she is thermite fire

#poem
#she_is_thermite_fire

she is thermite fire that does no harm.
she glows white hot, and sparks fly from her as she moves.
this seductress entrances
the incense of her voice
tickles the part of my memory that I had forgotten

the rapturous sunsets of streaked pink orange and peach
hang uselessly pallid and wan
as all I can see
hear
feel
and think
are the curves of her body
the smell of her skin
the bright glow of her wit
and the warm loving glow of her heart

engages me serene

#poem

How happy I am that my poems
As of late they haven’t been sad.

I welcome the emptiness emotion,
Such a difference from the fullness I had.

Measuring out short yards of metered verses,
Simple and true without conceit.

Some friends I’ve made I’m in love with
To gladness and sadness I admit numbing defeat

Let me take to my bed and nurse this condition
It’s the over exposure to changes extreme

Let me lay gently in sustained contrition
Burning out guilt and hollowness engages me serene.

And I begin a Berkshires life

Springtime compares to you most favorably

Springtime compares to you
most favorably, backlighting your
radiance. galloping with new sweat upon the dawn,
the mud of contentment
bestirred by hooves,
buddings of love,
admixtures amorous scents,
drive my senses to palaces
of entrancements.. alone with you.

Summer stretches laying
in the sun with her reverberating
over-abundance. Horny and jealous
she casts a wan, lusting eye at us.
Your presence, becomes me calm, slow, diffuse, languid.
And the musky plants grow high and firm,
their pollens erupt,
and the great wide arms of the shade trees hang.
between the trickles of the streams your voice peeks out from hiding…
speaking the wishes of the fishes.. oh to be alone with you.

In fall, as musk turns to dusk,
and the roasted aromas of
the leaves falling so, to and fro,
like the movements of your hands,
as you muse and fuse the wisdoms
of right now ancient times,
a future of dreams and a now of forever,
come back, carrying your harvest,
your breasts come singing..
the bearers of eternal harvest..
the hillsides flame in the colors of glory of that unspeakable name… oh to be alone with you.

Winter white as your dresses,
in the brightest days,
so short.
clear cold wind on the face expresses
forthright, forthwith and with forth power
all the crystalline light of stars so remote
and humility of creation
let us warm together small and kind
at the hearth of eternal compassion…
long nights candle light the gorgeous mystery of your ways
…to be alone with you.

For you, 03-05-2011 – Brooklyn and Great Neck

The stars have not know a more pleasant observer

The stars have not know a more pleasant observer,
Music has only fretfully whispered her name,
Lines of prose know they can’t capture her,
Images gave up in shame.

There’s a breath in my a heart that feels truth,
My voice it believes and my eyes they smile.
A new trust and love I feel and need no proof,
I’ll walk with you glorious, melodious, light and lyrical miles.

Jerusalem Rains

Jerusalem Rains

Over the phone,
from New York
my father told me
that in Israel
the sky feels closer.

The summer was the hottest
and the driest.
The tomatoes are 9 shekels a kilo
and God wills Shanat Shmitah.

The dusty dirt
on its was to mud
gave us the earliest
treat of the fall,
a week’s worth of perfume.

Our flowers fall apart
they’re pelted from above
the watering systems are useless
Arabs burn wood to stay warm
they’re anachronistic, poetic

Oh, the rains of Jerusalem
they reign and range
pull the romantic sky
closer to my lips
my Israelit love, she slips away.

New York summer rains
Which made Israel’s summer so novel
Has returned and makes me lonely
Caressing my face —
My age makes me leave the love of my mother
  and yet another woman’s love
    is washed away by time
      and Jerusalem Rains.

-Judd Maltin

November, 1994  Har HaTzofim

The Best Intentions

Coming out of the Depression of the 1930′s through the Wartime era, the Americans looked at the state of affairs in Europe that led to the horrors of the first half of the 20th century in Europe. Europe had experienced massive social and political unrest, there was devastating hunger (not all politically motivated), even starvation, fascism was rampant, genocide was occurring, war was destroying their great civilization. It was as Nietzsche had predicted, Western civilization was on a downward spiral from the end of the Renaissance, and reached its nadir in world war two. America looked at this, and sought to avoid it. America endeavored to provide its people with an engine for prosperity, a capacity to out produce goods far beyond Europe’s, and a control over the sources of energy available to the world – to control other war machines. Starvation had warped the minds of the Europeans who sought the clarity and fear relief of the Fascists, who created imaginary histories that provided a place in history and a covenant for the future. But the Nazi war machine was seriously compromised when it simply ran out of gas. European industry, from the historical craft and guild to the basic factory could not keep up with production demands, and were unable to achieve vertical integration and massive parallel production as the Americans could.

If America could remain indefinitely secure in her access to food, fuel and vertically integrated industry, she would never see the awfulness and turmoil of the early 20th century Europe. And so Eisenhower made a deal with the Saudi. Oil for military protection, via America’s ‘military industrial complex’ and it’s been upheld for generations, providing far cheaper oil to the US than any other state. So too the ‘food industrial complex’ was born to create hyper efficient farming. Reducing the number of different crops and focussing out attention on crop yield per acre in centrally controlled agribusinesses has guaranteed cheap calories for all. America is the only place where the poor people are fat. Industries are so vertically integrated that it takes an act of Congress to keep the auto industry out of the steel business, the banks out of insurance, the TV manufacturers from the entertainment production industry. But Sony owns their whole vertical – almost. In any case, the Krafts, Cargills, Tysons, etc, the major powerhouses of American food production are tightly integrated monocultures susceptible to the same issues of any monoculture – virus, disease, climate change.

Our political monoculture of spreading democracy at the end of a gun, is eating away at Americas moral high ground. It is a symptom of the virus that is attacking the monocultural melting pot spirit of America.

But we must remember, as we criticize these American institutions, that they were created to protect us against exactly what happened in Europe. And indeed it worked. But now it seems hypertrophied. Americanism is now a ludicrous joke. America stares blankly while the culture that was the goad of the European Renaissance, our cousins the Arabs and Persians, put their souls in the collective, and risk their bodies to the mouth of the beast for not the freedom, but the humanity and respect their kin are due.

With the hyper cheap toys of dubious quality, mass produced like our self-mastry, many of us American males are and remain pre-adult in responsibility and adult function until late in life, if ever. Feminism has placed not only the burden of bearing children, but also the burden of making a living squarely with women. I do not say that to return to some fictional better way of life where everyone was heterosexual, coupled, and “productive.”. I say this because in the US, women are excelling past men, quite quickly. What if anything defines American male hood that is not vapid, these days? You’ll find it in the military, maybe, but that’s changing incredibly rapidly. Everything else is either religious or a very rare calling to greatness and civic duty. How can an American man prove himself?

Perhaps the American man at the close of the American empire, at this time of protracted conservative backsliding, can be brave and bold by bringing forward the jewels of the small collection of American renaissances. He can polish them and set them in a new crown, the fools crown, as the king is off the throne lost in the wilderness of peradventure. Even our professional fools are mainly vapid comedians. The new fools are the prophets, the new spiritualists. We need philosophy and spiritualism to connect our few remaining comedians of critique and insight to the inspiration and source of character that is our sense of the universal right and good. No more the vapid comedian, no more the over serious sermonizer. The new American Fool takes the throne.

20th century America was all with the best of intentions. But what character of person are we encouraged to be today?