Gershon Hepner
(1938 - )
(1938 - )
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - after premature ejaculation
After premature ejaculation
comes inability to have
a hard-on, and its variation,
a lonely sexlife in the lav.
Inspired by James Wood's review of Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island in TNR, August 28,2006:
Saul Bellow once had a character admire the 'touch-cock' fingers of his mistress-how demure that seems! Houellebecq's novels are filled with pages and pages of essentially pornographic descriptions of sex. His characters masturbate, are masturbated by unnaturally forgiving women, are endlessly fellated by same; his men penetrate women, occasionally sodomize them, and also like to go off to sex colonies or swingers' nightclubs where they can engage in threesomes and foursomes. In Platform, Michel and his girlfriend Valérie are having sex at a resort in Cuba when the maid sees them at it. Of course, she joins them: 'She was wearing nothing underneath but a pair of white cotton panties. She must have been about twenty, and her body was very brown, almost black. She had a firm little bust and finely curved buttocks.... Valérie took her hand and placed it on my penis.'
But it would be unfair not to mention that Houellebecq is often very funny about these same hapless and repellent males, and that his prose can rise to aphoristic power: 'Anything can happen in life, especially nothing.' Or this, from the new novel: 'The sexual life of man can be broken down into two phases: the first when he prematurely ejaculates, and the second when he can no longer manage to get a hard-on.' If men are, as Houellebecq has it, 'diminished adolescents, ' then it is hard not to laugh-in complicit adolescent sympathy? -when Michel, in Platform, is reading Grisham's The Firm in bed, and starts masturbating to the only sex scene in the thriller: 'I was jerking off in earnest now, trying to visualize mixed-race girls wearing tiny swimsuits in the dark. I ejaculated between two pages with a groan of satisfaction. They were going to stick together; it didn't matter, it wasn't the kind of book you read twice.' His new novel is funny, in part because Daniel, its protagonist, is an outrageous professional comedian, who likes to splatter his venom all over delicate topics like the Middle East: one of his best-known films is a parody of a porn film, and is called Munch on My Gaza Strip (My Huge Jewish Settler) %u2026.
Houellebecq's male characters are exiled from what the author sees as a sexual market that is merely an extension of capitalism-an extension of the domain of the struggle. Each of his novels devotes passages of exegesis to this idea. As Houellebecq sees it, the liberal individualism of the 1960s turned Western man into a sexual commodity, a market that benefited some and excluded more. As the narrator of his first novel explains:
It's a fact, I mused to myself, that in societies like ours, sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly.... Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never.... It's what's known as 'the law of the market.' In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system, certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.
8/23/06
comes inability to have
a hard-on, and its variation,
a lonely sexlife in the lav.
Inspired by James Wood's review of Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island in TNR, August 28,2006:
Saul Bellow once had a character admire the 'touch-cock' fingers of his mistress-how demure that seems! Houellebecq's novels are filled with pages and pages of essentially pornographic descriptions of sex. His characters masturbate, are masturbated by unnaturally forgiving women, are endlessly fellated by same; his men penetrate women, occasionally sodomize them, and also like to go off to sex colonies or swingers' nightclubs where they can engage in threesomes and foursomes. In Platform, Michel and his girlfriend Valérie are having sex at a resort in Cuba when the maid sees them at it. Of course, she joins them: 'She was wearing nothing underneath but a pair of white cotton panties. She must have been about twenty, and her body was very brown, almost black. She had a firm little bust and finely curved buttocks.... Valérie took her hand and placed it on my penis.'
But it would be unfair not to mention that Houellebecq is often very funny about these same hapless and repellent males, and that his prose can rise to aphoristic power: 'Anything can happen in life, especially nothing.' Or this, from the new novel: 'The sexual life of man can be broken down into two phases: the first when he prematurely ejaculates, and the second when he can no longer manage to get a hard-on.' If men are, as Houellebecq has it, 'diminished adolescents, ' then it is hard not to laugh-in complicit adolescent sympathy? -when Michel, in Platform, is reading Grisham's The Firm in bed, and starts masturbating to the only sex scene in the thriller: 'I was jerking off in earnest now, trying to visualize mixed-race girls wearing tiny swimsuits in the dark. I ejaculated between two pages with a groan of satisfaction. They were going to stick together; it didn't matter, it wasn't the kind of book you read twice.' His new novel is funny, in part because Daniel, its protagonist, is an outrageous professional comedian, who likes to splatter his venom all over delicate topics like the Middle East: one of his best-known films is a parody of a porn film, and is called Munch on My Gaza Strip (My Huge Jewish Settler) %u2026.
Houellebecq's male characters are exiled from what the author sees as a sexual market that is merely an extension of capitalism-an extension of the domain of the struggle. Each of his novels devotes passages of exegesis to this idea. As Houellebecq sees it, the liberal individualism of the 1960s turned Western man into a sexual commodity, a market that benefited some and excluded more. As the narrator of his first novel explains:
It's a fact, I mused to myself, that in societies like ours, sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly.... Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never.... It's what's known as 'the law of the market.' In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system, certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.
8/23/06
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - after romance of the damned
After romance of the damned
in a distant archipelago
the veteran, once he'd been Vietnamed,
discovered war won't let a fellah go.
What determines one's whole life
can make a person turn into a mensch;
before he proves this to his wife
he learns about it from a willing wench.
