Tower of Strength/City of Refuge a subsidiary of Photo Poems INC

1. (The Price of Freedom)- The Honey and the Sting Bound Together

2. The Honey and the Sting Bound Together in the Carcass of the Lion…We camp out in the
wadi, laying our sleeping bags out on the sand of the dry riverbed. When my bleeding
starts, I strip off my clothes, bathing my limbs in the moonlight. Tonight, under sister
moon’s influence I will not plug the blood. I squat calm, watching the blood flow into the
ground. But it makes him ask anxious questions…like a little boy who’s never seen blood
before.
Aren’t you bleeding too much? He asks.
His questions scare him, diminish his power.
Calm in the moonlight, with sister moon’s glowing eyes, I see in him Samson’s heir, with
all of his powers and blindness’.

3. Looking at him thus I can feel his long hair brushing my inner thighs. And I know myself,
my allure, my womanly scent that causes him to fall at my feet, blood or no blood,
wanting relations with me. Sister moon’s eyes hold the image of what he will do
in remembrance of me or in grief.

4. The Log be
Omer Fires
Leap…

5. The Log be Omer Fires Leap…just like the children…in hurrying, noisy clamor…after the
last un-salvaged board from…the new construction site.
In merry conflagration…they light
up the neighborhoods… the skies-like thousands of sparking stars.
They light up the hills… passing the messages of the fires… as each potato wrapped in
shiny foil… is tucked in… glowing embers.
Scout and pioneer songs are sung-...long past any child’s bedtime-as multiple
generations hurl sticks onto the flames, holding each other in close armed encirclement-
lit from within, by the light…flowing up the long tee-peed skirt,
of the curling, hurling, thousands of glowing lips of celebration…….

6. Migdal The city of Refuge/Tower of Strength Photo poem card

7. The Eve before the Eve
of Pessach-
I love to wander through the streets and alleys of Jerusalem.
-
.
I make the rounds to all the restaurants…to the humble falafel stand…on the corner of
Ben Yehuda and Hillel Street-to the grand façade and glitter of…Kinoor David (David’s
Violin)

8. What makes this night different from …any other night?
Tonight, humble or grand-close to midnight, and for long hours afterwards-the
restaurant owners and chefs, have emptied out their pantries, laying or tumbling their
huge copper pans and pots out onto the streets-laying them out onto the cobbled streets
each and every one engaged in an immense labor-scouring the huge pots and pans, and
cauldrons-with scalding, steaming water-bending their backs to nights-the stiff wire brushes
that they’re using, to polish the gleaming
pots into-an even more gleaming order (Seder)Tonight-Jerusalem- not Jerusalem of Gold; but
gleaming down long streets, down hidden- their work of cleansing the cookware for the
coming-seven days, and seven winding alleys and cul-de-sacs…the shine and early morning
song of a- Jerusalem of brass and copper, shining:

9. Migdal a City of Refuge/Tower of Strength Photo poem card

10. Feast of Freedom
Feast of Freedom
The line between the promised and the boundary…
of the new ways of our love story, has been written in blood;
drawn up into the flight feathers, of one of our hawks,
not the dove…sent out by Jonah.

11. That was a different promise that the dove was looking for signs and
completion of...a different promised land.
And
if the result of my loving you,
of my touching your life, changing it,
causes the blossoming-opening of a blood red poppy,
or even the rearing up of the blood red head of
a Maccabee bringing its message now of the flight or fight …for
freedom……so be it.

12. Migdal a city of Refuge/Tower of Strength PhotoPoem card

13. Passover
Feast of the Un-pursued

14. You know how much I love you.
It was me (personally)
who painted on an arc of blood over your door,
so that you would be spared the death of the first born.
On this night… The Angel of Death…
will brush your door with her wings in passing…
.but my love, will keep you safe……will lead you out the door, and will set you on your
way, onto the path that you must go…
Take a few deep breaths, and feel me around you, as you drink
the various glasses of wine tonight.

