POETRY PODCAST voice recording archive audio files

THE RED SEA

In “Cairo, Brooklyn”

the weather was fair
on the day she said nothing.

Even when they mustered darkly
she still did not say anything.

On the second day
that I first saw your face
we took each piece of Brooklyn
like books off the shelf
we re-arranged everything
without a care.

I had smiled at each stoplight
while you stole red kisses
we were more than friends:
it was all you ever wanted.

Since then we defamed Windsor Terrace
and shaved Brooklyn’s head off.

We moped down to Kensington
to rub against the Hasids
they blessed us with condemnation
one even spat on the floor when I said “Fuck!”

I laughed wherever we went
because nothing else mattered
no one else had any meaning

yet Life
was everywhere!

Brooklyn was our little Egypt
we built it block by block

we did not know how it grew:
it simply happened!

Our friends often looked quizzical
when we said we had Afghan for lunch
or bought nuts from the Israeli’s “Golan”
Craved spicy Korean Carrot at the Russian “Domino’s”
Whole grilled Turkish trout saved room for
home-made kanafe at “Taci’s”
How about our Bangladesh block
Where a fat pack of cardamom sold for only $1.29?
And who needs Chinatown:
When Pho Bo was right on Avenue “U” for $4.25?
The Polish Deli filled my shopping list with Assam tea for a buck sixty,
as “Tea For Two” blew my mind with unheard-of kosher Italian and sushi.

On late nights we ate with the “batman” crew:
Hasids hoarding tidbit falafels in the kibbutz at “Famous Pita.”
Below Ditmas, we shopped mainly with black folks at
Cortelyou Street’s health food co-op
Organic yogurt for 59 cents.

What a bargain:

all of life, gave a lot,
gave plentiful
offered everything
and taking little in return.

This is how life should be:
this is Love!

This was our pilgrim’s journey through Cairo!
who cares about Manhattan and Williamsburg!

Fuck the artists and “Double-Park” Slope lesbos:

we have Moses!

This was our desert,
the place we planted our lives:

we became the mirage tree in vast concrete
along the Coney Island Avenue of nothingness (our Red Sea).

Nothingness.

The story goes like this:

Your parents came and reminded you at each heartbeat to get married to the nice Yeshivas

Your uncertainty was like a propeller to take off with the next spin.

Your Israeli friends told you your life was heading nowhere.

The vision of your heart turned cataract as you tried to see memories of your grandfather and friends from five years back.

Everyone around you spoke increasing Hebrew.

I used to think it was like background voices:

but the “Tet” and “Chets” only got harder.

I was the tree to be taken down.

Hebrew is like a chainsaw:

it just cuts you in half.

I am here

you are there.

She goes back to the Holy Land.

I,

stay in Egypt.

Who begins anew their suffering:

who is the “real Jew?”

I discovered the Matzah.

I do not have a home.

Everyone else, including you, have the time-stamped making of

lives discovering things already discovered.

You are not leaving me:

you are leaving everything.

I became the last meal when you said I was

“only a friend”

(it was all you never wanted)

We became what we sought out to color:

oh Nothingness!

I shall not return.

My Egypt:

you are my last neighborhood.

Every step on your cement

washes her away.

When the meter maid comes

every Wednesday and Friday

for his ticketing Shabbat…

I welcome our mundane and uncloaked Moe

to suffer us away.

—-

Footnotes:
Moe: metaphor for losing sacredness through the moniker of Moses. When love is lost (Godlessness), the “Super” reduces to “Average” or profane; Moses becomes Moe.