A Single Silence Forever
A SINGLE SILENCE FOREVER
I hear a poem in me
It comes suddenly
Like the lightning flash of fear
We cannot run away from
When darkness is our only memory.
.
Why we live and why we die
What we are and what we dream
All that means so much
And has been said so many times before
Again rehearses itself here
And I hear it and re-hear it and re- hear it again
Because I know and only I know who I am not and will never be.
The fading stars and the distant lines
The signals of another world so far from us we will never really be in
All that is beyond and without sense and without meaning
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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How Many Years Have Gone By, My Friend? For David Herzberg
HOW MANY YEARS HAVE GONE BY, MY FRIEND?
(FOR DAVID HERZBERG MAYIM CHAYIM DAVID HILLEL BEN SHRAGA FEIVEL)
How many years have gone by, my friend
Without you here?
How much has happened in all spheres
With you gone?
Both your daughters
You so worried about marrying
Are married now.
You are a grandfather now, twice.
Do you know?
We are still here
So many
For whom you were the best friend of all.
We still miss you
And know
That in teaching the joy of life
In living the Torah
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem Of The Sea Is For Me in Tel Aviv Today
THE POEM OF THE SEA IS FOR ME IN TEL AVIV TODAY
BET CHOL HAMOED PESACH 5762
The poem of the sea is for me today
The poem of longing and beauty
It is the poem of light
Of distance
It is the poem of waves unceasing
And colors dreaming their changes faster than they can be named-
The poem of the sea is for me
On this day
A poem of return and happiness
A poem of being with my family-
It is too a poem of memories
How thirty- five years ago just beginning
I came to the same sea alone
And wondered how
If I would ever have a family of my own
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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It Is All Meaningless
It is all meaningless-
We know it is all meaningless-
We know we will all die-
And whatever we do will die-
It is all meaningless
But still
We are, even when most alone, not alone
There are others who may care for us-
Others who may depend on us-
We are here now
And if we are a bit kind and caring and decent,
We must struggle
To not give in and give up-
To for the time we are here
Do our best for the others close to us-
And for the life we have been given also-
We must not simply let ourselves die-
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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When The Murderers Return To Gaza
WHEN THE MURDERERS RETURN TO GAZA
When the murderers return to Gaza
There will be dancing in the streets
Guns will be fired in the air
Sweets dispersed to clamoring children
Triumphal speeches of boasting and hate
High- stepping clowns in military uniforms
A crowd screaming in happiness cries for more blood-
But back in Israel where the victims’ families are
There will be only more quiet pain
More disturbance at the betrayal and broken promises-
Their loved ones’ murderers set free
By politicians who said they never would-
Justice will not have been done
Fairness and Truth too will have been murdered-
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem I Wrote In My Mind This Morning Walking Home
The poem I wrote in my mind this morning walking home
Is gone-
I will try to recall it -
It was not finished,
A few lines around an idea-
What was the idea?
I don't remember-
Slowly slowly in old age
The mind works less well
First it is trouble with names
Other peoples names-
And then what?
I recently cared for a man
Who often did not know his own name
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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If The Poems Keep Flowing
IF THE POEMS KEEP FLOWING
If the poems keep flowing
And the metaphors ripen on the trees
And the dreams say words even they do not understand
And all life in sound becomes a magical prescence of music
If all good things come in this process of writing
And my silence is forever stricken from the record of Time
Then why and how and where and must will I become again
Carry me along taddy like you done at the toy fair?
So after all the years of reading
Lost too in the flow of the words of others
Unable to hear myself without hearing them
Because all other poets are the poet I am and would be
And all I take in me slowly memorizing line by line phrase by phrase word by word
Is a kind of blessing
Which even this hushed hearing now cannot really explain
Or take away on the river of lost light forever
Shabbat Shalom.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Rockets Fall On Sderot Chanukah 5768
ROCKETS FALL ON SDEROT CHANUKAH 5768
This is no day for a poem
Rage and rain and mud
Darkness covers the earth
Our haters multiply their weapons
Rockets and bombs fall upon us
We hide
Waiting for the right moment
To strike.
Will it ever end
The hatred
The cruelty
The endless effort to destroy us?
Rockets at random terrorize
The children and the poor
Nights are not nights
And days are not days
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Don't Think I Will Ever Learn To Be Humble
I don't think I will ever learn to be humble-
After so many years of rejection,
After so many failed efforts at publication,
After so much self- publication,
And in its wake
So little enthusiasm for my work,
After so much pushing of myself
And so little response to that pushing
After so much trying again and again
Over nearly fifty years,
I still write and attempt to push myself forward,
As if there still will come a vindication
A revelation and total transformation
In the way my work is seen-
It appears I will die then as a wannabe,
Still pushing still dreaming still believing
I should be what clearly I am not-
I will never learn to be humble-
I will carry to the grave
My own exaggerated idea of the worth
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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Emily Dickinson Is Not Borges
EMILY DICKINSON IS NOT BORGES
Emily Dickinson is not Borges
And Borges is not Kafka
And Kafka is not Dickens
And no one is Shakespeare-
Each one is only one self
Except for those who are many selves
And those who are many selves
Do not know
Who they themselves are-
Lear is not Falstaff
And Falstaff is not Hamlet
And Hamlet is not Shakespeare
And Shakespeare is not Donne-
No one is anyone but themselves
And even those who are really ‘someone'
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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