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for my mother,
for her tears at night


We come again tonight
And reflect upon old Moses
But I know I'll ponder more
Your gravesite and its roses

They fled Pharaoh's army
Injustice, serious strife
Led up the hill on Sinai
No one knew of your life

You were named after Buba
And a vivacious Jewish queen
A solitary sister
To this aching man unseen

I was nine and I was thriving
In my sweetened innocence
Hadn't explored mortality
Life making so much sense

A road, a blinding light pole
A shattered reality
A family all broken
The punctured totality

I sat on my trusty bunk bed
I went into your room
Your brightly coloured rainbow
The dog he sensed the gloom

One week before the wreckage
In the loungeroom we did move
To Skyhooks and to Elvis
Taught me about the groove

You cared for all your brothers
Helped mum prepare the tea
Had friends, a coupla' lovers
You swam cool Sydney seas

You used to laugh so freely
And at times you couldn't stop
Your favourite, Barbra Streisand
The movie, What's Up, Doc?

New to the game, we were kids
You loved your bubblegum
Twisted irony of fate
You'd have made a doting mum

You were taken far too early
Life hasn't an excuse
No god will give an answer
Not Yahweh and not Zeus

I won't see you very soon
In a future or a past
For heaven died within you
That night there in the dark

You died on April three
Early morning after Pesach
Thirty years have passed away
The 'rules' are still so fucked up

The blood of the innocent flows
They're cutting them down again
Haphazard are our days
The time is soon, but when?

But hang on my dear Esther
I've a secret here to tell
Your love it never faded
In the ether it does dwell

In the Song of Solomon
Midst the core of Lennon's tune
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Van Morrison's dancing moon

But tonight of all the nights
I spit upon God's grace
Then take his hand so gently
Look deep into his face

I find you with your Peter
Dance only if you please
And all of us left yearning
In wounded bravery

This is beautiful, Adam.


~ Lizzy

Our Tears

In wounded bravery
I spit upon God's grace.
Heaven died within you
that night there in the dark
and,
I've a secret here to tell:
Your love it never faded.

I find these lines full of poetry, Adam. So I re-arranged them into a "secret chord".
Thanks for the pain.

Matj

Hi Adam

I saw that you posted a version of this some days ago and then withdrew it. I had wanted it to stay so that I could spend more time with it. I am glad that Lizzy and Mat brought my attention to the new version.

Jack

Lizzy, Mat, Jack,

You ever wondered what happens after death? I'm sure you have. I've wondered 'bout Esther and my two brothers. Were they reincarnated, are they in heaven, with God?

And I got to this place, after seeing a dead magpie on the side of the freeway, and I thought real long, and I knew they were neither. Sure they were 'in' me, but as Diane wrote a few months ago, they didn't feel anymore.

I think our religion offers road maps, but it does not address death adequately; not for me anyway. It is a safety valve for our apprehension, a way to ignore. I read a great book, The Denial of Death, I think by Ernest Becker, on my travels in London in '93. And we do deny it.

In 1991, in his book, The Death of Forever,Darryl Reanney wrote:

We should create new rites of passage to celebrate the phases of the human life cycle, rituals for birth, for the transit into adolescence, and above all, for dying. Of these, the need for a ritual of dying is the most urgent. I know of no greater testament to the failure of our civilisation than the fact that so many people die alone, abandoned like discards on society's junk heap. Dying must again be united with a sense of the sacred, for it is here, if anywhere, that the psyche transcends its human limitation.

It is the memory of Esther that is alive in me and you - her love in me and you. And this 'life' never dies. It trickles down into the generations. In this we are eternal. And in this we must celebrate. We must build ritual so children will know that every action sends ripples in the pool of the Universe. And those ripples will be felt in the year 18 billion.

This poem was difficult to write and even more difficult to post - thus the withdrawal Jack. But, the show must go on. A new day is here.

It is the memory of Esther that is alive in me and you - her love in me and you. And this 'life' never dies. It trickles down into the generations. In this we are eternal. And in this we must celebrate. We must build ritual so children will know that every action sends ripples in the pool of the Universe. And those ripples will be felt in the year 18 billion.

I agree totally with this, Adam. I didn't realize you had withdrawn this poem, but I'm very glad you came to a place in yourself where you could repost it.

I've thought a lot about death and what happens to us. Whether it's immediate, or in decades, or hundreds or thousands of years, reincarnation resonates the most with me.


~ Lizzy

outside the "vat",
I am.

re-incarnation is inside the "vat". it is a space/time game.

"outside the vat" is where the real game is.

Matj the mystic in I am whiskey.
I am.

Is it the vat of whiskey, Mat ?

re-incarnation is inside the "vat". it is a space/time game.

"outside the vat" is where the real game is.

How do you see the two games as being?

If those being/believing in reincarnation are caught up in the space/time game, what do you feel your 'reality' in the real game will be?


~ Lizzy

If those being/believing in reincarnation are caught up in the space/time game, what do you feel your 'reality' in the real game will be?

Lizzy,
my position is outlined in my poem "Presciently Pissed in Trinity" and the aditional comments underneath the poem.

This analogous "system"/poem is simple and to me , wonderfully visual for a "view" of the mystic.
A stroke of "genius", as Bernard put it.
And, without ego, I agree.
So have a look and think deeply about it and you may see what I see with regard to your question above.
I don't mind blowing my own trumpet when I'm on song.


Mat j

Adam ben Meyer wrote:It is the memory of Esther that is alive in me and you - her love in me and you.

I don't know who Esther is. Tell me about her.