to their nature, ancients got it wrong:They’re blessèd, gentle, beautiful and shy;I’d wager Eve and Adam loved their songNo less than do my own dear wife and […]

A Glimpse

While in embattled and encircledEast JerusalemBulldozing settlers, guns in hand,Expand and cementThe Occupation,Here in the Garden,Where Jews and Arabs plough and pruneIn peace,I behold a familiar ginger cat –A casual tom –Snoozing between a pairOf couchant jackals.                 Jerusalem17 November 2010

To Budding Zionists

O budding Zionists, please understandThat in Jerusalem’s infertile sand,Save ramblers who reject this tragic state,Her plants accept her barren plots as fate.                 Jerusalem12 December 1993

Romantics

Oh, when will those romantics come to seeThat from Jerusalem’s oppressive stoneThe only grains of candour ever blownAre hated prophets, who desire to flee!         Jerusalem12 December 1993

Jewish Existentialism (3)

While many Christians spurn The Church,Protesting that it fails "The Lord",Few Jews of faith their tribe besmirch:Disunity they can’t afford. Yet means this not they are enslavedBy tyrannous conformity:Unlike the man whom Christ has "saved",Himself the Jew is free to be – Providing he remembers wellIt was to serve Himself, The Lord,That God created IsraelCollective […]

Be a Light, O Israel!

Be a light, O Israel, as the prophet urged,And show the world what faith in right can do:Renounce the Occupation; thus be purged,Be blessed with great integrity anew.He saw the crux of chosenness is choice,For knew he that, through freedom’s might, we couldDecide to hearken to the Maker’s voice;Reject the evil impulse, choose the good.To […]

The Life in God

When by the Grace of GodOr a good deedThe divine spark within one’s Self,Or core, Is kindled by the Holy Spirit,Like Yeshu the healer-prophet(Whose Soul was a blazing sun)One glimpses here on EarthThe kingdom of Heaven.                 Jerusalem21 October 2010

Dark and Light

(in response to William Blake) We are made of dark and lightSo we, God’s sons and daughters, mightFreely choose ‘tween wrong and right.Dark and light is psychic twine,Enveloping our Souls divine;These sparks immortal flare and shine,When we’re creative or benign.             Jerusalem30 August 2010

A Choice

It’s possible advanced aliensVisited the EarthIn ancient times;That Jesus was sent by his father(Leader of the Elohim)To save us from ourselvesOr, rather, from the sin of Adam(Himself a seed of that other world),And, after being crucifiedBy slaves of Satan(His rebel elder brother),Revived and ascendedOn a spacecraft’s beam,In order to return when time is right. It’s […]

Regarding Resurrection

Even if Yeshu did rise from the deadAnd, quark-like, flash from spirit back to flesh,We should regard him not as God the SonBut as a man, who – through his love for GodAnd the oppressed – became perhaps an angel,And, like a butterfly from its cocoon,With "spiritual body" (to quote Paul)Ascended splendidly from his soiled […]

The Jesus I Hear

"You are a child of God.God loves you.Rejoice, and become whole."               Jerusalem8 March 2010

St. Paul

      “When Pharisee  himself he called,Was Saul  by certain Jews appalledFor naming Yeshu ‘Son of Man’,Who soon would come with master planTo rule the world on God’s behalfAnd with his friends sort wheat from chaff. “Though doubtless God all means could use,Saul felt He wouldn’t Yeshu choose:This Hasid surely had downplayedThe Law, which God Himself […]

Beyond “Science”

Only when Western man acceptsThat God is found within the SoulWill he cease violating NatureIn his Promethean search for "Truth".         Jerusalem19 September 1995

The Quintessence

If those who worship "Jesus Christ" would seeThey are a "child of God" (the Lone and One),They should not need a "son of Man" to be"Messiah", or God to pose as "God the Son".And if the rest of us would find the sparkDivine within our core – immortal SoulThat, unlike Self (which is both light […]

21 December 2012

If, as astrologers have always thought,Man’s psychic state’s reflected in the stars,And if, as Israel’s prophets clearly taught,Collective deeds control his "fate" (not MarsNor God Himself, who orders us to chooseBetween the good and evil in our souls;Thus giving us the power to keep or loseThe world: to save her forests or melt her poles),This […]

Tribute to Dylan Thomas

O sea son of wave, great spouting Thomas, In Laugharne’s lapped bay And milky wood At God speeded end You made, I feel, good peace With your fountainhead true muse: Soothing the wound in your side; Transcending ego’s stunning clash Of symbols – Grave manwomb of war; Regaining timelessness And integrity. Hence your infinite compassion […]

This Kind Garden

(With thanks and apologies to Dylan Thomas) As when I was young and sappy under the apple boughsAbout the happy house and rosy as the grass was green(When sky in turn was blue or starry)Now though I’m past my primeMiracles appear before my eyes;And honoured among jackals biding here in the heart of townAnd shown […]

Ego-Consciousness

Is ego-consciousness a curse, To some the message of The Fall, Or would in fact our lot be worse Were unreflective instinct all? Michael Peach Jerusalem 21 August 2009

From the Lost Gospel of Thaddaeus

Jesus said: All who seek with all their soul Will find the truth…. The Lord’s creation contains Both light and dark; But where there is wholeness There is love. Blessed are the whole in spirit, For theirs is the Kingdom of God. When we make the two One, And the inner as the outer, And […]

The Pregnant Poet

Like impregnation, inspiration thrillsAnd verse conceived by images or thoughtsOne’s deep creative impulse so fulfillsThat all but this the poet oft aborts.Thus intercourse between oneself and kin –Indeed, response to any human kind –Unless related to the fruit within,Is by such introversion undermined.Three days ago, however, I was blessedBy revelation of another type:A synchronicity, which […]

To Ami

To you, my brother, this I need to tell: Your choosing Maike just as you set free The shepherd doggess Looka from her hell, Gehenna Creek, was synchronicity. I grasped it when, while musing on your fate Alone within a sacred space one night, I met a jackal howling for his mate And knew at […]

The Holy Land Tower (1)

For years we’ve seen Jerusalem defacedBy buildings that reflect this greedy age;Her gentler features thus have been replacedBy blots and eyesores, prompting grief or rage.And now, alas, an even greater stainHas been produced by Mammon’s filthy claw:Where Holy Land Hotel had humbly lainThere stands a tower no soul can well ignore.As tallest, it the view […]

The Holy Land Tower (2)

 It’s apt, indeed, that from afarThis tower appears to be attachedTo apse-cum-nave: a fellow scarBy same fell company dispatched. Thus mock cathedral, one can say,Now stands upon that very hillWhere Second Temple model layAlong with Holy Land, until….                  Jerusalem18 March 2009

Epilogue

(With apologies to Dylan Thomas)  This day winding up now,At dog speeded tether’s end,In the fast heating sun,In my sleep forsaken house,Bombarded and rocked;Drubbed by bark, beep and hoot,Crash, boom, thud and drillFrom road and neighbour’s roofOr room he expands,And from sites acrossThe wadi; stunned by wailsOf sirens and roars of menShackled with phones, whose […]

After All

That the human psyche is autonomousAnd Yahweh, Eden, Christ and Holy GhostAre images or ideal metaphors,Made by the archetype of wholeness (Self)Or by the symbolizing imagination,Need not preclude an actual CreatorWho wills that freedom be the crown of love.                                Jerusalem                15 December 1997

Nuclear Man (2)

The only hope for nuclear-armed manIs to develop and, indeed, revereThat empathy the Prophets held Divine,Which may have been their own humanityAnd whole, autonomous, transcendent SelfProjected through faith onto the Great Unknown.  Jerusalem22 August 1997

The New Templars

   Those folk who wish to build on Mount MoriahA Jewish temple like the ones of yore –Who would the mosques were razed by Hell’s black fire –Should know the Self’s dark side has seized their core.         Jerusalem11 August 2005

The Compensator- Prophet (2)

   While leaders sanction haste and greedIn these apocalyptic times,To compensate for them I need:For I have heard the midnight chimes.                  Jerusalem28 November 1997

The Prophet Yeshu

   For me the most enlightenedJudgments by Yeshu voicedAre those which indicateHe clearly saw the sacred threadThat links to God prophetic passionFor justice, empathy and choice.                  Jerusalem18 May 1992

On Mercy and Justice

It’s true that mercy is divine, And seasons justice (as spice wine); But know, keen Christian, Jesus saw Sans penance, mercy’s sinners’ whore. Jerusalem 3 May 2004

“Through Jesus Christ”

Whether indeed he’s God the Son, The second face of Trinity (Incarnate spirit of The One, Revealed through synchronicity); Or if, instead, his mother knew Old Joseph when he was conceived, And he was but a righteous Jew Who others thought had death deceived: Without him “Christendom” has lost Its way to God, and hence […]

Human Consciousness

       Oh let us show that human consciousness Is not some fell mistake of evolutionNor narcissistic urge of Mother NatureTo know herself through subtle self-abuse,But God’s own way of letting it be knownThat He exists and loves His dear Creation.                       Jerusalem26 December 2008

A Conclusion

We shouldn’t try to comprehend and defineGod’s unintelligible nature,Or think that through our hi-tech we can enterGod’s transcendental realm:For thus we manufacture terrestrial hell. Our duty is to know ourselves and the lawsThe Lord applies to Earth.And when we worship God or say a prayer,We should do so via the Soul:For thus with God’s own […]

Answer to Jung (2)

In fact not four but five denotes man’s whole:For one should add the transcendental Soul. Jerusalem3 December 2008

Promethean Scientists

I pray those probing God’s own sphere will failFrom the Creator’s management to swipeThe final contents of their  "Holy Grail" –The graviton and psychoid archetype.                 Jerusalem26 August 2008

Envisage God

   Envisage God as loving and whole,And be created in this image. Jerusalem26 November 1997

The Truths of the Heart

   Only a sophist would even startTo try to grasp the truths of the heart. Jerusalem23 February 2002

“The Kingdom of Heaven”

   "Heaven" means God, not pieful skies;In wholesome hearts His "Kingdom" lies. Jerusalem20 September 1998

Donation

   Each one to God and man can make donationBy living his potential, or vocation. Jerusalem25 September 2006

Truly Alive

   One shouldn’t claim to be alive,Unless one knows one has to strive. Jerusalem6 May 1999

To Scientists

   Though man can learn how Nature works,He’ll never solve her mystery. Jerusalem16 May 1997

“World Without End”

  Come enter the Garden, my dear friend,And grasp the meaning of "World without end". Jerusalem6 November 1999

Yeshu the Hasid

(Dedicated to Geza Vermes)     A rambling rose amongst the weeds,He twined his florid tales with deeds. Jerusalem25 March 1999

Yeshua the Substitute

To "gardeners" who were destituteYeshúa was a substitute. Jerusalem3 April 1999

All the Rest is Commentary (2)

   Faith in the Lord, within the Garth:This is the only kosher path. Jerusalem29 July 2000

The Green Prophet

   From Mammon’s maw the prophet cried:"Let God’s good Garden be our guide!" Jerusalem28 July 2000

’Tween the Mountains and the Sea

Before he died, a wise man said these pregnant words to me:Go cultivate a garden ’tween the mountains and the sea.                                         Jerusalem                    4 September 2001

The Wise Fool

   The first to act a little mad Is last in fact to go insane. Jerusalem23 January 1997

Despite Our Fears

   Despite our fears, let’s never ceaseTo nurse with tears the seeds of peace. Jerusalem15 June 2003

A prophet’s Lament

   Through rose-tinged specs and potent spell,The pilgrim lauds this man-made hell. Jerusalem9 July 1997

Most Jews

Most Jews are tribal, that’s their might –Their weakness too: it blurs the sight. Jerusalem1 January 1997

The Tightrope

   To keep one’s balance in JerusalemMeans haunting the tightrope ‘tween East and West. Jerusalem27 November 1997

Hear, O Israeli!

   To integrate your shadow and be whole,Embrace the Palestinian in your soul. Jerusalem19 February 2004

To Israelis and Palestinians (1)

   When victimhood becomes a creed,To scapegoat is one’s greatest need. Jerusalem29 November 2002

Tribute to Jordan

  Though stuck between Iraq and a hard place,You manage to maintain an unruffled face. Jerusalem1 July 2007

Hard Pornography

   Legitimizing hard pornographyHelps sow the seed of bastard anarchy. Jerusalem26 September 1995

An End in Itself

   When sex itself becomes an end,Farewell the lover, child and friend. Jerusalem18 September 1998

Neo-Paganism (2)

   Deify your licentiousness:Become a "pagan".                 Jerusalem21 June 1997

Selfish Means

  When we on selfish means depend,We hinder wholeness – the true end. Jerusalem25 December 1998

Answer to Jung (1)

Though, unlike Christians and certain Jungians, You differentiated God per se (Who, if Creation’s not self-made, transcends The finite human mind) from a God-image; And though the all-male Trinity was coined By dogmatists and Fathers of the Church; In declaring fourfold symbols (formed by Self) – Which to you stood for true totality – To […]

Tribute to C.G. Jung (1)

Not Israel, nor Jesus, but gnostic JungMay prove to be the saviour of mankind;For he has shown that The Messiah comesFrom the transcendent Self within us all. Jerusalem27 February 1995

Tribute to C.G. Jung (2)

   Just as Yeshua didn’t spurn the Law,But transcended it at times through active Love,Jung’s synchronicity is at the coreOf causal nature one can rise above.             Jerusalem12 September 2005

“Know Thy Self”?

