Words From A Tired New Englander

Rhode Island. Poems and prose.

[thenmanor]

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Hey baby, where were you back there when I needed your help? I thought that if I stuck my neck out I’d get you out of your shell My faith is sick and my skin is thin as ever I need you alone Goodbyes always take us half an hour Can’t we just go home?

[living-in-salt]

Inferno

Deep in my chest is a fire dying to get out,

And so what do I do?

I open my big mouth and spit flames. I'm sorry,

this happens every time.

I try to say I love you, but instead I burn the whole

village down.

I try to say don't leave me, but instead the whole

forest is ablaze.

I try to say I'm sorry, and now everybody is just dust.

Last night I went to bed with a dry mouth and wet eyes.

When I woke up, my hands were made of tinder and

my legs were made of kindling.

When I woke up, the fire in my belly had already turned

me to ashes and smoke.

Secretly, I am still longing for you to

breath me in so I can sit deep in your chest and slowly

make you mine forever.

Secretly, I am waiting for love to kill me.

[literarymiscellany]

“If I could only get hold of the whole of you.”

— Dahlia Ravikovitch, “The Second Trying," Poetry (April 2009).

[growing-orbits-blog]

“We didn’t know then that the debris of joy is like the debris of any wreckage: you have to clear it away to start over again.”

— Yehuda Amichai, from “Hamadiya”, translated by Chana Bloch

[murdershegoat]

just a friendly reminder that this type of rhetoric is misleading, (in my opinion, slightly antisemitic) and not the way to go about fighting religious homophobes.

religious jews still follow these laws. we dont wear clothes that have a blend of wool & linen (laws of shatnez). fresh produce in israel follows all of the agricultural laws outlined in the torah. as for some of the other laws i always see referenced: we don’t eat shellfish or pork or anything prohibited by the torah. clean-shaven men will only ever use electric razors never blades. we don’t work on the sabbath, we observe the sanctioned holy days, we believe in, love and fear God and obey God’s commandments.

personally, i find the rhetoric harmful and insulting for three reasons. one, it only works on the (very christian) premise that the torah is outdated, and that ~nobody in their right mind~ would follow those laws anymore. two, it tends to ignore the fact that lgbtq+ orthodox jews exist and have to live through the struggle of being lgbtq+ and observant, despite community backlash, severe judgement and institutionalised homophobia. and three, it gives homophobia-masked-as-religious-observance some sort of legitimacy because yeah, the rest of those laws are kept in varying degrees by millions of people.

don’t fight homophobes by saying ‘look at all of these other ridiculous laws’ – those laws matter to a lot of people, including me, a jewish lesbian. instead, say ‘do not stand idly by your fellow’s blood (leviticus 19:16)’, ‘whoever humiliates another in public forfeits their place in the World to Come (avot 3:11), ‘one shall not say to a person words that hurt them or cause them pain against which they cannot stand (sefer hachinuch, mitzvah 338)’, ‘do not do to others that which you would not wish them to do to you. this is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary (gemara shabbat 31a)’, and what is perhaps one of my favorite verses in tanach, ‘to what is good and just is more preferable to God than sacrifice (proverbs 21:3)’.

oh, and here’s a good starting point for educating your religious friends and family members. 

[living-in-salt]

Not something you would typically find on my blog, but reblogging for added visibility.

[buckpussy]

[buttonpoetry]

“Maybe there is a song for having all this love and nothing else.”

— Dave Harris, from Patricide 

[living-in-salt]

The Harrowing

Three times I woke at 4 a.m. this week

My mouth as dry as bone,

I turned to my wife asleep, to speak,

But found myself alone.

I reached for my glasses to ease my eyes--

but found the lens had all been cracked---

Straining to see, I saw, to my surprise,

A shadow blacker than black.

In front of me it stood, that formless mass,

Watching as I slept,

Waiting as countless hours passed,

To return to whence it crept.

A feeling arose deep in my chest,

Of a kinship with this ghast,

I studied its form my very best,

Until--at long last--

Thru my window, the moon shone its light,

On the shadow, dealthy black--

And with my eyes adjusted to the night,

My own face was staring back.

[medusagirlfriend-blog]

Richard Siken, Boot Theory

[luthienne]

“—I sent my grief away. I cannot care / forever.”

— John Berryman, from The Dream Songs: Poems

[metaphorformetaphor]

“And I knew then those things that happened so long ago must have happened, but not to us. No, I don’t think people could go on living if they had lived those things. It couldn’t have been us.”

—

Raymond Carver, from “The Windows of the Summer Vacation Houses,” All of Us: The Collected Poems (Vintage, 2000)

[quotemadness]

“There are times when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.”

— Franz Kafka

[breezingby]

Blue October ~ I Hope You’re Happy !!!!!!

[halflunar]

“Even when I look away I am still looking.”

— Richard Siken, from Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light

[living-in-salt]

Checklist

Get married, buy a house,

have a few kids, adopt a dog.

Pour some whiskey, go outside,

count the stars, give them names,

go inside, forget the stars,

forget the names, pour some more

whiskey, forget the day.

It’s okay. I understand. I get it.

Over time, these thing just happen.

Grab a cigarette, strike a match,

light the cigarette, drop the match.

Yes–my chest is on fire, so what?

And yes, every night lasts forever–

but so what? What does it even matter anymore?

Every night the same ritual,

every night the same three steps–

I make a checklist, I try to forget,

I wait for daybreak–

[derangedrhythms]

“What happens in the heart simply happens.”

— Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters; from ‘Child’s Park’

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

“But you were beautiful like the interpretation / of ancient books.”

— Yehuda Amichai, tr. by Ted Hughes, from “Yom Kippur,”