Rabbi Arthur Waskow

LAMENTATIONS 2002

Bomb kills y,
Hamas takes responsibility,
PA denounces,
PM threatens,
IDF kills x,
Bomb kills y.

Is this a poem? —
My poetry professor say
its nouns are too abstract. It is a poem
Only in a world where arms legs screams skulls tear
shattered beds and shattered buses blood and vomit
the earth of grave and grave and grave and grave
no longer matter.

Is this a disquisition in ethical philosophy,
Making a statement,
False or true,
that deed and deed are morally equivalent?

It is philosophy
Only in a world where arms legs screams skulls tear
shattered beds and shattered buses blood and vomit
the earth of grave and grave and grave and grave
no longer matter.

Is this an accurate AP report of history,
And why does it begin where it begins?

The only accurate AP reports are written on a Moebius strip
With no beginning and no end
It is an accurate/ inaccurate report
Only in a world where arms legs screams skulls tear
shattered beds and shattered buses blood and vomit
the earth of grave and grave and grave and grave
no longer matter.

— Arthur Waskow

Lament: Tisha B'Av 2002

How lonely,
how despairing —
howls the city —
Over the wailing I cannot
hear its name,
For some weep for
Al Qud
And some for
Yirushalayyim.
No voice calls out
"Sh'ma! — Oh Hearken!"
No Voice respond
"Yishma-el — God hearkens."
For no one is listening.
No One is listening.

Dome and Wall
Are in shadow
For a fog rises,
A stink to Heaven —
the stink of blood,
the stink of fear,
the stink of offal,
breeding death.
That Well where the One saw,
That Mount where the One was seen —
No one can see them.

Turn us,
You Who Breathe Life! —
Let us breathe
though
we cannot see
Let us breathe
though
we cannot hear.

In Your city,
both Your cities,

Let us catch our breath
from this stink of death
Breathe into us!
Breathe
new
life
into
us.

Breathe new life into us!

— AW