   It seems to me that, as was Dr Jung’s,God’s sole advice to us is “Know thy Self”:For, when one knows it, one at last is whole.                 Jerusalem8 November 1994

The Self (1)

   For the world’s sake, may those who deny GodAt least accept that deep in their own mindIs a higher self which seeks the ego’s love.                 Jerusalem21 October 1997

The Self (2)

   Within the archetypal  mindExists the Self, a kind of ark,Where, via the ego, one can findA beam of God, or sacred spark.                 Jerusalem28 October 2002

Individuation

When the ego grasps and serves the SoulAnd also differentiates Between amoral forces risingFrom the cauldron of unconsciousness,This, to revise Jung, is the life in God. Jerusalem12 January 1997

God’s Natural Law

Like Moses at the Red Sea, I declare: The Lord shall reign for ever and ever! Only,The “Kingdom” to which I refer is neitherThe theocracy of priests and prophets, nor Yeshu’sUnsustainable apocalyptic state.Indeed, perhaps like Yoséh the GalileanI should say: The Lord has reigned for ever and ever!For my “Kingdom” is God’s Natural Law;And this […]

The Creative Imagination

Perhaps Carl Jung was wrong; and the unconscious, Rather than spawning images itself Through innate archetypes, like a womb bears Those formed by the creative imagination – Which (independent of the headstrong will, Yet with one wing in touch with consciousness) Converts to symbols concrete experiences, And (much more to the point) dissolves and fuses […]

A Psychic Synthesis

If by itself imagination makes Such images as those by instinct growFrom inborn archetypes, it undertakesConception human freedom can’t forgo. Jerusalem5 June 2007

Synchronicity (1)

In moments of psychic wholenessTime and space merge;External events mirror the Soul,And one briefly witnesses  "God’s Kingdom".     Jerusalem    25 December 1995

Synchronicity (2)

True synchronicity involvesNot the profane projection of egoOnto a pure coincidence,But, through the sacred SelfAnd an event reflectingOne’s need yet causally unconnected,A glimpse of timeless infinity.                  Jerusalem 24 October 2000

Synchronicity (3)

   Apocalyptists fail to seeThat timeless synchronicity Is synthesis within the mind,By dialectic toil refined,Acausally reflected henceIn meaningful coincidence.                 Jerusalem25 October 2000

Owning One’s Shadow

It’s not so difficult ourselves to freeFrom self-destructive guilt and jealous spiteFor being what we are, if we can seeOur darkness is as natural as our light. This truth, alas, the wary ego blocks –Until it can accept its share of strifeAnd also, thus, embrace the paradoxOne’s shadow known and owned may save one’s life. […]

Self-Compassion

Once owned, one’s shadow should be seenNot as a loony in the atticBut as, let’s say, a normal teenWho can’t help being problematic.                 Jerusalem13 October 2007

The Proto-Temple

   Through individuation one can findAn archetypal temple in the mind:The Self, containing that symbolic seatWhere wholesome humans may their Maker meet.             Jerusalem12 September 2005

The Quality of Life

   The quality of life dependsUpon our choices, means and ends.If through the Self we choose to act,Its wholeness manifests as fact;But if we let the ego reign,We end up mean and scarcely sane.                 Jerusalem4 July 2002

Archetypal Dramas (1)

   To redirect the Zion passion play,We first must truly recognize the factOf archetypal dramas in the mind –Which else we may unconsciously projectOnto the vacant stage of history –Such as that final act: Apocalypse.                 Jerusalem27 June 2002

Archetypal Dramas (2)

   Through free will and the power of reasonBestowed on each of us by God,We can interpret as we chooseThe dramas that are staged within;And see, for instance, ApocalypseNot as the Second Coming of ChristBut as the calling of the Self –That holy of holies in the psyche,The archetype of human wholeness.             […]

Neo-Gnostics

Those who serve the intellect Must a loving Creator reject; Thence His concept this good earth They dismiss as little worth. Jerusalem 9 February 2001

The Mystic Paul

O literalists, it’s time to see The mystic Paulus holds the key: Between the lines it seems he knew In “Christ” the Self is brought to view. Jerusalem 8 May 1999

Blessèd are the Whole in Spirit

Blessèd are they who have a healthy ego:For, unlike “do-gooders” and those who longFor Messianic Judgement, with Self’s help –Without which none can be complete – they’re freeTo attend to others’ needs with a whole heart.                 Jerusalem29 April 1999

The Ageless Soul

Despite our planet’s natural cycle,The human mind can play with time;It’s why the Garden’s barred by MichaelTo those who perpetrate the crimeOf shrinking life to their own spanAnd deifying ego’s role,Instead of finding out they canAt times enjoy the ageless Soul.                 Jerusalem20 April 1999

Reinterpreting St. Paul

  If Self one substitutes for Christ,When acting out the words of Paul,One’s ego will be sacrificedAnd God be felt as “all in all”.                 Jerusalem30 January 1999

“Only Christ”

  When Christians say that Christ alone(Messiah and The Son of God)Redeems a soul from sin, they’re right:For Christ’s an image of the Self –The archetypal source of wholenessIn the dualistic human mind,Created thus by the One God.                 Jerusalem18 October 1997

Differentiation

  Unless through consciousness we choose`Tween thoughts that from the psyche ooze,In time the darker ones gain fleshAnd thus they can the Soul enmesh.And let’s be stark, without a SoulOne can’t be loving, loved, or whole.                 Jerusalem27 August 1997

Sanity

Fallen humanity,Where is your sanity?Look to the GardenAnd Forest of Arden.                 Jerusalem24 January 1997

God’s Gardener (1)

Only when it is understood by mostThat one must find within the sacred SelfThe truths discovered by the founders of faiths,Will man at last become God’s Gardener. Jerusalem25 November 1996

Paradise Retained (1)

(the Monotheistic myth that might have been)    When God by means of "word" created fleshFrom Holy Self or Spirit (cosmic Love),Saw One – for God’s divine identityTranscends in equal scale both masculineAnd female selves – that all One’s work was Good.   On Earth the last and best to be conceivedWas humankind, or Homo sapiens.The […]

Breaking the Spell

I know a man named Billy Host,Who says he is Will Shakespeare’s ghost.Till overrun by ale and ginFor years he ran the Garter Inn,Where he was held in high regardFor quoting oft the famous bard:A bawdy pun, a pithy phrase,Plucked from the poems, songs, and plays,Would cause the womenfolk to flirtAnd keep their lovers’ minds […]

A Dream

I dreamt last night I met St. Paul Within the walled Gethsemane. In pain he said, “I am but Saul – Not Christian chief or Pharisee; “For what is missing in the Book, And over which I always sigh, Is that I was with those who took The Nazarene from here to die. “Although I […]

“Unacknowledged Legislators”

As do great poets, some geneticistsIncrease the evil in the world, some the good.Both human types, however, in Shelley’s senseAre legislators, and in practice gods.For just as these scientists sculpt the seeds of life,Bards transubstantiate thoughts into words –Which, if not identified as metaphors,In time assume flesh and are thus bornAs other people’s good or […]

A Prayer (2)

We praise Thee, Lord, for making lifeAnd natural laws we should hold dear;Give us the strength to end the strifeWe sow on earth through greed and fear.                 Jerusalem18 December 2004

A Vision (2)

(with apologies to William Blake) To see Mother Earth from outer spaceAnd a universe in the mind;Grasp humanity has one true placeAnd God’s in the Garden to find.                 Jerusalem29 September 2002

Hasidic Yeshu

As we strive for global peace and justice,Let us recall Hasidic Yeshu –For whom salvation and God’s willMeant healing the hopeless here and now.                 Jerusalem15 June 2001

To All True Monotheists

  If we intend to save mankind,We’ll drop the Messianic lieThat’s led us to the state of mindWhich cannot own the flesh must die. We’ll likewise lift the Gnostic curse,Whereby our only Mother EarthIs raped or spurned by souls perverseWho hold this life is nothing worth. Embrace we shall our primal tale –Avoiding, though, the […]

Ecce Adam Kadmon!

  The ex-carpenter saviour hangsOn the uprooted, lifeless TreeOf Knowledge of Good and Evil,Hewn in Jerusalem,Before he’s buried in the Garden,Where Resurrection is assured.                 Jerusalem11April 2000

To Would-be Gnostics

To merge one’s Soul with the Great Light is good, But to abjure as a result the body, Psyche and spirit is to opt for Death. Better to strive for individuation, Where God is served by the whole, living person – Composed of  Soul, fire, water, air and earth – In the Garden he or […]

Tribute to St. Paul

I applaud you, Paul, for risingOnly to the “Third Heaven”;For its “Garden” is indeedThe archetypal home of manAnd should be incarnated.But few who reach the SeventhReturn to Mother Earth;While those that do, preferTo build Jerusalem –Without the blessèd GardenAnd its natural laws to boot. Hence is the West satanicAnd snared in Pandaemonium .     […]

Answer to St. Paul’s Answer

Had he, who was once rapt to the “Third Heaven”,Projected his Adam Kadmon (the Self)Onto a gardener not a carpenterOr, given Yeshu’s glaring green credentials,Declared him to be not the Second AdamBut the First chastened, penitent and pardoned,The Literalists would have forgotten Zion,The Gnostics their detested Demiurge,The Romans their ruse of deifying kings,Pagans their practice […]

“The Trinity”

Does not  “The Trinity” in fact reflectThat basic paradox called dialectic(Whose synthesis transcends its added parts),Which – helped by the creative imagination –Convinced prophetic Yeshu God is LoveAnd the morbid Paul that love can conquer Time?If only more Church Fathers had been Jewish!                 Jerusalem10 October 1999

God’s Gardener (2)

When one finds GodWithin the garden of one’s mind,One cannot but become God’s gardener.                 Jerusalem1 October 1999

Regarding Revelation

Regarding revelation, I would sayThe Lord awaits us patiently halfway:On getting past some apt impedimenta,We meet Him in between, or in the centre.                 Jerusalem30 September 1999

The Christian Legend

As allegory or myth of love,Regarding man and God above,The Christian legend’s more profoundThan those in pagan cultures found. But deemed a literal sketch of God,“Who, dressed as human being, trodOn earth so He for us could die”,This tale’s an egoistic lie: Not only does it make the LordA scapegoat, servant; hustler, bawd,It deifies the […]

Regarding Religious Pluralism

One doesn’t have to be eclectic,For all great faiths are dialectic:The synthesis they each compriseFrom contradictions did arise.                 Jerusalem4 May 1999

The Human Mind

The time-bound human mind is tossedBy fear and guilt from past to futureAnd back again, until it feelsThe loving God is always present.                 Jerusalem30 October 1996

A Religious Empiricist (1)

Though some would call this blasphemy,At times the thought occurs to meThat our convulsive world might beA small Divine laboratory.                 Jerusalem16 January 1995

A Religious Empiricist (2)

I grant the possibilityThat, though equivocal, inventionsSuch as genetic engineering,Nuclear fission and computersAre vital to our divine vocation(Sullied at times by satanic pride):The cosmic planting of consciousness.But first we must acknowledge the Caller. Jerusalem 4 May 1996

A Religious Empiricist (3)

When I consider history,I’m certain God’s a mysteryAnd most that’s said of “Him” revealsThe speaker’s own supreme ideals.                 Jerusalem16 April 1999

Jungian Irony?

If people must attribute traits to GodAnd hold that they those qualities reflect,May their Creator be bad as well as good,Dark as well as light;For then at least they’d know their own true Self.                 Jerusalem16 January 1995

A Sophist

To worship a God he cannot even love,A God beyond all human attributes –Including substance, form and character –Is the only way a sophist can believe He hasn’t created God in his own image.                 Jerusalem16 January 1995

Nuclear Man (1)

The only hope for nuclear-powered manIs to acknowledge he himself containsThat which the Prophets thought was God’s true natureBut may have been their own humanityProjected through faith onto the Great Unknown.                 Jerusalem7 December 1994

A Woman’s Plea

Come, my meticulous, intellectual love,And lie beside me in this secret bower,Where fragrant Woodbine blossoms grow above,And on each side bloom those of Passion Flower;Oh, let these lips unload thy heavy head,These balmy fingers smooth thy furrowed brow;This heart restore thine own which, all but dead,Disdained and left behind the here and now. The robin […]

Love Alone

At ages three and eightHow well my daughters seeWhat I’ve relearned of late:That love alone can free. Jerusalem3 May 1995

Bat-man

I now have three dear children fair;All girls – batot in Hebrew tongue,Or say in fact I should banot,For bat defies the common rule. Natasha Rose the eldest isBy five years to the very month,With golden hair and sky-blue eyesFor me she represents the Sun. Tamar (the fruit bat) second be –Yet also first. A […]

For Natasha

Like a wild flowerIn the Jerusalem Spring,As if aware of life’s brevity,Without delay onto Earth’s hard faceYou burst forth. And since that dayYou have passed the timeSkipping, dancing, castingYour sunny smileUpon a darkened world. Jerusalem3 May 1992

For Tamar (1)

Miracle child,Radiant beacon of flesh and blood.You, too, when mute and anonymousIn Lia’s womb,Posed an infinite threatTo my peace of mind. Yet, now I know youFor what you are,I praise with unconditional joyThe silent God who sent you beamingInto this storm-tossed world. So let us take each other’s hand,My darling "Titzhak",And drown our mutual fear […]

For Tamar (2)

To come down each mornAnd findThat you no longer areThe single apple of our eyeIs a heartfelt lossWhich can be recompensedSolely by growing up. For, as would IsraelUnto newborn nations,In renouncing only-childshipAnd rising to the heightsOf elder sisterhoodYou, resplendent moonchild,Would send forth Light. Jerusalem10 May 1992

For Tamar (3)

O rest assured, our dear Tamar,To you we are forever near;So, when your mind shall wander farIn search of truth, you shouldn’t fear. One doesn’t need to read your palmOr probe the date to know you’re sweet:Each storm is followed by a calm,Each curse negated by a feat. Though Moonchild you by right remain,A star […]

