Golem Says Goodbye
Not sure what else to say except it was too much, couldn’t be the tough everyone wanted, no blood coursing through my veins like humans tinkered together by He Who Shall Not Be Named, the same ones who called me into being with magic up the yin-yang. On the other hand, don’t I have arms, legs, two eyes that see vultures gliding above? I bury […]
Graveler
All shadows in the world are screams and like stones plopped in water, they form consecutive rings, each one becoming wider than the next until it’s hard to hear anything else. Tell me who wears a crown around here— I’ll show you my Graveler who sees obstacles as a hill of beans. This is one […]
Sweeter
Another golem came around. Oh, yes. There’s more than one. Talked to students, retirees, regular people. And what happened? Mein kinder cuckoo in the head tarred him with names: socialist, communist, devil— the usual thing that happens when golems try to set things right. We humans are so transparent, some without the kishkas to remember how our parents’ parents and those before them […]
The Golem on Feeling Unsettled
Still unsettled from my last call, when Christian babies had been dug from graves and stashed inside Jewish kitchens to prove guilt, now up against energy efficient drones all rubble down the ritual hole beneath my feet warlocks dance and settle to earth everywhere collecting shrouds– Oy vey iz mir! My stomach a hillock impassable to food, a poor golem, a […]
Golem Takes a Hike on Black Friday
Twisted Bay laurel trunks lean down the hillside branches covered in moss scarves quail make a quick exit like a troupe of dancers racing across stage lights to fame, the only flowers are spindles of yellow ivy on a path wet from rain, skeletons of thistles hang in a eucalyptus-scented afternoon, white helmets of mushrooms, […]
Golem Has a Career Crisis
How can I be sure I’m the best one for the job, a statue hewn from rose quartz, a slab for nose, a chunk for body, two lips unable to speak or eat but able to see those from whose veins and arteries blood flows like a round of tides— restless at every entrance and off ramp a […]
The Eustachian Tube of a Golem
I learned to think with my eyes speak with my hands in the shimmery violet and reddish black of the evening light the sound of Aramaic wending along the Eustachian tube of my middle ear filled with voices of inanimate friends— table, lamp, pictures—all company keepers and what it means to forge a bolt on […]
The Golem Muses Upon the Wonder Rebbe of Prague
In my dreams, he stretches far or holds the hand of shadows lags behind as I try to catch up my Rebbe of Prague who installed me inside the Hall of Justice as immortal as the iridescent cataract of hatred a protector and shield of the people an incantation called to order by a syncopated rhythm twenty-two letters cascading inside the […]
A Dark Force is Calling All Cars
Snap out of it, I told my golem friend. There are more important things than dwelling in the past perfect, no need to cry over spilled chicken soup nor hunger after latkes with sour cream. Love comes in different varieties, some as easy as heating up a can of soup, but you are my own recipe— I appeal to your higher […]
Magic Trick Toss
Before I could subscribe his ears to the terracotta soothings of past times, I tried to cheer his decomposed spirits, played around with a bronze coin saved in my pocket and etched with an etrog, a magic trick toss of heads lost or tails, then so amazed my fetching one from his nose, ears, beneath his feet […]