Americans In Paris
Americans in Paris
rarely will embarrass
the Frenchies,
who, when they’re in Manhattan
regard as ill-begotten
our wenches,
since they don’t give French kisses
like those a Frenchman’s missus
provides.
Unlike the taxi horn
George scouted, Frenchmen scorn
as girl guides
without baton
Manhattan.
Inspired by a TV performance of “American in Paris” by George Gershwin, performed by the NY Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert in a New Year’s eve concert that included five Cole Porter songs sung by Thomas Hampson, including “Why Gay Paree? ” a favorite of Hampson, who was interviewed by Alec Baldwin before the performance.
12/31/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Orange County
Orange County, home of cultures
where the rats will sometimes race,
now is also home for vultures
dropping shit on every face,
as well as cars you have to wash
every time you’re in the county.
People will not think you’re posh,
covered with this avian bounty,
if you live in Newport Beach,
or in Irvine, or in Tustin;
though the bird shit looks like bleach
or the sands of St. Augustine,
for there is a disconnect
separating O.C. culture
from my culture in L.A.,
since I am a culture vulture,
and the County’s birds of prey
bother me, so I hold fonder
woods of Beverly where I,
peacefully inside my Honda,
[...] Read more
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Never Trust Women
NEVER TRUST WOMEN
Never trust women, men’s ruinous ribs,
and when they speak truthfully you should beware;
no fig-leaves can cover their feminine fibs
if offered an apple they want you to share,
so when you are thinking of planting a garden,
and find someone feminine, fair, photogenic,
don’t fall for her, since you may not get a pardon
once you have discovered that she's not Edenic.
Inspired by two lines Zachary wrote to Abe Mezrich to celebrate the first portion of the Torah which is read tomorrow on Shabbat Breishit:
Trust not ye: woman, the gullible rib,
lest from home you are driven, and left with a fig.
© 2009 Gershon Hepner 10/16/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Lust For Knowing
The lust for knowing what should not be known
is like the lust for loving who should not
be loved. With knowledge no man lives alone,
but lust for love cn help him hit the the spot.
Inspired by lines written the 20th-century writer and diplomat James Elroy Flecker, cited in a review of the exhibition of treasures from Afghanistan and James Cuno’s book Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Heritage, cited by Steven C. Munson in Commentary,2008 (“Owning the Past”) :
We travel not for trafficking alone
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned,
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.
8/30/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Bears And Bulls
October is where bears all go to die,
and where the people who are long get harried;
November is where the bulls all find a high
in markets where the longs and shorts get married.
After voting at 7.00am I had to drive back to Beth Jacob to retrieve my copy of Daniel Sperber’s Minhagei Israel which I had been reading during davening in order to become more informed about the customs of Jewish weddings I heard someone on NPR predict that the market was bound to improve, because all the bad stuff happened in October, and “October is where bears all go to die”. My son Zachary, sometimes a bear, more often a bull, is getting married on November 16th.
11/4/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Shedding Girdles
Shedding girdles and their padded bras
the early feminists all sought equality,
but women have returned to pick-up bars
to prove their serious interest in frivolity.
Now things are plus ça change, and déjà vu,
as leather skirts are getting shorter and much tighter,
and décolleté’s the favorite point of view,
and every day the outlook seems to be far brighter,
as men stand tall, by women given headroom,
and feminists have been defeated and admonished,
while women now are focused on the bedroom,
with prejudice against male chauvinists abolished.
Inspired by Maureen Dowd’s article in the NYT of October 30,2005 cited in my poem “Lovetime”.
10/30/05
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Leporello's List
Far better fables anodyne
than stories that are scary,
Don Giovanni drinking wine
with no Commendatore,
la ci darem a charming chant,
Donn’ Anna never kissed,
the thoughts of Wittgenstein and Kant
on Leporello's list.
David Denby reconsiders Roberto Benigni's 'Life is Beautiful' in The New Yorker, March 15,1999 ('In the Eye of the Beholder: Another look at Roberto Benigni's Holocaust Fantasy') . Denby writes:
Comedy and art, Benigni wants us to believe, not only to keep the human spirit aloft but save lives. 'Life is Beautiful' is soothing and anodyne - a hopeful fable of redemption. It is also one of the most unconvincing and self-congratulatory movies ever made.
3/10/99
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Socrates' Daemon
It’s comic how Nike, Adidas both need us,
and with their advertisements publicly greet us;
if one shoe should dropp will the other one fit us?
We’ll find out when players all dance like St. Vitus––
I hate that no pedants are out there to bite us
since we’re mispronouncing the saint known as Vitus––
attempting to be the world champions in soccer,
inspired by Nike-Adidas’ footlocker,
decision on which boot to wear refereed
not by refs no one trusts but by corporate greed.
While some like Adidas, some others like Nike,
great issue fo people whose feet are their psyche,
condition occurring to those off their rocker.
Was Socrates daemon devoted to soccer?
5/23/06
poem by Gershon Hepner
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No Swimming Pool Or Tennis Court
A swimming pool and tennis court
for music, lyrics, Copeland thought
chez Brothers Gershwin, has to be
the way to go. I get no fee
for poetry, and have no mansion.
My home has much room for expansion,
and telling me my verse is gorgeous
won’t make my house as great as George’s.
In woods of Beverly this Gershon
is not like Hilly Gershwins’ version;
it’s far closer to a shul,
though I would not decline a pool
and tennis court in summertime,
when people think of Ira’s rhyme.
When Aaron Copeland visited the Gershwins in Beverly Hills, he was impressed by their tennis court and swimming pool, saying that he did not know that one could obtain either by writing music and lyrics.
10/1/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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Tomorrow Morning, Early
'Will there be another holocaust? '
they asked the Rebbe of Lubavitch.
For an answer he was never lost.
“Of course there will be. Man is savage.”
“When will this happen? ” they inquired.
“Morgen in der frih, ” he said,
Tomorrow morning, early, has transpired,
and millions are already dead.
It’s happened in Rwanda and Sudan,
as in silence we looked on.
It couldn’t happen here, we say. It can,
and millions more will soon be gone.
Long agao an interviewer asked the Luvavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, if he believed the Holocaust could ever happen in America. “Morgen in der frih, ” was his reply, Yiddish words that mean: “Early tomorrow morning.”
2/17/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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