For Tamar (4)

It’s your birthday today, and I wish to sing praiseOf  your passionate nature and art:When you play the piano your soul is ablazeAnd it lightens the shade in my heart. Jerusalem25 May 2002

For Tamar (5)

There’s nothing harder in the whole wide worldThan be a feeler and an extravert:Much more than others’, your sweet heart is hurledAgainst the rocks of life’s rough sea and hurt. Yet, of the types which make humanityYou are the healer, and the cox of love:Your wounded heart exudes the empathyThat steers a soul, adrift, to […]

For Tal (1)

Child of the Earth I said you might be,When we named you "Dew" as if from afar.Such concepts were near, for now I can seeLike a spring in this desert of Man you are. Jerusalem23 April 1995

For Tal (2)

Today’s your Bat-Mitzvah,    you’re twelve-years-old;Well have you kept and shared    that heart of gold.Like she who emblems peace,    the radiant dove,Blessèd are you, my child,    whose gift is love.                                 Jerusalem                23 April 2004

For Tal (3)

Even if  your birthday  weren’t the sameAs William Shakespeare’s – greatest bard,Or two days later (bless her name!)Than Good Queen Bess’s, I’d regardYou nobler than Cordelia,More fine than Pericles’s gal;Nor Imogen, nor PérditaWas dearer than my Princess Tal.                 Jerusalem23 April 2006

For Tal (4)

When you were small and scarce could speak,You swore a thorn had pierced your eye,While in a sleeping bag that weekWe’d brought from Cyprus you did lie. How bravely you endured the painUntil the thorn had been removed;How wise you seemed, when it was plainYour diagnosis had been proved! And then, in France, some years […]

Elliot Israel Cohen at Sixty

What’s in this name? A poet, striver, priest, Whose eye indeed in a fine frenzy rolls While glancing from concrete to grass, From shade to light, During our concentrated, campus walks; An eye which always twinkles like a star If paradox is cited, and fills with tears Of Hasidic joy when mercy seasons justice. Thus […]

Resolution

A resolution’s like a seed:In time it sprouts; engenders deed.When chooses he not hate but love,A human hawk becomes a dove:For, when the urge to kill he spurns,His fear or greed to kindness turns.                 Jerusalem1 December 2002

“Cast Your Bread”?

Cast your bread on the water,And what doesn’t returnWill be food for the fish.                 Jerusalem10 February 1998

“They That Be Whole”

They who, through faith, believe that God is LoveOr, through experience, feel that Love is GodNeed neither Yeshu nor Jung to make them whole.                 Jerusalem22 December 1997

To John Clare (“The Peasant Poet???)

O gentle John, please show me howTo be compassionate as thou;So, when the world ignores my verse,I’ll sing of love, not vainly curse.                 Jerusalem13 January 1994

A Dialectic

Now that the once potent "F word" is both utteredAnd embodied – without "effect" – on television,To shock at all one must use violence. Jerusalem14 May 1996

The Sonnets of Edward King

                       I With wonder I recall the day we met Three years ago on eerie Salisbury Plain, When you yourself delivered to the set Your Highland cattle in the pelting rain. While you dismounted from the battered truck You’d driven down the treacherous, muddy trail, My heart your gaze like […]

Fallen Men

In splitting the atom, dividing the gene,Like Satan they rift what has synthesis been;Moreover, when trying to make it anew,They find that their ego has poisoned the brew.                 Jerusalem13 October 1999

The Apocalyptic West

It’s time we Westerners discernedThat God creates through evolutionTo teach mankind that haste is wrong;For still we blindly put our faithIn egoistic technocratsWho link the life span of the worldWith their own rued mortality.                 Jerusalem27 January 1999

Apocalyptists (3)

Apocalyptic are those folk Who from the Tree of Life would steal,Through fixing genes, and by this strokePrevent the turning of the wheel.                 Jerusalem2 September 2006

Principal Goal

When science becomes our principal goal,The first to suffer are truths of the heart –Including our notions of God and the Soul:Deprived of love, if divorced from art.                 Jerusalem30 November 2002

Effect vs Cause

By treating effect, the West ignoresThe actual ill: a problem’s cause;An ill most likely spawned, indeed,By the West itself, because of greed.                Jerusalem30 June 2002

To South American Protestant Converts

Your faith was spawned, naïve amigos,By folk with blind, distorted egos,Who literalize symbolic tractsAnd take prophetic tropes for facts.                 Jerusalem14 October 1999

The Kingdom of Hell (1)

While they deny that God existsAnd life itself on Him depends,Our ever-blind materialistsBelieve they will achieve their ends –Namely, through Science, they’ll constituteHeaven on earth and will Death quell.A fact meantime is taking root:The kingdom of Terrestrial Hell.                 Jerusalem7 December 1998

The Kingdom of Hell (2)

The Kingdom of Terrestrial HellBegan to form when Adam fell;Unless from will to power we turn,We’ll see what’s left of Eden burn.                 Jerusalem1 December 1999

Atomic Bombs

Since evil is a natural force,Which many fail to sublimate,To have atomic bombs of courseMeans yielding to capricious Fate;For some tin god, who’s close to deathOr has to hell by drink been hurled,Could with his last or fiery breathOrdain the ending of the world.                 Jerusalem27 April 1998

The Stakes

Technology is neutral,But those who use it aren’t.Such are our modern weaponsThat one man, willing to die,Could end all life on Earth.With each “great leap” in scienceThe stakes grow ever higher.                 Jerusalem25 July 1997

Often in error, never in doubt

Often in error, never in doubt:Such are most doctors – medical technicians;The new gods we mortals must propitiateLest by mistake, or worse, they do us harm.For health is business; idollartry!Where are the healers? Oh, by God, I swearThere’s sacred human creativityAnd there’s profane Promethean invention. Jerusalem25 February 1997

The Daemonic Image

As in pagan times,The daemonic image –Not the "word of God" –Creates our world. Jerusalem24 December 1995

Darkness from the West

The cultic Karma Sutra has now been filmedWith English-born Indians performing the actsFor the titillation of secular spectatorsThroughout that Western creation, the "global village". Jerusalem23 December 1995

Cosmic Exile

Could it be that ungrateful Man is doomedTo wander tragically in spaceTill God, through nature, restores his home? Jerusalem3 December 1995

The Return of Hiawatha

(a tribute to Henry Longfellow) Introduction            From the land of the Hereafter,From the kingdom of Ponemah,From the Islands of the Blessèd,From the regions of the home-wind,Hiawatha the belovèdAll at once returned one morningTo the dirty Big-Sea-Water,To the shore of Gitche Gumee,To a city, vast and noisy.   In his eyes the tears were glistening,For […]

Spare a Thought

    The modern world’s no global villageBut city, plagued by men who pillageAnd, due to ego much inflated,Destroy the marvels God created.So, friends, I beg you spare a thoughtFor Mother Nature sadly caughtWithin the net of human greed,As thought with time can gender deed.    The chart below is incomplete –More forms of life we may […]

A New Jerusalem

   I dreamt last night I came on footInto a new Jerusalem.Where men had asphalt proudly putNow flowered wild tropaeolum. In lieu of cheaply-built RamotGrew poppies, lupins, vetch and flax.Within the wadi melilotReplaced the plastic garbage-sacks. Yet still was Zion home to folk,As Lifta village testified;For houses yesterday all brokeWere roofed, revamped and occupied. And, […]

Jerusalem (1)

(with apologies to William Blake) And did my feet in former timesWalk among England’s gardens green,Yet was my mind by Zion’s voiceOn England’s pleasant pastures gleaned! Prophetic vision, words divine,Flowed from my thirsty burning brainAnd in Jerusalem I forgotThose English meadows blessed with rain. Bring me a spade of oak and brassBring me a russet […]

Jerusalem (2)

As one by one the narrow streetsBecome so full of cars and toxic fumesThat walkers like myselfAre forced to hug the new highways(Whose gaping scars divide the city’s occupantsNo less than did the deeds of bloody war),The noose around my neckContracts. Jerusalem9 January 1994

Jerusalem (3)

I pray the new JerusalemWill be indeed a holy place,Where each the urge to kill shall stemAnd covet not his neighbour’s space. But fear I do that soon we’ll seeThe mosques upon The Mount destroyedBy zealots hoping they might beIn some Third Temple’s rites employed. No doubt the Muslims would reactBy launching a jihad outright;And […]

Jerusalem (6)

In that she reflectsLike no other placeThe spiritual state of Man,She is indeed the central pointAnd battlegroundOf those who cannot wait. Jerusalem3 November 1995

Epistle to Jerusalem

(with apologies to Alexander Pope) How often I have wished to disappearTo Babylon, and grow a garden dear;But, due to certain moral obligations,I cannot rightly yield to such temptations.In practice, therefore, I to you am wedAnd stuck inside your suffocating bed.Ambitious fools have thought it perfect blissTo gain from you a kick or fiery kiss;To […]

The Zionist Syndrome

So that some indulgent ZionistCan see his donation has been spent,Israeli politicians pave a cherished parkAnd engrave his name upon the stone. Jerusalem28 November 1995

Rock City

Come to Rock City,It’s ever so prettyFor those who dig stonesOr dust and dry bones. Jerusalem10 June 1995

A Poem a Day

A poem a dayKeeps the shrinks at bay;It’s also the wayI prefer to pray.     Jerusalem    4 January 1992

“Local Poet”?

He’d let his hair grow during winter;Just as well, for he visitedOld Blighty unexpectedlyIn March, and no one there he knewHad liked the “military cut”He’d borne last year. Now back in Zion,And for the first time trying hardTo make his mark as local poet,He told the barber “Just a trim”.“But hair looks better short, my […]

Babel Dissidents

Through insight, gained by humble contrite prayerCombined with life-enriched imagination,We’ll bring to light those truths so long obscured. Jerusalem27 February 1996

To a Bookseller

Although my books stay shut on your shelf,In writing that verse I opened myself;And were they, instead, snatched from the shelf,By writing again I’d contain myself. Jerusalem9 October 1995

The Poet

Hush, my children, and leave Dad alone,He’s converting a bomb he’d have willingly thrownAt some devil he thinks should be crippled or deadInto words of transcendence and wisdom instead. Jerusalem17 September 1995

To Lonya

As I recall the evening’s atmosphere,Communion is the word that comes to mind.For while I sat observing you eye meYour Christ-like self, engaged in sacred work,Gave ear to verses formed when I’d been gripped;And afterwards I saw upon my face,Expressed in paint, the spirit deep within. Jerusalem25 December 1994

The Jerusalem Botanical Gardens

I love this place because she’s wildAnd, like an independent childWho’s true to her own destiny,Is simply what she ought to be:An antidote to sacred stones,To holy walls and hallowed bones;To shopping malls and monstrous towers,To shallow plots with soulless flowers;To architects who think they canExclude all nature from their plan. Although I’m sure her […]

The Testament of Philogenes the Gardener

I am an ancient gardener,    Philogenes by name –Though Adam I have called myself    Since to this land I came. In Zion I was born and raised,    While not so far from meThe one they now call Christ the Lord    Grew up in Galilee. In truth I never met the man,    Despite my Christian boss,A […]

The Green Prince

If I were rich, I’d buy some land Where, as a gardener, I could stand On God’s good earth and feel alive While letting other creatures thrive. Though little gardens can be great, One needs, alas, a small estate Comprising an organic farm, If one’s to help reverse the harm That fools with pesticides have […]

The Green-Golden Mean

Between the cityAnd the wildernessLies that green-golden mean,The Garden.                 Jerusalem25 March 2000

If We Would Seek

If we would seek the Lord within,We’d spurn apocalyptic ploys;And through our wholeness we would winThe Garden, where each one enjoysGood health, longevity, and strengthOf frame, indeed, but also mind –Which, faced with natural death at length,Not hell but peaceful rest should find.                 Jerusalem7 December 1998

Only in the Garden (1)

Only in the Garden does man both loveAnd revere God and His natural laws;Only in the Garden does he loseHis evil urge to destroy the worldOr recreate it in his own image;For only there does he acceptHe’s both creator and God’s creature.                 Jerusalem23 April 1998

Only in the Garden (2)

Only in the Garden, where he was created,Can man sustain the tension between spiritAnd flesh indefinitely. Without its lawsHe tries to become God or else a beast,With the same tragic outcome: self-destruction.                 Jerusalem25 April 1999

Paradise Postponed

If, when I die, I go to HeavenI guess I will be told by Michael:“Take this spade, old cock, and prove to usIt was indeed a question of findingA garden free from traffic fumesAnd diabolic, man-made noise.”                 Jerusalem29 November 1996

To a Courting Ostrich

Should I be flattered or dismayedThat you kneel before meAnd sway your long, red neck from side to side?I watch the dust ascend from your feathered wads,Called wings, resembling polishersIn a car-wash,While you shut and open them… for what? “Deprived of wisdom” is how the BibleIronically puts it.Deprived of a brain, more like: your head,Compared […]

An Exile’s Fantasy

For many years I’ve sought a great idealThat should be lofty, yes, but also real.It’s why I headed for the Holy Land,Where folk were planting orchards in the sand.Yet now the rural spirit’s almost dead,And cities over all the land have spread.If every urban home could have a garden,Then Nature would perhaps the owners pardon;Alas, […]

In the Garden

In the Garden, as in the Self, whetherThe “word” or “flesh” came first means nought:For in both they truly coincide.                 Jerusalem11 November 1996

The Time Has Come

The time has come for the wise old manAnd wonder child to enter the GardenTogether, and prepare the groundFor those who survive Mammon’s reignAnd the attempts of false MessiahsTo destroy Nature’s sacred cycles.                 Jerusalem30 October 1996

