Jerusalem: Fragments Poem by Patrick VincentBrown

Jerusalem: Fragments



I. At Night
The moon sits bright in an eastern sky.
The moon is in the sky. Projecting
Cold, clear beams, she eyes in objective
Nowhere stares of glimmered chance
To spy upon what beauty may be
Found. Here upon contoured corpse of land,
Her piercing glare of crystal white does
Fall upon each and all bejeweled
Rocks and stones that lay upon the bosom
Of breasted earth glowing everyone
A pearl. And upon the loam rise those
Stones hewned, brick to brick, white on white,
Alabaster necks of splendor that stem
From embroidered body of antique earth.
No nightly veil can hide the modest
Means. The sister satellite in the
Sky does amplify the gems that sit
On sacred flesh and those calcite necks
Above, the works of praising man. Here
Lies aged allure in palling light; bones
And stones to be admired or feared;
Ghosted; ornamented; beauty still.

II. On the Balcony
Among the flowerpots and plastic
Cups I find an empty length of ledge
To rest some sun-scorched arms. I hear still
The din from festive faces that maze
Around stuccoed hotel halls that echo
Like cloudy calls of far off friends unfound
In a dream. Patioed and bent on
High I ponder from my heightened place
The things I want to love and those I
Need to hide. Ambivalent are those
Angels that shine as bright as the noon
Day sky for they never need be seen.
This holy place of sun-scaped earth does
Not belong to me. She has had in time
So many a lover and those who claim
The hold of heathen hands. I stand here
Balconied above with heated heart and arms,
A sun-burned player of that tragic play
To ask, "Wherefore art thou, Jerusalem? "
For now, I return to those found faces,
Those Semitic smiles that pierce my festive
Mask and ask with eyes to partake in hummus,
Olives, those drinks in plastic cups,
And the felt coolness of sliced cucumbers
That soothe and smooths the heady pulse of this
Heated heart and the pain of sun-scorched arms.

III. Bar Mitzvah for Two
Twins stand on the brink what with a double
Shuffle of a holy book. Sweeping from
Right to left, they sway destined to be the sons
Of the commandments and the heirs of a
Long hauled history soon to claim them men.
They mumble in dusty tones the old voices.
Twin-round kippah's, cocked and white on sandy
Heads, two of an age, shift and move like the
Eyeballs of a suspicious face. My red face,
Marked by the sun, or the burning notion
I could bump heads with my reading neighbour
Like magnetic worlds in a collision,
Peers down. Here I stand amongst the rest with
Books. I stand with solemn men in a
Hotel basement observing the reading
Rites of tradition twice and two holy
Boys. The pages peer up from my hand,
Lifeless, dull, aged in colour, like a dead
Canary, a hue like the yellowing teeth
Of old piano keys. But I burn bright
As I watch our opposites, those female
Creatures as bejeweled as the earth, decked
On top, all, hiding scalps from God, spill past
The gendered partition like lovely lemmings
To get a closer glimpse. They jockey for
A look at the boys made men without a
Hint of doubt of their lovely leap of faith.
And now my face does blush with the acceptance
Of the thought that fusty laws speak partitions
To divide and demarcate our learnt
Acquiescence with the deeper need to
Spill with pride. Intuition seeps through.
And so do the words in the book. They seem
As curled and aged like the well-worn page.
But I must seem as diligent as the rest.
I look down again and read the rules.
The old tome almost slips from my hands as
My mind wanders toward thoughts of hummus
And olives and talks with lovely ladies
Who feel no fear yet know to hide their heads.

IV. Uzzah's Mistake
A natural inclination can kill.
The new king entered into the sparkling
City, a natural leader to lead
A joyous procession of minstrels and
Cymbals and concubines and one oxen
Driven cart. Loin-clothed and lean he danced like
The possessed caring not a whit for the
Shame that poured from windows. He would be king.
He would be the well-spring that led to what
Would be believed the waters that immersed
A final one. All in this new city.
Within this carnival of cymbalic
Crash and lyre strum did poor Uzzah walk.
He walked apace with those torpid beasts of
Burden, the yoked souls set free only by
The merciful slake of their animal ignorance.
What animal is not ignorant? But
Awareness of ignorance seems the sin.
So the oxen did pull the cart in an
Intuitive step like organic machines
In zen-like rote. They pulled the cart that housed
The sacred text meant for no earthly eyes
Or hands but to be placed in the bosom
Safety of the welcoming sacred town.
Yet in a sudden one ox did falter
And slide upon the dusty city floor.
Could it have been one jewel strewn stone
Upon his path that caused the shrine to shake
And move upon the wheels? Therefore, Uzzah,
A man whose intuitive nature took
Hold like a double swell of both love and
Fear, laid his hands upon the shrine
So as to steady God's word so that it
Might not fall to grace where rocks and stones are
Laid. And for his deed did God strike him dead.
The impulsive step borne of human care
Left him lying there among the quarry.
And much does God want of both love and fear.
A natural inclination can kill.

