The World Is On Its Way Down Now
THE WORLD IS ON ITS WAY DOWN NOW
The world is on its way down now
Nothing can now stop it.
Are we going to a new Dark Age?
Will this be the end of the kind of Freedom
The United States has stood for?
The world is on its way down now
Nothing can stop it.
Poorer and poorer
More and more desperate
Lonely criminal hunger everywhere.
Governments will fall
Cities will rage in riot
No one will be spared
All around us
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Was Away From The Poems
I was away from the Poems
I could not hear them within myself -
There were many sounds
Many different kinds of words
And speakers and ranters and shouters
And all kinds of false music also
And even beautiful music and prayer-
But there were no poems
I could hear no poems
And within myself suddenly there came such ‘longing’
And such ‘anxiety’-
‘Where is the Poem? And where can I possibly be if there is none?
And how can I find it again? ’
And all I needed I thought was some long long long silence
Some being alone and away
Some forever waiting to hear
Some listening to the true voice
And then somehow somehow the Poems would come again –
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Cannot Promise The Universe Will Grow Wiser And Wiser
I CANNOT PROMISE THE UNIVERSE WILL GROW WISER AND WISER
I cannot promise the Universe will grow wiser and wiser-
I cannot know that greater lights will shine towards the end-
I cannot know that we all of us
Are on the way Up and Up and Up Forever-
I cannot say the Universe is our Continent
And all we need to know is to continue going West in it –
I cannot promise you when Time and Times are Done
A greater Soul or Oversoul-
I do not know what God will give us in the end-
I pray against the all- scattered emptiness and endless darkness-
But who am I and where was I
When the foundations of the earth were laid?
How can I say or know where and what all these other universes are on their way to?
We are not what we dream to be no matter how great and courageous our dreams.
God in my ignorance God in our ignorance-
Where does it all? When will it all? What does it all –Mean?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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It Isn't Everyday One Makes An Order, And Throws Out The Past
It isn’t everyday one makes an order, throws out the past
Goes through the piles of old papers
And sees here a missed opportunity there another time of life
Which one has long forgotten
Throwing most of the business papers away
And holding on to most personal things
One finds letters one did not answer
And dreams one did not begin to realize
Pictures are most painful
People no longer here
Loved ones in youth
Oneself as one was and will never be again
A life in these things
And almost gone
Cancelled bank books
Money one had once and no longer has
Love and people who were once one’s whole life
And are now strangers
The children
In so many different ages and times
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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Silence Tells Us We Cannot Go On
Silence tells us we cannot go on-
It tells us we must go on-
We do not know where we are-
We are struggling in darkness
We do not know our way
We go on blinded by the light too great for us-
We are lost in our own ignorance and sorrow
We are supposed to not be fools
But we are -
The lingering world sings songs of sadness endlessly
We continue-
We force ourselves against whatever it is we must meet
All the Darkness surrounding us cannot defeat us-
We move on through whatever it is we must face and defeat
Sorrow is with us and on all sides great pain
But we continue-
We are the minor creatures of this earth and universe
But no one we know can think like us -
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Beauty Of A Poem
The beauty of a poem
The beauty of music
The beauty of light
The beauty of life
The beauty which makes us want to live life more
The beauty which pains us inside
The beauty in longing.
The beauty we come upon by surprise
The beauty of the day and the beauty of the night
The beauty we all have inside us
The beauty we can see and feel and never explain
The beauty that lifts us up
The beauty that makes us want to live more
The beauty that makes us reach out to God
The beauty we want to thank God for
The beauty of lilacs
The beauty of autumn leaves
The beauty of the people we love
The beauty that pervades life
The beauty that turns away from us
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Poem Can Be Written Anywhere, Anytime
A poem can be written anywhere, anytime-
A poem can be written too early in the morning
While waiting in Talpiot for ‘Rami Levi Supermarket’ to open-
It can be written in one’s head in a frozen Army barracks in Beit El
Or in a small room on Rav Berlin St on an old Smith- Corona
In the first happy years of one’s marriage-
It can be written for years from Haganah St. in French Hill
In the family years and the lonely ones
It can be written walking by the sea in Tel Aviv
With small children in hand-
It can be written on the same shore years later when one’s life has been broken
By Love’s desertion-
It can be written in old age on Rehov Shahal in Givat Mordechai
As one takes joy from the birth of one’s first grandchild-
A poem can be written anywhere anytime-
I have been writing my poems in Israel
For more than half a lifetime-
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Saw An Old Image In My Mind - Noah's Ark
I saw an old image of my mind Noah's Ark
Fading in the wilderness of the sky
I touched the land with my dreams
And nothing I knew said it was real-
I heard the sounds of songs of delight
And remembered the Creator in the days of my youth-
I listened to the poems long in the hearing time of my mind
And I waited as I wondered why and we are all destinies not struggling to be free-
I thought I lived
They were branches of other trees
An old man’s folly can never capture -
The first wonder of an infant eyeing through branches the lips of the sky -
We are wonders and dreamings and seemings and always being beyond what we are not-
And when our lives are done in this last world
God who made branches and trees and Noah’s ark and the leaves of the first land
Will remember to make us see again,
As if we were always Light and more Light and Still more Light
Heading out again through another lost wilderness.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Wanted To Write A Poem For My Children
I WANTED TO WRITE A POEM FOR MY CHILDREN
I wanted to write a poem for my children
And tell them how much I love them
And care for them
And how much goodness and blessing
They have given me
And how grateful I am to them
And how much I love them
And how I worry for them
And pray to God
To help them have lives of goodness and blessing
I wanted to write a poem for my children
So that if and when I am not here
They will have the thought and memory of me
In such a way as to strengthen themselves
I want to help my children
In my death as in my life
I do not know if that is possible
I will hurt them by dying
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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When A Person Does Not Know What To Do With Himself
WHEN A PERSON DOES NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH HIMSELF
When a person does not know what to do with himself
When a person feels empty
When a person feels everything he had done and everything he can do do is meaningless
When a person is bored
When a person does not know what to do with himself
And wonders why he is on this earth
And how he will endure more of it
When a person does not know what to do with himself
He must do any little thing he can do
To get himself going-
He must wash the dishes or clean the house or take something to eat or take a small walk or read a page
Or do any one of a million or more other small things to get himself going
And once he is going he must somehow go on and on and from this to something else
So that at some point somewhere along the way somehow
He is doing something
Perhaps not that great
But doing something
And in doing something
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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