Nature’s Laws

To accept that, though he is free to transgress,Man cannot defy nature’s lawsWithout paying an appropriate price,Is in fact to avow the rule of God. Jerusalem14 October 1995

The Wages of Hubris

In aping God, mankind has lostThe means by which to simplifyItself; and thus the heinous costIs that God’s faithful creatures die.                 Jerusalem10 June 2002

Reinterpreting the Christian Myth

The Christian Myth (which symbolizes wellThe human quest for individuationAnd nature’s round of life, death and rebirth)Should be regarded not as blessing Zion –Both on the hill or in the sky – but Eden.For only thus would God’s Creation gainIts rightful place in urban Western minds.                 Jerusalem24 March 2000

The Divine Spark

It’s no longer relevant who Yeshu was.What matters now is that each person findsWithin one’s timeless core the Divine spark,Lost when one’s ego fell from the Self’s grace.To seek salvation through “the blood of Christ”,Other than in the sense that Christ is Self,Is to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.If Christians would accept these psychic facts,The’d […]

To Christians

These are the two possible renderingsOf the Greek in Luke 17.21:“The Kingdom of God is within you; is in your midst”.It seems to me that not just the one or the otherBut both combined describes the state of wholeness. Jerusalem10 December 1997

To the Church (1)

Because you’ve literalized the Christian Myth,Your official dogma is dead. To survive at allIn an age of scientific literalismYou must either opt for metaphoric truths, Or else explicitly differentiate‘Tween "Messiah", "Son of Man" and "Son of God"(Each term a projected archetypal image)And Yeshu, who – though individuated –According to the authorized accountsKnew not these states […]

To the Church (2)

Though Yeshu, a good “son of God”, may wellHave thought himself Messiah or “Son of Man”(The spark Divine in him was great indeed),By seeing him as “God the Son” and partOf your deliberated Trinity –Perhaps at first to outshine the Emperor –You fondly reduced "The Father" to man’s servantAnd sacrificial lamb, thus triggeringBoth the "Enlightenment" […]

To the Church (3)

If you insist on "gospel truth"Rather than the power of myth,Either you mistook “Follow my example”For “Follow me”And “Worship my God”For “Worship me”,Or Yeshu mistook the Divine spark in the SelfFor his own ego. Enough of this! For the real JesusJust read the Lord’s Prayer:“Our Father….” Jerusalem29 October 2002

The Apocalyptic Church

While it appears that Paulus foundWithin the Self an image divine,St. Peter’s branch was clearly boundTo history, tribe and David’s line. Thus, far from coming then to gripsWith the inner source of timelessness,The Church was tied to ApocalypseAnd Messianic literalness. Jerusalem9 November 2002

Divine Irony?

If the  Messiah’s true taskIs to show mankindThe Lord requires no go-betweenSave that which Jung called Self,Then Yeshu was indeed Messiah –Even if inadvertently –And Christians will be last to know it.                                                 Jerusalem                        19 October 2001

Jesus

Whether or not he was God’s SonAnd rose in body from the grave,His Soul was such he even wonThe love of Paul – once hatred’s slave –To whom, as to the poet John(Who called him Word, and also LightWhich in the blinding darkness shone),He was Love per se that puts all right. Jerusalem23 December 1997

Forty Years On

By idolizing a certain plot of landAnd unconditionalizing  “chosenness”,Since those six fatal days in Sixty-SevenThe West has let the Messianic settlersUnhinge the Palestinians, and hijack history. Jerusalem5 June 2007

The Sonnets of Suleiman

                     I Since first we met at London’s rebuilt Globe, My world has been dissolved and made anew: This Palestinian Jonah crossed with Job Has learnt that love can heal, because of you. Some synchronistic thread or genial star Brought us together, while the wholesome voice And image I had dreamt […]

My Garden

I shall invite into my private gardenOnly those who are whole – namely unspoilt childrenAnd fulfilled, individuated adults –And persons who wish to mend their fallen state.Prometheans (whether atheist or pagan)Will be barred. For, despite history, they refuseTo see that man’s true place remains the GardenAnd that to be Godlike means to show restraint. Jerusalem10 […]

All the Rest is Commentary (1)

Apart from unconditional praise of God,Any human activity which fails to reflectThe principles of organic gardeningCan only contribute to the earth’s destruction. Jerusalem6 October 1995

For Father Jacob Willebrands

First time I saw you I felt like Oliver Twist,Orphaned and looking for a place to stay.In those days the dining room alone was warmDuring the cruel, mountaintop winter nights.Surrounded by hippies from a dozen nations,Like the affable Fagin in Bart’s musicalYou emerged from a cloud of smoke to shake my hand.Bearded, tanned, gypsyish and […]

For Ina

Though childless, due to sacrificial love,You bear a girl within your ageless heart,O mother, daughter, sister, friend in one. Jerusalem16 February 1996

For Lila

Ex-mathematician, you transcended logicAnd upon the magic loom of timelessnessNow weave those essential human qualitiesSo often lacked by intellectuals.No wonder your meals are full of hidden treasures! Jerusalem12 February 1996

For My Mother

When I think of you, you’re always in the garden;Brown as the earth and hardy as an oak,Yet, like a flower, tender in times of drought. Jerusalem7 May 1995

A Sign

When my seven-year-old child, as if by fate,Snatched from the shelf a tome entitled ConscienceAnd dashed it blindly against my hated desk,I knew I still had much to learn of love. Jerusalem29 April 1995

Bring a Child

When at last my spirit’s beat,As they to Lear before he diesPlease play me music soft and sweetAnd bring a child to bless my eyes. Jerusalem11 January 1994

To my Father

(on his eightieth birthday) Perchance I grasp what birds Throughout your eighty years For you have done. Those blithe spirits of heavenly voice And beauteous plume, Which high above our man-made hell Can fly, Bring glimpses of eternity That might have passed you by. Jerusalem 30 June 1993

Love

Let those who help do needTo serve mankind or knowThat Love is Truth,Through Self or saints find God. Yet those who on their ownDo truly loveNeed worship not or even knowThe One that Christ called "Dad" Jerusalem9 November 1992

Sharing

How should we, the affluent heirsOf Western Humanism,Treat the so-calledThird World?Should we shut ourselves,Sustained by multi-vitaminsAnd silicon chips,Behind our own iron curtain;Or should we, rather,Before this prior preceptIs totally ignored,Revive the art of sharing? Jerusalem22 May 1992

Lia

Four hundred and twenty-eight yearsTo the dayAfter the birth of Shakespeare,A woman no less virtuous and kindThan Desdemona – But much more wise –Brought forth a baby girl. And whilst with infinite courageShe performed the final actIn this greatest mystery –The procreation of Life –For ten dramatic minutesTo her generally morbid husbandTime stood still. Jerusalem24 […]

Heroism

To raise childrenWithout burdening themWith one’s own fearsIs the greatest heroismKnown to me. Jerusalem19 April 1992

To Daniel

Let the Lyazhky-loving dogmatistsAnd po-faced patriotsSay what they will;For they’ve never seen you –Pied Piper of Talpiot –Surrounded by your homeless cats,Frisking-an’-a-prancingToward the Gates of Eden. Jerusalem17 April 1992

The Gardener

 I do not seek a thornless roseOr a land where Summer never dies;And I praise indeed the man who knowsThat Mother Nature never lies. Jerusalem20 August 1995

The Garden

The Earth’s in upheavalAnd dying is Arden,For the root of evilIs scorn for the Garden. The fruit of man’s strivingMust now be God’s pardon,For the seeds of his thrivingLie still in the Garden. Jerusalem13 June 1994

The Botanical Gardens (1)

 When previously encountered IIsraeli Arab student malesUpon a narrow path,I’d ask myselfIf sabotageHad ever crossed their minds. Yet now I seeThat, not unlike myself,These spurners natural Of Israel’s tribal marchToward an Eden false Find solace in this Garden fair. Jerusalem 31 May 1992

The Botanical Gardens (2)

I saw him first in Ninety-one,When ruled the fall that ends the year:A shadow in the midday sun,A banished mongrel filled with fear. I knew he’d had a formal home,For round his scruffy neck was clampedA collar – though without the chromeOr disk, upon which facts are stamped. Each time I sauntered through the groundsI’d […]

Three Witches

Three days after Lag b’Omer,With reek of smokeStill heavy on the stagnant breathOf Eretz YisraelAnd Spring then fully in retreat,The Garden’s beauty fading was;For grass to yellow had all but turned,While naked was again that trashWhich, covered by the lavish growth,For three dear months had lain concealed. Thus it was appropriateThat near the Garden overnightAn […]

If Not For

If not for the dark smudgeUpon her nose, resembling leprosy,Or her dishevelled fur, suggesting rapeBy a restless tom I saw at hand,I would be tempted to regard the catWho’s set up home with kitten fairWithin a grotto quaintAs Felis Madonna Sancta. Jerusalem15 May 1992

At All Costs

At all costsI must repressThe constant wishThat round this garden fairWould stand A high wallO’er which no wantonLouts nor stray catsCould climb;Or that the gatesWith chain and lockBe sealed post-noon‘Gainst all save nature loversWho harm not lifeNor earth polluteWith bloated plastic bags,Which on the bushesGet impaledAnd suffocate the ponds. Why so?To let this wishTake root […]

“Art for Art’s Sake”

As knew the ethically-minded Prophets, "Art for art’s sake" inevitably leadsTo the satanic view that, like God Himself,We’re beyond good and evil, and that (to quote Conrad) "The aim of creation…is purely spectacular; …Those visions…are a moral end in themselves". And, like the conscientious "word of God",The daemonic image duly becomes flesh.                          Jerusalem 16 May […]

Only God

 While nature and mankind are dualistic –The former "positive and negative";The latter "good and evil", "right and wrong" –Only God is wholly whole and, therefore, Holy.                             Jerusalem 11 May 1996

The Christian Myth

As an allegory of God’s love for manOr as an image of the Self,The Christian Myth is profoundly true.But, if believed to be a recordOf Divine vicarious atonement,It is a symbol of self-deceit.  Jerusalem 9 February 1996

Stardust

Blessed be those who, during their brief phaseOf consciousness, understand that all they compriseIs the creation and property of God. Jerusalem 23 January 1996

By Being Literalistic

By being literalistic, and demandingOne believes such acts of God, through Jesus Christ,To be unique and supernatural,The Church in fact denies the marvellous truthThis archetypal allegory depicts:God’s all-embracing, omnipresent LoveAnd the potential of the human soul. Jerusalem 5 January 1996

Multi-Faceted Empathy

Not the indivisible CreatorBecame flesh in the form of Jesus Christ,But multi-faceted empathy. Jerusalem 30 December 1995

A Mortal’s Potential

"Christ" represents neither a God-imageNor the indivisible God-head,But a mortal’s potential, when he is whole,To transcend through empathy his own death. Jerusalem 29 December 1995

Life After Death

Since matter is merely Spirit in grosser formAnd flesh God’s Light adulterated with darkness,The Soul at death should transcend "nature’s laws". Jerusalem 29 December 1995

The Fall of Man

The true meaning of The FallIs man’s idolatrous urgeTo re-create the worldIn his own inflated image. Jerusalem 28 December 1995

When not interpreted literally

When not interpreted literally,But understood subjectively,The Christian Myth indeed becomesA universal allegoryWhich leads one to the Light within. Jerusalem27 December 1995

Negative Capability

John Keats’ "negative capability",Though coined for the worship of beauty, better appliesTo faith in a God one can scarcely begin to fathom. Jerusalem23 December 1995

The Internet (1)

Integrity alone can compensateFor the artificial collective unconsciousThat the Internet will create. Jerusalem 15 December 1995

The Internet (2)

I fear the new barbarians will useThe Internet, that fell Pandora’s box,To snare the West in ever deeper ooze;Engulf its steeples, swell and crush the cocks. Can Christian agap?, which quelled cruel Rome,Survive the hijacked web’s relentless spreadOf  porn and executions to the home,Where children watch computer screens in bed? Jerusalem16 March, 2007

The Invisible God

As with selfless light,We glimpse the invisible GodThrough His effects. Jerusalem11 December 1995

Regarding Yeshu

The most I can allow myself to believe,Regarding Yeshu,Is that, more than other mortals, he perceivedGod’s abiding Love. Jerusalem9 December 1995

The True Altruism

As physics confirms,By serving GodBy serving othersOne serves oneself. Jerusalem 9 December 1995

E = MC²

Was not Einstein trying to explainThat at the speed of lightFlesh is converted into Spirit? Jerusalem 9 December 1995

Soul-Trek

If man spent half the time and energyLooking inwards that he squanders on filling space,He’d find at last the loving face of GodAnd would lighten the black holes in his riddled heart. Jerusalem 6 December 1995

Faith

Only by praising GodCan we "know" the cosmic wholenessWe’ll never comprehend. Jerusalem22 November 1995

Time

Be not cowed by bullying Time;For he controls the mortal flesh,While the Soul belongs to God. Jerusalem14 November 1995

Having Regained

Having regained their ancient home,And as tough, extraverted actorsReturned to the forestage of history,Israelis should look inside themselvesAnd rediscover the maskless Jew –Who this time might feel free to knowThat the One God is found within.       Jerusalem4 November 1995

The Man of Faith

In a world obsessed with wealth and powerThe best a man of faith can doIs help, through wholesome empathy,His factious neighbours to perceive The undivided God within. Jerusalem2 November 1995

Averting Armageddon

Armageddon will be avertedOnly if the three faiths freeTheir respective image of GodFrom the so-called Holy Land.Then perhaps they would understandThe precept "God is One". Jerusalem15 October 1995  