V. The Party
Reverie and joy among the smiling
Faces and dancing for tradition is
What makes this celebration of festive
Rite as sacrosanct as old city light.
The light of Zion shown through the villa
Windows. Each arch top aperture did frown
In stuccoed scowls and let through white heat
That fueled the flame of swirl and swoon of Hora's
Circling steps. Among the noise the children
Conspicuously congregated in
A corner. Both secrets and curiosity
Reigned among the young. In the middle of
Their muffled noise, a twin did bleed his new
Mannish blood, the result of a brotherly
Prank gone wrong. I implored upon him justice
Should be met and such sibling travesty
Must be shown. But the boy now man, as if
Sagely seeing more of love than fear, did
Wipe his adolescent fluid and told me,
No. And the blood of siblings does flow on.
And age old stories can be told anew.
Commotion was upended by commotion.
A new curiosity came from the
Window where the screech of a Jerusalem
Fire truck whirled and wheeled from the street
Below. The children, like a tight pack of
Bees that cannot lose their squeeze, sped there.
The new commotion, they were most proud to
Relay, was that a tree had lit on fire,
Ablaze, in the bright light of day. Without an
Answerable cause, this, to me, spoke of
Unclear mystery's like those twin tales
We call love and fear. And the sign for a
Wonder did remind once more that those
Same age old stories can be told anew.
Another sight might help me mull my thoughts.
I leave these festive faces who dance in
Rings so my mind might mingle with city air.

VI. At Night
Despite night's inky cloak, the moon helped spy
The line of olive trees all jutting at an angle,
Outwardly, like evening samaritan's
Umbrella's offered with inviting
Smiles to roof wet heads. On the hill above
Sat the old town not so ancient as the moon
But near as ghostly white and seeming as
Close. On Zion's hill stands the kings wall still
In perpetual grin in old and yellow
Lime. And beyond the ancient town, older
Than tales borne from the earth, beam tiny
Lights that tell no stories nor deign no laws.
While on holy ground bejeweled rocks and
Stones shine soft and fainting light upon the
Transcendent terrain marking each and all
An armament, or else a grave. And above
It all, above all that man has carved, spreads
A vast and sleepy sky, in a convex
Arc like an omniscient eye, that feigns a
Constant watch but looks the other way.

POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
Some definitions that may help meaning:
Kippah; An informal name for a yarmulke, the small rounded headwear worn by males in Jewish ceremonies
Uzzah; Uzzah was a 1010 BC Israelite who, among many more, entered into Jerusalem with King David.
Zion; In many cases, this can mean the Jewish people or the Israeli state as whole. In this case, I use it as a nickname for Jerusalem.
Lime; Limestone; a chalky stone containing calcium; this stone is commonly used in buildings in Jerusalem; the Wailing Wall is an example (see also 'alabaster' in Part I) .
Some descriptions explained:
'sons of the commandments" (Part III) The 'bar' in Bar Mitzvah literally means 'son'. 'Mitzvah' means law or commandment. The main thrust is that a boy becomes a man and is responsible for his actions and behaviour under the law.
'gendered partition' (Part III) In many Orthodox Bar Mitzvah ceremonies, the women can be commonly separated (partitioned) by a makeshift wall, males on one side and females on the other. In large part, the men are on the side with the more favourable view.
'upon the shrine' (Part III) In this context, I mean the Ark of the Covenant. This was a large chest that is believed to have held the tablets of the Ten Commandments inside. In other chapters of the Bible, it says it housed the scrolls of the Torah.
'Hora's circling steps' (Part IV) The 'Hora' is the name of a Jewish dance often witnessed at a Bar Mitzvah. The'Hora' is usually exemplified by an energetic group dancing in a circle.
'Tree had lit on fire' (Part V) This is a humorous (I hope) allusion to the biblical story of the Burning Bush.
Quick note: This was also a true story. We actually heard firetrucks but all the commotion was beyond our view of vision. We were told quite earnestly that a tree was on fire. This amused me greatly. When I heard of no rational explanation for this fire, I was amused all the more (and, of course, I 'catalogued' it in hopes it could be part of a poem) .
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