15. Take deep breathes and feel me touching you…on the shoulder…
… on the forehead.
I am making invisible reminder markings, there in reminder that you were born to
lead…and not to follow.
Whether the markings…are in blood,
or tears, or kisses … …matters not

16. Migdal a city of Refuge/Tower
of Strength PhotoPoem
card

17. Bruised Time…
Your mouth descends
covering mine with an
intensity
tasting, working
releasing into the air
(the fair)
the good scent of
thyme the trodden
upon scent of time…

18. kissed thoroughly by a bee sting…released into the air
(the fair, the yareed)…the good scent of time..
.provided, loved by, and molded to heel to…kissed by a rough and silken man (you)
smiling with his mouth (you) afraid with his eyes (you)unmasked in his need
(you) releasing into the air (the fair) the good scent of thyme
the trodden upon scent of time…as I propose marriage (now)
(now) wrapping you up in my tallit.
I ate you yesterday. I’m eating you when I’m born. I ate you when I died…...a lunch
sandwich, wrapped up in a pita and…the fair taste, the good taste of thyme (time)

19. Migdal a city of Refuge
/Tower of Strength Photo Poem card

20. An Identifying Acrostic

21. .A globed journey through dimensions of time and place
.was to be the measured fate of my search of self
.and it was not to be easy; whether in contemplated rush out of harms way or
.nun’s ignorance of grand papa’s circumcising hidden Torah treasure
.deemed worthy to be kept safe at all costs-as it was Ben Maimon’s own
.ever comforting from the secret hidden behind sweet Rachel’s bosom
.racked by torture and rapture each in turn, but saved, safe..
.invested with the knowledge handed down from her forefather’s exiled heart
.never losing sight of the eternal light beaming down upon my countenance
.grounded and turned to the East, toward Jerusalem
.Jewel among all gems is my belief and my need
.ever lifting my sights and goals, deeper and higher
.wasted not in an ember’s glowing soul

22. A Golden String from David’s HarpPhotoPoem

23. The Desperate Sounding of the Shofar

25. The Desperate Sounding of the Shofar
The world ready…perhaps not
The world readies…perhaps not
for the blasting call,
the blasting vibrato of the ram’s horn,
rending the air, and our souls, through the
dense pride and rifting ebony of
our insolence and insouciance, our whistling
in the face of the deliberate and intended cruelty,
done to the small and weak one,
during the furnace-d, tempering,
course of the passing year,
now ending

26. With a call, in echoing call from mountain top to mountain top,
of sentinel’s blowing, the shofar, in a long and unbroken call;
high pitched ending wail, beseeching us to turn,
to repent of the carelessness, the callousness, of that one mean spirited moment, when the
inner shofar, the inner sense of kindness, remained silent; cleft and mute, The shofar, now in
desperate moan, in high pitched ending wail, uncurls it’s long and curled horn length; calls and
calls, straight into our hearts- with short deep thrusts We must make amends before the next
ten days have ended…. The desperate shofar calls in anguished blast; cries like Saul;
heartbroken in blast after blast; fierce and righteous in the last hours before the end.
The shofar sobs……………………“Seal us in the Book of Life (sobs)”
The shofar sobs…………… “Sign unto us another day, another year (sobs)” The shofar sobs…………
“Oh King of Kings, we are on our faces (sobs)” The shofar sobs…………“ In need are we …of
turning (sobs)” In need we are of turning ...and in short, curt, blasting echoes, the day turns, the
night turns …the leaf turns, the boat turns (over)..edges turn and show open hands, flat open
faces. endings turn into beginnings…beginnings turn again on themselves…the season turns, the
year turns...the wheel turns, the world turns…the man turns, the woman turns…the child
turns…and God returns

27. From Within the Gates of the Holy City card

28. From Within the Gates …

29. So, let’s say that I am loving you
from within the gates of the Holy City. Oh, I love you
in other places, too. I always love you in other places…
from within prisms and pyramids of light and clouds.
of places that do not have a rainy season, and mists of deserts; the crystal green of deep caverns.
But to go back to the gates, where
I am an acrobat of love, a wire walker, walking, dancing
on a thin golden wire, stretched between the Old City
and the new, wearing the flowing white robes of lightness and joy…as I remember you…need
you, as I am stretched like another golden wire, muscles pulled taut with the balance required in
the grace of the dance required to get across the wire, and into your arms.