Fulfilled Monotheism (1)

Let’s picture a global communityOf individualsAt one with both natureAnd the indivisible God. Jerusalem11 October 1995

A Warning

Till Christians cease projecting on GodTheir own divided human soul,And Jews and Muslims recognizeThat Divine integrity is glimpsedBy the individual mind alone,The closer we’ll come to Armageddon. Jerusalem26 September 1995  

The Humane Imagination

Only when the sacredness and transcendenceOf the humane imaginationIs avowedWill that metaphorical masterpiece,That gnostic-prophetic synthesis —"Jesus Christ" —Regain its role in the Western mind. Jerusalem21 September 1995

Pentecost

The time has come to know that from that day(When Holy Spirit formally replacedThe master in the mind of those he’d graced)Each one to God should find his special way.  Jerusalem7 April 1995

“Children of God”

From a cruel and greedy age these lines reach outTo a generation wiser than our own.If you exist, it means you have achievedWhat most of us at best can merely glimpse:A world in which each person understandsThat, since all deeds begin inside the mind,The only thoughts he should convert to fleshAre those true conscience deems […]

“The Messiah”

If "The Messiah" comes to Israel,He’ll be not Christ nor any other manBut Holy Spirit borne by mind and SoulOf every individuated Jew. Jerusalem8 March 1995

Enantiodromia (1)

("running contrariwise") When a charismatic TV preacherOf family values and Christian faithIs seen in bed with his daughter’s friend;When an exiled poet, a former pacifist,With sword in hand returns to plungeHis liberated country into civil strife;When the divided post-Soviet nations,Sick to death of anarchy and terror,Resurrect the Russian Empire;When the citizens of Western Europe,Unified by […]

Enantiodromia (2)

 ("running contrariwise") What betided Saul the PhariseeCould now happen to the nobler Settlers;Only, in their case, the opposite roadInto which they would turn unconsciouslyWould be that of Jewish mysticism.Then they might return to Jerusalem. Jerusalem16 November 1995

Brave Old World

We, the last generation of mortalsAnd Earth-restricted men, must findWithin the Self that eternal realmFallen angels seek in outer space. Jerusalem 5 May 1996

Humour

Without some empathy,Humour is seldom moreThan rudeness with a smile. Jerusalem 30  December 1995

Empathy

Though always transcending the tension of opposites,In its wholeness empathy keeps sight of the partsIn both the subject and object of its scope. Jerusalem30  December 1995

In This Life

In this life there are two realities:One is revealed through the five senses,The other through the empathyGranted to us by the Grace of God.  Jerusalem 29  December 1995

Conviction

The point is not, through hearsay,To "believe",But by one’s own true searchTo "know". Jerusalem 27 December 1995  

An Intuition

Although the universe is infinite,If a one-way probe were strong enough to survive,In "time" it would return to its point of departure.  Jerusalem27 December 1995

On Certain Jungians

To believe that Christianity marksA change in the Maker’s consciousness;That their "God-image" or "Self" is the Lord;Is to literalize the metaphors,And misconstrue the implicationsOf their own teacher’s subtle thought. Jerusalem22 December 1995

Life’s Test (1)

To humanize the tensionBetween one’s psychic intimationsAnd physical limitationsIs the great test of life. Jerusalem4 December 1995

Islam

Rapacious Science, spawned by artful GreeksRejecting crude and cruel pagan rites,With Christian aid has deified mankindBy shrinking God to human form.And so Islam, the most Prophetic faith today,Will hound the West till Allah by all is feared. Jerusalem30 January 1995

The Perfect Role

Though consciousness at death indeed may die,I worship God for Earth’s created formAnd curse ungrateful man for turning downThe perfect role of gardener-cum-priest. Jerusalem26 January 1995

Survival (2)

I pray that, once the "Christian" mind believesThe body can be saved from death by Science,The Jews and Muslims will in wisdom preachThe message borne by prophets long agoThat human life depends on fearing God. Jerusalem12 December 1994

Beyond Messianism

How different would be our world todayHad the Hebrews grasped in full the implicationsOf their great revolution. The One God —Creator –,Being beyond the dualistic realm,Except through conscience planted in each soul(By which it recognizes good and evil)Would not have "intervened" in history.Instead He would have "waited patiently",While man through free choice learnt to know […]

The Christian World

I wish the Christian world would seeThat, far from stating what will be,The aim of Jewish prophecyIs to avert catastrophe. Jerusalem18 March 1994 

The Wisest Jews

The wisest Jews betray, I feel,The subtle recognition that,Since metaphors best Truth reveal,The Bible is more myth than fact. Thus, far from waiting for some kingTo save them from the jaws of hell(The sort folk end up worshipping!),On Adam’s fall their thoughts do dwell. Just as The Lord must not be named,So The Messiah never […]

A New Synthesis

If Christians saw that Jesus roseIn spirit only from the grave,And if the Jews this spirit choseAs one which does the psyche save,A synthesis indeed there’d beOf deathless Soul and history. Jerusalem7 February 1994

Glory

                Though during life we serve the lieThat glory rests with those who win,Because in time we all must dieFor Time and God our deeds we spin. Jerusalem5 February 1994

When Man Perceives

When Man perceives on Earth he’s wroughtDestruction irreversible,He will, too late, as last resortAccept the message of The Fall. Jerusalem3 February 1994

Jewish Existentialism (1)

The reason Jews have stayed the course,And always will their foes outlive,Is that their Scriptures grasp The SourceTo which all else is relative. Jerusalem1 February 1994

Jewish Existentialism (2)

If Christianity has erred,Regarding Christ’s divinity,So Jewish sages were absurdFor abrogating prophecy. This said, I should with haste now addThat during times when Jews weren’t freeThe rabbi not the prophet hadServed best the frail community. Jerusalem1 February 1994

Neo-Paganism (1)

Like pagan cults, symbolic artAnd analytic therapyThrough myths and dreams unveil the heartOr spring of our activity. But fail they do to take the leap,By Jews  an Muslims made each eve,Towards The Source that needs no sleepAnd did the human psyche weave. Jerusalem31 January 1994

As did Isaiah prophesy

As did Isaiah prophesy,The day will dawn when everyoneShall know the God who made the skyAnd all that lives beneath the sun. Yet also know we surely willThat God resides within each soul;And, though we’ll need religion still,The conscience shall increase its role. Jerusalem27 January 1994

The Party’s Over

The party’s over for the West.With atom bombs and greenhouse gasNow wholly spread throughout the earthAnd moral relativityDenying limits to our youth,Survival hangs upon returnTo standards wrought by ProphecyWhich at the core of culture rest. Jerusalem24 January 1994

To St. Paul (1)

 Forgive me, Saul, if I am wrong(Psychology today is strong),But in my heart I feel you erred –On seeing God’s eternal wordBeneath "Christ’s" chiliastic stir –To deify the Messenger. Yet I accept your aims were pure(Assuming that they conscious were):For you had sensed ApocalypseWould very soon the Jews eclipse,And pagan gentiles were not gameTo grasp […]

To St. Paul (2)

Forgive me, Saul, if I’m perverseBut feel I do the time is rightTo question Pauline "faith", through verse,And for its acts the Jews requite. I am not vexed that "Christ" you wroughtInto a finespun synthesis:Through Leader-Prophet-Sage you’ve taughtSome gentiles Jewish godliness. The bone I wish to pick with youInvolves your Lord’s "divinity";For such a creed […]

To St. Paul (3)

Although he said ApocalypseWould in his life the world eclipse,While those who meantime conquered sinA place on God’s new Earth would win;And, though he would have found it oddIf "son of man" were "Son of God",I don’t believe you truly liedWhen "Jesus Christ" you deified:For he, you thought, did Death defeatThen rise to God and […]

Paradise Regained (3)

Paradise regained does not involveA "Greater Man’s" return to Earth,But great resolve in one’s own heartTo let not evil thrive again. Jerusalem6 November 1995  

The Challenge

Rather than with private planes and larger cars,For terrestrial loss may we compensate with spirit.Thus, on dividing the land for external peace,We would discover the path to inner wholeness. Jerusalem4 November 1995

“God’s Kingdom” (1)

Whether Imagination, SelfOr Conscience be the more divine,As Yeshu may have meant – who knows?,"God’s Kingdom" lies within the SoulAnd thence as Love may be projected. Jerusalem31 May 1995

“God’s Kingdom” (2)

"God’s Kingdom" is not "of this world":For it is glimpsed by thoseWho, through empathy and Grace,Transcend their mortal ego. Jerusalem29 December 1995

Paradise Regained (1)

The only justification for The FallWould be if, on finding a planet like the Earth,Some wiser generation than our ownWould make of it a gardener’s paradise. Jerusalem10 November 1994

Paradise Regained (2)

The Biblical Eden of course is myth.Yet for this exiled Englishman, at least,To worship, work and love in a secret garden,And walk at dusk in a damp primrose woodWould indeed be paradise on earth regained. Jerusalem2 December 1994

Apocalypse (1)

Deep down, the fundamentalists know wellThat general consciousness has almost graspedApocalypse stems not from God withoutBut from the archetype of Self within,Which also forms the image of the Garden.Hence their desire to take a final standIn Zion’s hard and literalistic heart. Jerusalem14 April 1995

Apocalypse (2)

If mankind as a whole achieved individuation,History and war could indeed come to an end;God and humanity could be reconciled;And the Garden’s natural cycle restored on Earth.                     Jerusalem                    28 October 1995

Accelerating Time

Accelerating Time,  unsphered by manEquipped with diabolical machines,Once pictured as a wheel, like Nature canNo longer turn and give to life its means.                         Jerusalem            3 February 2007

Global Warming

(with apologies to Shakespeare) Add but a few degrees, untune that string,And hark what discord follows. Each thing meetsIn mere oppugnancy. The bounded watersShould lift their bosoms higher than the shoresAnd make a sop of all this solid globe.                         Jerusalem            12 December 2006

Ultimate Hubris

When foolish men abjure belief in sinAnd in "The Devil" who has managed "Hell",The evil they have cast upon that "jinn"Without their ken returns within to dwell.                                             And thus, because they "gods" believe they be(For never doubt such minds their share of good),That "Satan" they’ve become they fail to seeWhen do they things which […]

Satan Incarnate

Till Western man accepts that Satan isPotential human evil personified,Doomed he’ll be to build upon the sacred earthInfernal machines and Pandemonium. Jerusalem23 March 1996

“The Demiurge”

Too bad those Gnostics didn’t knowTheir “Demiurge” who “Earth had made”Was man himself, who’d truly growSo mad he’d God’s own sphere invade.                         Jerusalem            29 January 2007

The Tree of Tech-Knowledge

The belief that man is evolving positively,Through miraculous technological inventions,Is the root of "Christendom’s" precipitous fall;For the greater his faith in physical mastery,The more satanic becomes his inflated egoAnd the less valued his immortal Soul. Jerusalem17 November 1995  

Childhood Memories

What memories will children store,Now that imagination is mouldedBy programmed computers and TV? Jerusalem20 October 1995

Big Brother

When the global village has becomeA multiplicity of fragments,Only those individualsWho acknowledge the One God withinWill manage to answer with convictionThe arguments of Big Brother-to-be. Jerusalem16 October 1995

Universal Adolescence

Due to Promethean technology,Childhood innocence and the wisdom of age –Humanity’s two essential poles –Are rapidly being dissolvedBy universal adolescence. Jerusalem26 September 1995  

Constructing Eden

O hear the news! GeneticistsHave made at last a thornless rose."And soon," the General insists,"We’ll take the sting from all our foes." Jerusalem20 August 1995

The Park

To "improve" the park (in fact to pave with stone),They’ve sold a third for six million or soTo a hotel contractor lacking taste.A perfect symbol of our present state! Jerusalem5 May 1995

Hell on Earth (1)

How apt and just that the effectOf modern man’s Satanic reign,Fuelled by pitch siphoned from Hell,Should be the heating up of Earth. Jerusalem1 May 1995  

The New Babel

Oh, it’s one thing for fallen adultsTo expose themselves to unbound art’s extremes;But to impose on unripe souls explicit scenes of sex and deathServes none but smirking Satan. Jerusalem18 March 1995

This Solid Flesh

In his lust to hold the mirror up to nature,Like the journalist and scientific hack,The modern artist has reduced the SoulAnd thus our will to rise above the beast. Jerusalem1 February 1995

Child Sacrifice

As in the time of noble Avraham(Whose conscience freed him from his cruel gods),Today the pagan spirit’s logic leads,Through Mammon’s rule, to evil child-abuse. Jerusalem2 November 1994  

The Way, the Truth and the Life

Each one should learn to confine the Fall,The Passion and ApocalypseWithin the borders of his own soul.The external Garden must be preserved.  Jerusalem16 November 1995

Revising the Metaphors

Instead of the Fall, Passion and Resurrection,Let’s speak of the Autumn, Winter and SpringOr of the stages of individuationThat lead the individual soul to LightAnd could save the earth from fundamentalist fools. Jerusalem16 November 1995

The Way

Examine yourself within.Disarm the evil by grasping it,And project the good. Jerusalem27 October 1995  

Wholeness

Each one must live his own wholeness.Only thus can he glimpse and reflectThe indivisible Creator. Jerusalem25 October 1995 

Revelation

To discover within one’s protean mindA whole, unchanging image of GodIs in practice revelation. Jerusalem11 October 1995

Shadow Reflection

What I hate in them I possess within;And the less I heed this painful fact,The more by hate I am possessed. Jerusalem5 May 1995

Yeshu (2)

Though "Christ the Lord" is but a synthesisFormed by the minds of men whom Yeshu touched,The latter may have acted out in deedThe hidden drama of the sacred Soul.   Jerusalem11 April 1995

