Rabbi's Blog: 11:46 PM

"Rabbi Fleischmann!" the young man getting out of the car calls. I look but don't see a face I recognize. He sees my failure to compute and says, "It's X, I introduced you at Model U.N." It clicks. He's with his wife, who went to my my school of employment. I ask about having him speak to my team next year, now that he won't be biased. His wife says that she thinks it would have been OK for this year, as "there are no rules." We realize we live across the street from eachother, talk about doing Shabbos. I think they got married very recently. It was a nice exchange with good people.

Following the above 11:40 PM exchange I am typing again. I just returned from Shabbos with friends. And it was good. Now it's time for some assorted posting.

Here's a piece of the poem The Soul's Aerial View of the Burial by Susan Hahn:

But for now I muse above the bony
trees, about how fragile
the dance is that they do,
and how I don't remember
ever having such an unfettered view.

Recently I posted Part I of PoemParts.com. Here's the next installment:

PoetryParts.com

II

The domain name comes from
acres of auto junkyards
reservoirs of spare parts
on the outskirts of any self-respecting city,
organ transplant banks
for asthmatic Buicks
tired Cadillacs
scierotic Fords,
surreal landscapes of junked and abandoned
cars in which enthusiastic
moonscape explorers
wander about,
stripping tools in hand,
in anxious search for
an '82 Chevy hubcap
a '91 Buick side mirror
or (hope springing eternal)
a '57 Caddy grille.

III

Poems die like cars
but parts can be raised
from the dead.
Just ask poetic engineers.
They'll tell you.

Sometimes,
they're lemons
and never really start;
just one good line
which ran out of gas
outside the poet's showroom.
Sometimes,
the clutch of the metaphor
failed
and shifting into the second stanza
became impossible.
Sometimes,
the poem brakes
gave way
and the poem just sped on
and on
and never stopped,
never got anywhere,
except down hills.

But working parts remain
ready for salvage,
metaphors for love
similes for anger
pictures of promise
smells of snow
questions without answers
and answers without questions.
Strewn haphazardly in dusty chapbooks
in overgrown My Documents
on grease stained menus
and the backs of envelopes.
All waiting
for the screwdrivers and wrenches
for the hammers and winches
of myriads of poets
potential customers all.