(I am, amongst other things, a writer, poet and spoken word artist. It was inevitable then that I would find my muses along my Judaic journey. What a surprise - each carry a tamborine in one hand and are holding out the other for me to join them in their dance.)
(I will also be posting them in chronological order, as they also chronicle a Jewish awakening that's been a rather revelatory, empowering and ultimately sweet chapter in my Life)
(Spring, 2010)
Don’t Wait
Don't wait on lottery tickets. Make your miracles happen.
Don't wait on heaven. Make that paradise here.
Don't wait on family to come around. Find your tribe.
Don't wait on the past to catch up. Move into the future.
Don't wait on apologies to forgive. Let go and let love.
Don't wait on creeds to manifest. Do deeds now.
Don't wait on change.
Change.
(copyright 2010, Stephanie Bonvissuto)
(Summer 2010)
Here are your nails back.
I’m climbing down off this rotting old cross.
It can’t hold my flesh anymore.
And besides
I’m tired of just hanging around.
Here are your wafers and wine.
Had my fill of this never-ending last supper.
Stuffed with cannibalstic salvation;
I leave hungry
for manna more filling.
Please take away your original sin.
I am done carrying the burdens
of a couple naked innocent kids
you saw fit to
damn all of Humankind by.
And yes, I’m returning your paradise..
Don’t want entry to any gated community
where homogeny rules and eternity
is define as a looping
reruns of Father Knows Best.
(Copyright, 2010 - Stephanie Bonvissuto)
the last bullet fired
My heart aching, I tried to follow the trajectory of
the last bullet fired
which had felled the oxymoronic armed peace protester who had been
busy beating back the armed IDF soldier who said he was just
trying to stop the next missile from landing in the middle of a classroom,
launched from the outskirts of a desperate border town
flattened by steam-rolling tanks hoping to outflank
the desert terrorists
(or were they revolutionaries?)
who had blown their own bodies up
along with others on loaded buses
in the holy frustration of those inside an occupation
overseen by those set upon on the day of their birth
by neighbors on the other side of barbed wire strung up by strangers who,
after being bombed themselves by the desert terrorists
(or were they revolutionaries?)
eager to re-establish a sanctuary from
the red-hot ovens and gas-laden showers
and a world’s cold-bloodied indifference,
evacuated to their calmer distant shores,
negating the political promises made to
the indigenous people who claimed they were there before
those other indigenous tribes...
wait, hold on.
which ‘others’ again?
Oh, you know...those others...
Always another ‘other’ to
denigrate, depreciate,
detonate and exterminate
until sweet Shaddai’s Promised Land
and the Prophet Mohammed’s (PBUH) sands
become a carpet of bodies and limbs
of unknown nationality.
(copyright, 2010 - Stephanie Bonvissuto)
Rosh Hashanah 5771
I dip my days through the plate
of sweet thankfulness,
tasting gratitude on my tongue.
(copyright, 2010, Stephanie Bonvissuto)
(Fall, 2010)
The Law of Return
Somewhere under the inconstant moon,
wrapped in a tallit of stars,
its fringes dancing in warm winds,
this then
is what the desert road tells me -
That it does not matter how far I go
along this hidden road
nor
just where the night may take me
guiding with invisible hand,
And
it will not matter what bed I should awake in
nor
the loving stranger, cloaked in perfumes,
I shall roll over to find
And
I should not be concerned
about all those new tastes
that
will tango across my tongue
or
the strange rhythms my heart
will want to beat along with.
All that matters,
all that has ever mattered,
is that
with every new direction
and every new beat
and every lingering kiss
I get
one step closer
to my tribe
and that I keep on
coming home.
(copyright, 2010 Stephanie Bonvissuto)
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