Haunted

O Children of Israel, sadly haunted stillBy ghetto life combined with cruel expulsionYet in soul nomadic as you ever were,Is this compulsion to asphalt over NatureBut compensation for your high-rise succot? Jerusalem16 December 1994

To Milton (1)

To me much greater would be your masterpieceHad you intended the "Greater Man" (or SonDisguised as scapegoat), who by cheating DeathWould for us in time "regain the blissful Seat",To represent the archetype of Self.   Jerusalem5 December 1994  

To Milton (2)

Little did you know when writing Paradise LostThat "Christ" and "Satan" were in fact projectionsOf your own divided soul and, thus, of Man —Who now, God help us, must learn to save himself. Jerusalem5 October 1995 

Flesh Must Die

I grant that those who truly holdTheir Saviour’s body rose againCan human nature quite remouldAnd turn to joy all grievous pain. Yet some who reckon this beliefIs based upon a mortal lieAccept that pain, as well as grief,Reminds the spirit flesh must die. Jerusalem23 January 1994

Reversal

For Western man to lose his Pride,The Jews must take to heart the callIn peace with nature to resideAnd thus reverse the Primal Fall. For Church the message is more grave:The time has come when it must seeThat calling Yeshu God did paveThe way to man’s "divinity".    Jerusalem20 January 1994      

The Fall (1)

In short the fall of man from GraceInvolves confusing means with end:Smug Science sits in God’s true place;To Mammon lustful knees do bend. Because the West’s ideal is Play,By our own toys we are enslaved;Computers think for us today,And yet through them we deem we’re saved. If we from Culture don’t eraseInvention for invention’s sake,Or […]

Formal Faiths

The time has come when we must knowThat God resides within each one,And no amount of artful showCan hide the actions we have done. For me this is the very coreOf classic Jewish prophecy;If grasped, it opens up the doorAnd helps the honest mind to see That formal faiths are simply maps,Reflecting paths by others […]

The Final Judgement

                      Although to normal individualsAcknowledgement by others matters much,The final judgement comes from deep within,When at the doors of Death one meets such sinsAs Pride, which separated one from God. Jerusalem17 January 1994

As Science Grows Stronger

As Science grows stronger the further we slideFrom that realm known as FaithWhere angels abideAnd miracles happen; poetry thrives;Children are loved; nature survives. Jerusalem16 January 1994

God Forgive

O God forgive my former heresyIn thinking man correct to reap The Tree.Yet, if one is to fathom history,One must admit the ambiguity:For till one knows what good and evil meanHow can one differentiate between? But now I see the myth’s intended trend:It’s monotheistic from start to end –Since Eve and Adam were created freeAnd, […]

Sons of Abraham

Sons of Abraham unite! Darkness is the enemy, Not the shades (or tints) of light Spread amongst us equally. Man is dying, due to lust. If we fail to muster soon, All will crumble into dust; Earth become another moon. Heirs of the prophetic view, Shun those symbols which divide; Build Jerusalem anew, Send our […]

The Prophet Came Up

The prophet came up from his desert caveAnd with urgent voice he saidTo the newsmen and camerasOutside the Knesset:"To free our cousins is surely blessèd(For I was the first to curse the menWho saw the conquest of Sixty-SevenAs word from God to ‘unite’ the landBestowed on the seed of Abraham);Yet, hear me, Children of Israel,Like […]

Hear, 0 Israel!

Hear, O Israel! no time to wait.Hire Mount Horeb, leave Jericho.Then, instead of Joshua’s hate,Moshe’s light from you may flow. Jerusalem1 June 1992

The Man and the Woman

The man and the woman lay back to back in bed.He had been called by her a conceited swine,She, in return, by him a feminist bitch.At length the two of them fell fast asleep;And the man dreamt his naked wife aroseAnd, torch in hand, descended unknown stairs.Without delay he grabbed his dressing gown(A black Chinese […]

Hamlet

Were I to write my own version of Hamlet,The Prince alone would see his father’s ghost;And, when Ophelia died, he’d kill himselfBy leaping off a cliff into the fearless sea. Jerusalem23 April 1994

Repentance

When outraged by human follyAnd suicidal brute force,Yet conscious that one’s own sinMakes anger mere hypocrisy,Then rather than didactic din Repentance is the kosher course. Jerusalem27 May 1992

Penance

Nothing less than outrightUniversal penanceFor our human greed willChange the cosmic law that,Prior to full destruction,Man must know that for theFirst time since CreationEden could be gained. Jerusalem17 May 1992  

Imagination

‘Tis time the prophetic worldDid dream that, Contrary to Darwin’s Law,The sole means of humanTranscendenceIs divine Imagination,Whose offspring –Despite historicist claims – Is preconceivedOnly by the sacred powerTo choose ‘tweenHeaven and hell on Earth. Jerusalem18 April 1992

Like Alchemy

Like alchemy in days of old,The function true of poetryIs to transform one’s "dross" to "gold"And thus from flesh the Soul to free. Jerusalem30 January 1994

In Defence of Yeshu the Poet

To deny the divide inherent in man’s nature;To abandon balance in the hope of transcendence;To forsake the intellect in the name of faith;To drown one’s ego in the amoral unconscious;To refrain from judgement in the face of evil;To turn the other cheek in defending one’s children;To disengage from the earth in pursuing God’s Kingdom:Is to […]

A Hopeless Quest

Though many times I’ve wished to writeA novel starring Jesus Christ,The question grave is how I mightLet Truth remain unsacrificed. This is indeed a hopeless quest,Since most of his biographyPoetic licence is at bestAnd lends but little help to me. I grant there is here irony,As fiction acts through metaphor;Yet hate I do the sophistryOf […]

The Creative Act

For me the only way to dealWith my perverse, divided soulIs through the pen to Truth appealAnd pray the act will make me whole.   Jerusalem30 January 1994

Prophetic Art (1)

Europe’s impulse is erotic,Israel’s at heart prophetic;In Britannia I’m chaotic,In Jerusalem poetic. This of course would be ironic,If my poesy were ByronicRather than, let’s say, Miltonic –Namely moral and sermonic. Jerusalem25 December 1993

Prophetic Art (2)

In this unwholesome ageOf pseudo-pagan, technocratic,Pornographic lies,Through fresh transcendent metaphorsThe poet must restate those timeless truthsWithout which no society survives. Jerusalem15 January 1994

Prophetic Art (3)

For each the way to God dependsUpon his nature, means and ends.To me the Prophets most appeal,Since they the truth through verse reveal. Jerusalem16 January 1994

The Prophetic Spirit (1)

Without a doubt my soul is splitBetween the poet and the Jew;That’s why the only shoes which fitAre those the troubled Prophets knew. Jerusalem25 December 1992

The Prophetic Spirit (2)

Those "liberals" have got it wrong!In times of moral entropy,To counter fashion’s tyranny,The artist’s ethics should be strong. Jerusalem11 December 1993

Technological Messianists

Ego-possessed, insatiable fools,You’ve traded your Souls for Promethean tools! Jerusalem11 January 2003

Anthropos

You ask why God is absent in the West:The ego by Anthropos is possessed. Jerusalem28 April 1999

The Fall (3)

When heartfelt truths are smirched by lying acts,The Fall the perpetrator straight enacts. Jerusalem26 March 2000

A New Leaf (1)

Let’s turn over a new leaf,And become what we’ve always feltWe ought to be:Committed gardeners. Not that it’s a great sacrificeTo put magic seeds In the fertile soilAnd let them transform before our eyesInto upward-striving tender plants. Nor is it so burdensomeTo lend a handBy airing occasionally their snug beds,Quenching their thirst on hot days,And […]

Rise and Fall

In airy forests man evolved;In carbon fumes he’ll be dissolved. Jerusalem7 May 1999

The Kingdom of Man

Summer in winter, fall in spring;God is in exile – man is king. Jerusalem4 January 1999

Non-Ecotourism

Like Global Warming and TV,The tourist trade is nature’s curse:Corrupting view and those that seeThe seen who fills his greedy purse.  Jerusalem16 February 1994

If Peace Takes Root

If peace takes root in Zion,May each man grow a vineAnd tend a garden fair;But not, I pray, as is the trend,Acquire a plane to shrink the skyOr jeep to scar the land.So hear, O Israel, whilst you canThe still small voice of calm. Jerusalem4 September 1993

Last Winter’s Rage

Whatever caused last winter’s rage –Accumulated smoke, maybe,From oil wells by Sadam destroyed,Combined with evil greenhouse gasFrom Satan’s Western forges blown,Or merely Nature’s cycle strange –Right now beneath the sky so blueThe broom reborn is yellower,The wheat more gold; the lilies white,The berries blacker; grass more green,The poppies redder than of yore. So let’s beseech […]

Western Economic Growth

The only economic growthWe could afford today Without impairing all that grows Would be to plant within our children’s Young and tender wills Respect for Earth’sDecreasing forms Of sacredLife. Jerusalem17 May 1992

Dead Tomcat

I wonder who installed you hereAmid the olive trees,Surrounded by fresh blades of grassAnd red anemones. Was it perchance the motoristWho caused your ninth-life’s loss,Or one of the Christian pilgrim dearsSeeking their Holy Cross? Whatever the truth, here you’ve lainBeside the museum fenceFrom Passover Eve to Easter Day.Oh, won’t you vanish hence! For this is […]

The Eye of Heaven

If it is trueThe ozone layer will be dissolvedBy poisonous man-made gases,The eye of heavenWill take the opportunityTo wreak revenge for our creating nuclear powerAnd conquering his beloved Moon.Thus, before their natural time,The golden ears of the ripening corn,The red lips of the hearty wench,The white skin of the naked child,The black nape of the […]

Space Probes

If scientists were by chance to discoverIrreparable damage is doneTo the earth’s atmosphere by space probes,You can bet your bottom dollar or roubleThey’d rather go to Hell than let on.  Jerusalem2 January 1996

Cosmic Balance

This is not a tribute to those from Tel AvivWho could see only beauty in the snowThat fell on JerusalemA year after the Gulf War.They would as easily have fiddledWhile the Holy City burned. Nor is it a defense of the morbid fellowWho, in responding to this record fallAnd the damage inflicted on half our […]

Daughter of Adam

Something is stroking my headEver so gently."I’m your Mummy," a four-year-old voice declares withGreat earnestness. "You must get up; it is morning." Through the narrow slit between the lids of one eyeI behold a huge Alice in Wonderland face hovering over my own:Absorbed, affectionate, intent, indulgent."Get up, darling. I want to change your diaper."She wants […]

He Who Knows (2)

He who knows God dwells withinCovets not his neighbour’s land,Nor needs to walk in space.  Jerusalem3 December 1995

Dust

Dust in the air and dust on the water,Dust in the chair and dust on the psalter,Dust in my hair and dust on my daughter,Dust everywhere as time gets shorter.                Jerusalem10 June 1995

A Prophet’s Curse

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,Let my right hand forget her cunning:I am left-handed! Jerusalem5 October 1995

Technocrats

Divorced from earth, too smug to worship God,Slick technocrats intent on cheating DeathConstruct for all a dark, terrestrial hell.  Jerusalem7 August 1994

A Father’s Anguish

O how I fear for you, my star-struck child:That vacant, Aryan, Barbie doll lookIs tempting with nothing your strained Jewish soul.  Jerusalem14 December 1994

Virtual Hell

Though from the madness a New Man may rise,The present generation seems doomed to buildA virtual hell – a psychological pitIn which no father can protect his childFrom diabolic images projected,Via machines, by the collective unconsciousOnto undifferentiating mindsWherein they will become the germs of deeds.              Jerusalem            13 October 1998

Hypocrites

To hell with those fundamentalist hypocritesWho justify the ways of men to God! Jerusalem15 October 1995

Life’s Test (2)

It’s what one makes of what there isThat matters. For thus one’s soul is wrought. Jerusalem17 February 1996

The Key

Though some would prefer telepathy,The key to "God’s Kingdom" is empathy. Jerusalem29 December 1995

The Prophet (1)

Though bard I may be, I am not a youth: For I consider beauty less than truth. Jerusalem 24 February 1996

Free Choice

Each one is free to reject or fulfilThe potential God has given him. Jerusalem1 November 1995

He Who Knows (1)

He who knows that God is OneKnows he himself is whole. Jerusalem30 October 1995

Anarchy

"High technology counters Tyranny,"Liberals write, while Anarchy grins. Jerusalem8 October 1995

Mystery

To favour ignorance is foolish;To deny life’s mystery is mad. Jerusalem19 November 1994

Jerusalem (4)

Monolithic, evangelistic;Neolithic, and chauvinistic. Jerusalem11 June 1995

Jerusalem (5)

What bull-dozing Zionists call unificationThis dissident poet calls lunification. Jerusalem7 October 1995  

The Essence

                     In all true faiths this wisdom is stored:Respect Creation; honour The Lord. Jerusalem 26 December 1993

Abraham

When Avram failed to woo the setting sun,Next day the several became The One. Jerusalem20 December 1993

For Hananiah

Wild horses couldn’t drag you away,But now that you’ve goneI hope you’re riding them – And not only horses;And are feasting and drinking and singingAnd tap dancing and pole vaultingAnd beaming…Beaming…Beaming.                         Jerusalem            5 October 2004

To Odile

Your impish smileWhich at the slightest hintOf injustice or deceitGives way to indignationSays it all. And, living as you doOff nervous energy or sheer spirit,You bring to mindAn urban flower or country catWho chose the city. Childlike but not na?ve;No thoughtless thrills for you,Alchemical catalyst;Nor empty platitudes,Earnest vigilant nurse. Cordelia of the Bay,Fit only for […]

