I got the poetry bug back in middle school – “We real cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks. Ever since then I’ve bounced around with Ferlingetti, Amichai, Bukowski, Levine, Collins, Stern, Klepfish…the list goes on and on. I have a little poetry collection called SMELL THE KUGEL that can be accessed here: http://www.rabbidanielbrenner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Smell-My-Kugel-PDF-.pdf
Break out the make-up and silicon and send a brave El Salvadoran refugee woman To Mar a Lago (Ha-Birah) And declare a fast day And in the penthouse He will extend his scepter And she will touch his scepter For the sake of her people. (For the sake of her people. I know, disgusting. But that is the story.) And when the lawyer hands her the $120,000 check She will tear it up into 120,000 little pieces And she’ll negotiate…
The Gaza War First the enemy dug under my heart and filled in my arteries with cement. My mind plays back the aerial footage, night-vision, my international center for compassion bombed into a billion bits of dust. Every day I erect protective edges. When the dust clears there is: A hole. And buried under the hole? Missiles. And buried under the missiles? Holes. My ears have been hit by two thousand missiles. The missile…
KADOSH BARUCH HU Open my lips, I whisper, closing my eyes to look for you. But all I see is the inside of my eyelids, screen of the 19 inch black and white television of my childhood, the knob stuck on a channel that doesn’t come in. And yet, I turn to you. Not turning really, but I back-float and you hover above me, I am staring out the window of the train at the seagulls and the passing mounds…
Eating the New Year The ram’s head, My great times great grandfather would eat, To welcome the new year with words “May we be the head and not the tail!” But you, my son, Dip apples into honey, And did you remember to say “To make for us a good and sweet year?” At first we wished for abundance. Your great times great-great grandfathers tillers of soil, (that was our side of the curse) greeted the new year with pumpkins…
To my friends in the rabbinic world and those amazing souls who are not rabbis but are preparing for the high holidays, I’m going to be posting the many poems I’ve penned for those alternative readings at a new blog… www.highholidaypoems.blogspot.com Enjoy! And drop me a line if you use one in your service!
Jews on Christmas There isn’t enough soy sauce in the world to feed Jews on Christmas Huddled around steaming plates of dumplings Discussing cinematography Angioplasty Lactaid Who has lived and who has died Shocked to hear that the hot new Hollywood star is actually half-Jewish (and not arguing which half) I don’t see what all the fuss is about Nathan Englander. Yes, it’s like The Wire, but different, Costco is a mixed blessing, Do you trust Yelp? On our smartphones…
The Cry “Heed the cry of the shofar!” the crowd reads in unison, the hum of the air conditioning system, the monotone reserved for special occasions, the hundreds of pairs of eyeglasses perched on the end of noses, the heavy prayer-books held at a slight angle. And when we turn the page, not so much in unison, and the cantor lifts the long, curly, brightly polished ram’s horn bought on a last trip to Jerusalem, We wait for it. A-roooooooooooo….