The Power of Love

Hatred is on the march,Destruction’s drawing near.So, come, let’s set our heartsAgainst the Reign of Fear. There is no other wayTo end the vicious rubOf "be killed or kill today"Than through the Power of Love. Now this may sound naive;"Utopian!" you might roar.Yet Love alone – perceive –Transcends old Darwin’s Law. The day is nearing […]

Shadow

While the Germans, on the whole, through penitenceHave integrated their collective shadowAnd beaten their fiery swords into pens and ploughshares,The victors of the last World War have not.Accordingly they project infectious hubrisAnd paranoia on those who feel most incensed,Creating, thus, Islamic Prometheans.                                                 Jerusalem    […]

Technological Occult

Virtual Reality and the InternetWill create a technological occult.Seldom in history have the odds been graverFor the fragile, dualistic human soul.  Jerusalem22 December 1995

“The Final Judgement”

Having incarnated, through technology,The hydra-headed archetype of Hell;Having thus created Auschwitz and atom bombs,Nuclear waste, oil wells and laser beams,Through the limitless abyss of CyberspaceAnd so-called Virtual RealityInsatiable, satanic Western menAre now in practice forcing unripe childrenAt the mere touch of a "mouse" in their home or classroomTo choose whether or not to experienceImages more […]

Beeping Gadgets

When comes the time for me to die,Instead of being forced to lieIn claustrophobic hospitalWhere doctors most unnaturalAnd beeping gadgets fed with scrollsStoke terror in departing souls,I hope like Hiawatha brave The sea I’ll make my boundless grave. Jerusalem16 February 1994

I Wonder

I wonder how I shall endureWhen microlights will fill the skies;When there’s no desert, hill or shoreStill free from noise and roving eyes. Jerusalem5 February 1994

Soon

Soon there’ll be no quiet placesLeft in which to stroll.Modern man with his diabolic toysWill have conquered solitude completely. Jerusalem11 January 1994

While the World Burns

Just as the complete manIs a true microcosm,So thinks he globally,While acting locally.The opposite, in fact,To George W. Bush.             Jerusalem            3 November 2006

The Word (1)

From the beginning is the Word, And the Word is with God, And the Word is of God; And the Word is made flesh Over and over again. And the Word is Love.             Jerusalem 28 December 1997

The Word (2)

With fearful voice I say the flightFrom words to images will blightThe means by which we humans mightConvert dark chaos into light. In other words, I feel the swingFrom words to images will bringOn earth a new barbaric ageIn which the poet, child and sageWill find their gifts and truths ignoredBy philistines innately boredBy anyone […]

The Image

In the end will be the Image,And the Image will be with man,And the Image will be man.And man will be Soulless.                         Jerusalem            17 October 1998

Nihilists

The nihilists have cause to cheer,There’s now a drug that kills all fear:For each whose life than death is worseBin Laden has a hijacked verse.                         Jerusalem            28 February 2002

If man attempts to fix his genes

If man attempts to fix his genes,The end will be confused with means;The Self by ego dislocated,And hell on earth for sure created.                         Jerusalem            5 January 1999

In Memory of Coleridge

Scientists insist life is better nowThan when man had to fear capricious Nature –Not to mention God (“If he in fact exists”).Alas! they fail to grasp that, having conqueredNature and turned his back on The Creator,Capricious man himself is now to blameFor the plagues, famines, deserts, droughts and floods,The global warming which will aptly turnThis […]

The Word (3)

From the beginning was the Word,And the Word was with God,And the Word was for man,And the Word meant meaning.                         Jerusalem            7 October 2006

Truth

As understood by the gnostic Thomas,Truth dresses herself in inverted commas.              Jerusalem            6 March 2003

My God

Since true love requires wholeness,And vice versa;Since these states are objective,Not merely subjective;And, though projective,Are introjective;Since they do rise aboveThe ego in man;My God has to be LoveAnd also One. Jerusalem26 November 1997

God (1)

I don’t presumeTo knowGod’s true Self.Yet to assumeHim lesser than man’sVery best, Which poets callLove, Is sheer spite.     Jerusalem    13 May 1992

God (2)

The only God that I can worship trueIs always loving, just and genial.Accordingly – unlike those opportunist JewsWho wish to annex Eretz Yisrael,And pseudo-pagan breakers of tabooWho blame on God their cultivated shade –I can’t in truth or fairness be accusedOf thinking in my image God was made.        Jerusalem      30 June 1992

God (3)

In truth I cannot claim to knowIf love and wholeness are Divine,But all life’s greatest lessons showOne cannot better God define.              Jerusalem            24 November 1997

Metaphor (2)

As evidenced by history,The only way to paint the coreOf life, which is a mystery,Is through the art of metaphor.              Jerusalem            23 April 1999

On Pantheism

If all creation is but GodIn search of self-experience,And flesh is therefore spirit shodFor sake of knowing earthly sense;If relativity’s the goal Of fashioning pluralityFrom futile, monolithic wholeAnd meaningless infinity;If, when in time a cycle’s done,God’s mass reverts to energyAnd He becomes again but One:Man’s ego is illusory. Jerusalem10 October 2006

Jehovah

Whereas the God of pantheism partsHimself to ease His lone eternity,Jehovah, transcendental still, impartsHis spirit to achieve paternity.             Jerusalem            15 October 2006

“I’m not a Machine!”?

The time will come when an old, lonely manIn a hospital will cry: “I’m not a machine,I am a human being!” and nobodyWill understand what he is getting at.             Jerusalem            25 February 1997

A Dread

Relentlessly the human raceWill rush to meet its self-made fateAt Armageddon.All eyes upon Jerusalem –That forced symbol of unity,Who breeds division, hate and war –Focussed will be until that Day. Meantime her Jewish overlords,Corrupted theocratic pimps,Repeat the hubris of Davidic rule;Ape past colonial practices;Serve as the midwife-catalyst For an angry, bastardized Islam – In turn […]

Unsustainability

Technology that’s wrought by selfish menPrevents the wheel from turning round again.                 Jerusalem            10 March 1995

In Defence of the Christian Myth (3)

To deify the ChristIs to venerate the Self,And thus acknowledge GodIn man’s mysterious Soul.                         Jerusalem            30 October 1998

To A Techno-Man

On the border of my fragile Eden,The Jerusalem Botanical Gardens,You stand outside your rented, stone hut(A man-made cave) in high-tech shadesAnd micro-Y-fronts, flexing your musclesAnd blasting the wadi with waves of Techno.Even the reptiles are petrified. You modern Samsons are so big-headedYou voluntarily shave your scalps.I can imagine your view of peace:Standing on the wall, […]

Yeshu (1)

Whatever he, personally,May have considered himselfTo be  (For instance the prophetThat must pave the way for Apocalypse),Like all the greatest human beings,He became in time a reflectionOf other people’s truth. Yet, once understood,This fact is by no meansNegative.For inherent in his so-called biographyIs the entire psychic make-up,And thus eternal potential,Of the human race.                       Jerusalem                      […]

In Defence of the Christian Myth (2)

If the Christian Myth (that God is Love,And came to earth to conquer Hate)Can help a hawk become a dove,This myth’s more true than “truth” of late. Jerusalem19 January 1998

The Christian Right (1)

Should peace at last to Israel come, For sure the Christian Right will try With padded claws her heart to strum, With crooked alms her soul to buy. Jerusalem 8 February 2005

Beyond Prophecy

If Christians, Jews and Muslims understood That God and The Messiah dwell within; If scientists and politicians grasped That times there are when thoughts should not be deeds, Perhaps this Dad would live the here and now. Jerusalem 7 April 1995

Apocalyptists (1)

Until such Christians comprehendApocalypse belongs within,The world they’ll do their best to endSo timelessness can thence begin. Jerusalem12 January 1999

Modern Fundamentalists

Unversed in metaphoric truthOur science-educated youth,When fleeing to religious sects,Are apt to literalize the texts. Jerusalem8 September 2006

Despite the Neo-Cons

Although they’ve moved the posts and fouled The Palestinian nation, The only valid goal remains The end of Occupation. Jerusalem 3 October 2006

The Burning Bush

Behold the paranoid President,Whose literalist interpretationOf Revelations will self-fulfillIts “prophecies” and sear the world. Jerusalem12 March 2003

Fulfilled Monotheism (2)

So all might realize God is GreaterAnd man should worship The Creator,It’s time the Jews and Christians knewThat Yeshu was a prophet true. Jerusalem 13 March 1999

The Fall (2)

For “Godhood” humanityTraded its sanity. Jerusalem14 April 1998

Armageddon

Only by viewing it as myth can weDefuse this self-fulfilling prophecy. Jerusalem11 September 2006

The Book of Revelation

With armed apocalyptists at the gate,The Church must term it myth – not History’s fate. Jerusalem11 September 2006

The Zionist Tragedy

(a sound bite) A Great DaneWith the psyche of a Jack RussellIs bad newsFor the neighbourhood. Jerusalem12 April 2002

If Left Unconscious

If left unconscious, a harmful traitMay well fulfil itself as fate. Jerusalem23 September 2006

Modern Man

When ego with the Self’s confused,The God within is much abused;Such is the tale of modern man,Who thinks he "fix" Creation can. Jerusalem17 December 1998

Mixed Metaphors?

If like the prophets Yeshu uttered "I"When speaking on behalf of God within,And if no true, observant Jew saw why"The son of God" meant literal Holy kin,It seems the Hellenistic Church endowedSome Aramaic metaphors it foundWith pagan meanings, which it then avowedTo be historic facts on hallowed ground. Jerusalem30 August 2006

Regarding Apocalyptists and Gnostics

Those who the Garden do denyFor "Heaven" on earth or in the skyReject God’s law that all must dieSo others, too, may fructify. Jerusalem1 August, 2000

The Wild Garden

Whether it has been planted there by GodI know not, but the foremost image of wholeness,Or Self, which will arise in this new ageFrom the prophetic soul of the wide world,Or the collective unconscious, will be that Of the Wild Garden. Thus will urban mindsFinally grasp the meaning of The Fall –Conceived by former desert […]

The Garden Myth

Which faith will revive first the Garden Myth?Will it be Judaism? Or are most JewsToo urbanized to feel its sacred truth? Will it be Christianity? Or shallApocalyptic dreams prevent believersFrom trying to restore our Mother Earth? Will it be Islam? Or are most modern MuslimsAfraid of being labelled primitiveIn a world fooled by fell globalization? […]

I Fear

I fear the fundamentalists will win:For in their haste to liberate the worldThe humanists have poisoned, drowned and drainedThe baby with the water they have fouled. Jerusalem16 December 1994

Evil

When I watch you play alone, my pretty child,So joyful, trusting, innocent and mild,My morbid mind always imagines your faceWere Evil to enter that sacrosanct space;And my heart almost breaks as I picture your eyesSwitch from shy welcome to stricken surprise. Jerusalem 15 December 1994

The End

When I awoke this morn alone,As in the twitching of an eyeThe room grew colder than a crypt –My soul with abject fear was gripped.Then feel and hear and join did IThe ghastly global Doomsday moan. Jerusalem10 June 1992

Compensation

Half my work is compensationFor the techno-dispensation. Jerusalem9 October 1995

Other Worlds

The more we put our faith in other worlds,The less we try to save our Mother Earth. Jerusalem3 December 1995

The Consumer Society

The Consumer SocietyIs just that. Jerusalem16 October 1995

Integrity

Only by contemplating the wholeness of GodCan we preserve our own integrityIn this techno-Babel we continue to build. Jerusalem11 October 1995 

Modern Man’s Legacy

For satanic modern man, not pyramidsNor temples, nor cathedrals – nay, nor sonnetsAre means of marking Time’s eternity;Instead he invests his spite in nuclear waste. Jerusalem17 March 1996 

Indirection

With each new communication device,The ability to relate to one’s neighbourFace to faceDeclines. Jerusalem11 October 1995 

A Modern Death

To watch technicians viewOne’s own dear brainPhase out on a TV screen –Hell! Jerusalem28 June 1995 

A Modern Joke

"You say the place is terribly nice,The city’s sole spot for aesthetic folk;And you asphalt the paths so you more may entice.Is this an attempt at a modern joke?" Thus spake the bard in a dreadful toneTo one who had made him feel alone. Jerusalem21 December 1994

A New Leaf (2)

  In the past I tried to confirm my faith;At last I am attempting to live it.         Jerusalem        1 February 1996

To Glimpse

For us to glimpse the God who wroughtThe universe and all within,We can ourselves to art resortAnd thus to Spirit access win. We likewise can arrive through love(Creative just as much as kind):For love, when true, will rise aboveAll mortal fears that keep us blind.                                                     Jerusalem                                     30 January 1994

Berkeley Recollection

(Dedicated to Suse Moyal) Like all profound relationships,Ours began at the shallow endAnd, via the channels of discovery and revelation,Gradually reached the depthsWhere knowledge turns to understanding, Thence to love. My first assessment of you, inestimable Berkeley,Was through the windows of a hired carFor which we paid too much.It was late; I was weary, Having […]

Love and Fear

Oh, if you love your children and your wife,Your eyes will often fill with sudden tearsFrom joy or from dark thoughts concerning life.Being courageous, love has many fears. If you love humanity and nature too,Though never lonely, you will always cryWhen you see what hateful men and women doTo those who could love, but who […]

May We Be Kind

May we be kind, as opposed to meek;Peaceful and gentle; in no way weak;Forgiving rather than forgetful;Discreet without being deceitful;Thoughtful and wise, though not too clever;Always in love; promiscuous never. Jerusalem12 September 1995  

The Yankee Leader of Likud

Alas, I see the evil pact I’d feared would come is now a fact: The Yankee leader of Likud, Who hates the Mid-East neighbourhood, Has brought to Zion the Wild West And Christian cowboys full of zest. Though they would have us think they’re meek, Apocalypse they surely seek.     Jerusalem 1 March, 1998

Muslim Fundamentalism

Until the so-called secular Western mindGrasps that its lust to break the "last taboo"Is just another step on the pagan path,It will not comprehend devout Islam’sViolent opposition to this urgeTo put on show the sacred act of sex. Jerusalem21 January 1995

The Easter Magdalene

         (re John 20) How apt that on this fateful day in springShe thought the gardener was her Risen King! Jerusalem2 December 1998

Forty

Did not the prophet Yeshu sayThat to enter God’s KingdomOne must first become a child?Well, today I’m a little closer:For God has again assumedThe face of a wise old man. Had Yeshu himself reached forty, and married,Perhaps his spiritual AbbaWould’ve also become a Sabba;Thus Christendom would have worshippedNeither a celibate youthNor a gnostic Don Juan. […]

My Will

On a high tech device my life stretch not,Nor place me in a Christian Zionist plot. Jerusalem14 January 1996  

The Rising Feminine Principle (1)

It wasn’t Eve, our culture’s First Woman, herselfThat tasted the forbidden fruit and fellBut the female force in her and in the Man,Which should have let them live at one with Nature. This primal urge, intent on wholeness, loveAnd harmony, has now at last begunTo free itself from the phallic Serpent’s swayAnd help us find […]

Let’s!

Why do we yet refuse to change our ways,Although we know we’re ruining the earth?Why, when we can choose, do we hasten the End of DaysRather than nurture life and our rebirth?What will we say when at death we face the Lord;What, alas, when children curse us for our greed?O let’s, while still we can, […]

Technology

Technology Through video tapes found in every store,Technology’s destroying childhood. Through evil images from Internet’s maw,Technology’s destroying childhood. Through satellite stations beyond the law,Technology’s destroying childhood. Through live TV newscasts of rape and war,Technology’s destroying childhood. Through hazardous waste upon the shore,Technology’s destroying childhood. Through unseen rays from Chernobyl’s core,Technology’s destroying childhood. Jerusalem13 December 1994

A Fact

Too many Israelis are blindedBy the extraversionResulting from excessive tribalism. Jerusalm18 June 1995

A Fear

I sometimes fear that soon we’ll seeA Temple raised upon The Mount,Where sacrificial rites will beThe only means of praise that count;That Prophets will again ariseTo curse this gross idolatry,And as of old their angry criesWill prologue due catastrophe. Jerusalem3 February 1994

A vision (1)

Through the murky hazeOf poisonous low-lying ozone,While beheading an infidel pedestrian,The Militant Muslim convertBy a mob of keen photographersIs shot liveAnd shown on high-definition TV. Jerusalm3 May 1992

Collective Punishment

O arrogant, myopic leaders,Revivers of a destructive ideal,You have defiled the secretOf Israel’s miraculous survival:Belief in Divine Empathy. Conceited, stiff-necked and hard-hearted:Biblical adjectives all.Should they behold today Imperial Jerusalem,The Prophets would feel regrettably at home.Two thousand years of suffering wasted! Collective punishment is your ethic;A head for an eye, a city for a soldier.When will […]

No Escape

Two days.That’s all it tookFor madness to return,On finishing what I had hoped to beMy final poem for at leastTwo months.Such is the realityOf living in the heartOf prophetdom:The moment one presumesOne deserves a rest,Debilitating, self-destructive, damnableDepression like a desert stormDescends upon one’s defenceless head.         Jerusalem        14 June 1992

The Tortoise

The garden gate has gone;The tortoise does not hide.She wants to leave those scented plantsTo brave the world outside. Her elephant legs scaled with dust,The bony eyes that seeMiles and miles of sterile stone –The pavement! Now she’s free. What emotion does she hideBehind that soldier’s skin?Years and years of lonelinessHidden by a grin. She’s […]

The Desert Effect

The effect of our greedOn the brown Middle EastMight very well beOf a greenhouse indeed.But for Europe, at least,Which is naturally green,Far from teak trees And tropical beastsThe only resultCan be desert and drought. For such is the cordBetween nature and manThat even a wordCause catastrophe can.And, though in the WestThe pagans now reign,With the […]

True Peace

It’s clear the march of Progress willContinue at a break-neck pace;Development shall broaden stillUntil the tender have no place –Unless, that is, society seesThe way to save its shrinking soulConsists in outdoor sanctuariesWhere silent, peaceful folk may stroll;Where cars are banned and overheadThe only things allowed to flyAre birds and insects nature-bred,Which never sear the […]

Lemurs

(for John Cleese)     When the hedgehog started calmly walkingAcross their grass, the lemurs behavedAs if they’d never seen her before.In groups of two or three they tookIt in turns to approach with caution;To sniff or touch her, then dart away. Yet they acted so gently (while for her partShe simply trotted on regardless),That, leaving […]

Only Love

Life is a mystery – that’s for sure,And only love can close the gapBetween the surface and the core,The callous bark and vital sap.     Jerusalem    16 December 1997

Chukars

When I come across them, usually they’re perchedIn a row on the stone wall of the narrow path.One by one all ten jump down and, still in line,Strut before me: slowly at first, then faster and faster;Till, with a clockwork "chuk!" and whirr, they take offAnd fly in unison to the terrace below.I smile, while […]

Apocalyptists (2)

Apocalyptists rule the earth,Condemning it to blight and dearth;So season your contempt for themBy gardening in Jerusalem!     Jerusalem    7 April 1999

A Worthy King

If I were asked to find a worthy kingFor a once proud people wracked by self-contempt,I’d choose a man with bent the Jews have termedProphetic: meaning not clairvoyant brain,But stubborn mind to serve eternal truthsIn face of fashion’s brazen tyrannyAnd scandal-sniffing vultures of the news.A worthy king, however, would know shame(The sort that Adam tasted […]

The Ballad of East and West

(with apologies to Rudyard Kipling) Oh, East was East, and West was West,              but now they’ve truly met:For both agree that money is God and with it              they’ll Heaven beget;Yet there’ll be neither East nor West, money,              nor place to dwell,If fundamentalist "prophets" unleash the weapons              of hell. So may East be East, and West […]

The Ballad of Science and Faith

           (echoes of Kipling) Oh, Science is Science, and Faith is Faith,                   and never the twain do meet,Save in the belief that without them both                  humanity’s incomplete;For, when the first negates the second,                  the Soul is flatly denied,And, when the latter ignores the former,                  the body’s needs are defied.                        Jerusalem                                 19 November […]

Paradise Retained (2)

  If you wish not to fall,Balance is all.     Jerusalem    9 October 1995

The Messianic Age (1)

If comes the time the world is split‘Tween selfish Mammon and sore Islam,Within this rift the Jews could fit:All set to spread the healing balm. For, through their varied history,The Jews have learnt that to surviveThey must both save communityAnd let the individual thrive: A paradox which only worksProviding each intuits wellThat while inside him […]

In Defence of the Christian Myth (1)

The reason I deny the notionThat one should equate the Devil’s evilWith the Son’s unquestionable good;Mary Magdalene’s sexualityWith the Mother’s immaculate conceptionAnd better-late-than-never Assumption;Messiah’s return with flaming swordWith his death and resurrection;Or, indeed, that Satan should becomeThe Father’s other begotten Son,And the Trinity be Quaternity;Is because this myth is not a "God-image"Nor a revised theology,But […]

Conscience

Once one has heard this inner voice,One cannot avert the need for choice.     Jerusalem    24 December 1995

The Thread

Between those souls who knowThat God’s within-withoutThere runs a quivering thread.     Jerusalem    30 October 1995

The Rub

Doubtful boon to be artistic:Deft; poetic; idealistic,If with loved ones one’s autistic;Sullen; peevish; pessimistic.     Jerusalem    27 December 1993

Metaphor (1)

When consciousness is all but maimed by sound-bites,And truth by Virtual Reality,Those who still can think shall seek the words of bardsAt present drowned by Mammon’s booming waves.For poets are the smiths of metaphor,Through which alone one can define the Soul.     Jerusalem    15 August 1995 

Inspirations

In the outer world they’d most resemble birds,Which I would capture, ring, and then release.         Jerusalem    28 February 1996 

Differentiations

Stability rather than poise;Balance rather than stability. Composure rather than tranquility;Equilibrium rather than composure. Ripeness rather than seniority;Maturity rather than ripeness. Perfection rather than precision;Wholeness rather than  perfection. Intelligence rather than cleverness;Wisdom rather than intelligence. Parity rather than sameness;Equality rather than parity. Justice rather than retribution;Equity rather than justice. Honesty rather than sincerity;Integrity rather than […]

Within the Green Line

You bustling, bullying,Chanting, pushing,Patriotic scoundrels.Leave those towers and stone wallsIn Salem’s false destructive heart,Diseased beyond repair,And watch these birds preserveWithin the Green LineNature’s sacred cycle. Jerusalem   31 May 1992

Sunbirds

O tiny birds, you give me hopeJust when I feel I cannot cope;Like rainbow streaks in stormy skiesYour feathers flash before my eyes!                                       Jerusalem                                     18 December 1993

An Appeal

Eve and Adam, learn to care;Save the forests, cleanse the air.Love Creation; fall ye not,Leave forbidden fruit to rot! Jerusalem12 December 1993

Land of Plastic

Land of milk in plastic packets,Honey in plastic jars;Prayer books in plastic jackets,Credit in plastic stars.  Jerusalem  16 May 1992  

Mount Scopus

While two sleek dots roar overhead,I set out on foot for Scopus mount:My first such visit in seven years.At once I am engulfed in thick exhaustEmitted from a van obliged by recent lawTo park upon the sidewalk of the street. In morbid vein I trudge through West Jerusalem,Till halted by the new de facto front […]

The Cord

The crucial point is this: Arabian Muhammad And Yeshu the Jew Perceived the cord That links to God The Prophets’ dream Of justice, peace and love.  Jerusalem 2 May 1993

Darkness

Far from accepting darkness In its own right,One should first acknowledgeThen transcend it By opting for the Light.  Jerusalem 12 April 1993                                     

Scapegoats

Guilt-ridden Christian historicists, When will you understand That by condoning Israeli will-to-power You are but sacrificing The scapegoats of scapegoats. Jerusalem April 1992

The Porcupine

At midnight hour within the garth, Along a narrow moonlit path, As if on tiptoe, due to haste (For not a moment could she waste While Man at large was fast asleep), A rustling porcupine did sweep. I stood aside to let her pass; Instead she swished her bristly arse, Then stopped abruptly, stamped a […]

To Shakespeare

O Bard of Avon, Even you cannot console me In this age of genetic engineering, Organ transplants and atom bombs. For, just as the flesh of today’s Narcissi Will not grow old before death o’ertakes them, So these lines – e’en if published – will not live on When I, together with the great globe […]

Ode to Dialogue

(In memory of Martin Buber) Ladies and gentlemen,Let us be honest.No wrong can be rightedBy steel-heartedMoney-mindedLaser-guidedPrecision bombingChild-desecratingAutomatons. Absolutely not. Wrongs are righted onlyWhen true human beingsSit down togetherAnd discuss their fearsResentmentsMisunderstandingsAspirations andHopes. For the creative word is the supreme expressionOf our humanity. So, for God’s sake,Before they can drag and drug usBack into the darkEternal […]

The Question Now

The question now is whether Israel’s mindShall further take the age-old tyrant viewThat he who holds and rules JerusalemControls the countless "persons of the Book".If so, the bloody syndrome will prevail:With power-seeking, Godless pimps in leagueWith uncreative, thoughtless theocratsAgainst a world in urgent need of Light. This "virgin" siren whose chiselled rocks have wreckedSo many […]

The Messianic Age (2)

Not by constructing homes in outer space,Or fixing genes, or making swifter planesCan man transcend the steadfast laws of time;Nor could a Christian-type apocalypse,Wherein this hated Earth would be transformed,Wipe out humanely history’s acid reign.The only way to thwart such mortal facts,Without rejecting life and therefore God,Is to change our attitude to time itself. For […]

The Compensator-Prophet (1)

The prophet is an individualWho sadly sacrifices his own balanceIn order to restore his society’s.As regards this noble aim he mostly fails.In short, concerning masses, the Eastern sageAnd neo-gnostic Jungian – if notIndeed the Christian anchorite – know best:The single mind alone discovers truth.By integrating opposites within,And thus uniting aspects which divide,The individuated one meets […]

Survival (1)

When tried I have my art to quit,The pain within becomes too strong As does the threat of those who spit Upon the life for which I long. Thus, far from striving for a nameOr bread and butter to acquire,I write to vivify the flameThat otherwise would quite expire. Jerusalem 4 February 1992

No Alternative

There’s no alternative, No escape; Only through good deeds Can one serve God. Thus this poem mocks its creator, Who (dismayed by human kind) Sits all daylong Scribbling that truth. Jerusalem 5 April 1992

A Prayer (1)

This is a prayer for all those Who, bereft of recognition and public acclaim, Strive to express their inner truth Through paint or stone or ink. Jerusalem 6 April 1992

The Crux of Art

The crux of art is metaphor,While art itself bests nature’s mesh:For, contrary to science raw, It shapes the spirit not the flesh. That’s why the most religious art Is true Prophetic poetry:Its vehicle is the human heart,The tenor God we cannot see. Jerusalem 24 February 1994

Myth

Those who “believe in” the One God Should ask themselves: “Is it not odd That other faiths’ myths are basically fiction, While our great legends are factual diction?” The answer, of course, is that myth is the core Of Faith per se, and serves as the door To truths that escape the literal bore Who […]