Inspired by a comment R. J. Kitaj made, explaining his experiences in the merchant marine that inspired a 1960 painting from "In Our Time" called "O'Neill" reproduced in "The Prints of R. B. Kitaj, " by Jean Kinsman, with an afterword by the artist (Scolar Press,1994) :
...first romance in a brothel archipelago which would determine one's whole life romance of the damned%u2026But if it didn't, it would make one a mensch.
1/15/08
in a distant archipelago
the veteran, once he'd been Vietnamed,
discovered war won't let a fellah go.
What determines one's whole life
can make a person turn into a mensch;
before he proves this to his wife
he learns about it from a willing wench.
Inspired by a comment R. J. Kitaj made, explaining his experiences in the merchant marine that inspired a 1960 painting from "In Our Time" called "O'Neill" reproduced in "The Prints of R. B. Kitaj, " by Jean Kinsman, with an afterword by the artist (Scolar Press,1994) :
...first romance in a brothel archipelago which would determine one's whole life romance of the damned%u2026But if it didn't, it would make one a mensch.
1/15/08
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - after the madness
He gave the book the title: "After
the Madness."
What happens after isn't laughter,
but sadness.
He had a title once, and power,
begrudging
towards the men at whom he'd glower,
while judging.
Now he has done, removed and idle,
time,
his life has gained a supertitle:
crime.
Although religion talks about
redemption,
He will not have, you should not doubt,
exemption
from doom society demands.
Remission
of sins is in God's hands;
excision
is what the law of man insists.
not pretty,
for man believes that God exists,
not pity.
Sol Wachler was a prominent judge in New York State. He made death threats against his mistress and spent some fifteen months in Federal prison. His book "After the Madness" is receiving wide publicity and he is being respectfully treated by celebrities like Oprah Winfrey. He sounds plausible to his interviewers because they are deferential to him as a judge. Not every man who has been cruelly punished by the State receives such deference.
Some criminals are redeemed and some are not. Celebrity is a major factor determining what happens.
4/8/97
the Madness."
What happens after isn't laughter,
but sadness.
He had a title once, and power,
begrudging
towards the men at whom he'd glower,
while judging.
Now he has done, removed and idle,
time,
his life has gained a supertitle:
crime.
Although religion talks about
redemption,
He will not have, you should not doubt,
exemption
from doom society demands.
Remission
of sins is in God's hands;
excision
is what the law of man insists.
not pretty,
for man believes that God exists,
not pity.
Sol Wachler was a prominent judge in New York State. He made death threats against his mistress and spent some fifteen months in Federal prison. His book "After the Madness" is receiving wide publicity and he is being respectfully treated by celebrities like Oprah Winfrey. He sounds plausible to his interviewers because they are deferential to him as a judge. Not every man who has been cruelly punished by the State receives such deference.
Some criminals are redeemed and some are not. Celebrity is a major factor determining what happens.
4/8/97
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - afterlife
The afterlife must start somewhere,
said Joseph Brodsky, who opined
it must begin in Holland. Dare
to argue with a poem Brodsky signed?
I think I do, for I believe it starts
wherever we no longer are surprised
to find in those we love new parts
they play each day and have not advertised
to us, because sometimes not even they
appreciate that there's still something new
for us to find before the skies turn gray
and afterlife is nearly overdue.
Inspired by one of my favorite poets, Joseph Brodsky, who wrote as amazingly well in English as in Russian.
Dutch Mistress
A hotel in whose ledgers departures are more prominent than arrivals.
With wet Koh-i-noors the October rain
strokes what's left of the naked brain.
In this country laid flat for the sake of rivers,
beer smells of Germany and the seaguls are
in the air like a page's soiled corners.
Morning enters the premises with a coroner's
punctuality, puts its ear
to the ribs of a cold radiator, detects sub-zero:
the afterlife has to start somewhere.
Correspondingly, the angelic curls
grow more blond, the skin gains its distant, lordly
white, while the bedding already coils
desperately in the basement laundry.
© 2005 Gershon Hepner 6/19/05
said Joseph Brodsky, who opined
it must begin in Holland. Dare
to argue with a poem Brodsky signed?
I think I do, for I believe it starts
wherever we no longer are surprised
to find in those we love new parts
they play each day and have not advertised
to us, because sometimes not even they
appreciate that there's still something new
for us to find before the skies turn gray
and afterlife is nearly overdue.
Inspired by one of my favorite poets, Joseph Brodsky, who wrote as amazingly well in English as in Russian.
Dutch Mistress
A hotel in whose ledgers departures are more prominent than arrivals.
With wet Koh-i-noors the October rain
strokes what's left of the naked brain.
In this country laid flat for the sake of rivers,
beer smells of Germany and the seaguls are
in the air like a page's soiled corners.
Morning enters the premises with a coroner's
punctuality, puts its ear
to the ribs of a cold radiator, detects sub-zero:
the afterlife has to start somewhere.
Correspondingly, the angelic curls
grow more blond, the skin gains its distant, lordly
white, while the bedding already coils
desperately in the basement laundry.
© 2005 Gershon Hepner 6/19/05
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - afternoon at the getty
With girls like wild raccoons I rollick,
uncaged, yet often suffer colic
by biting off more than I chew;
to whom should I cry out, "Adieu"?
On sunny LA afternoons
my ex and I are like raccoons,
and hyper, being hyperbolic,
like freshmen friends we're free to frolic.
I hope that you've enjoyed this ditty
written quickly at the Getty,
in the sunshine, sitting pretty,
proud of her who is not petty.
Inspired but someone of whom I am proud even though, like raccoons, she is beyond my control, and Maureen Dowd, who writes disparagingly of Hillary Clinton and Al Gore ("Enter Ozone Woman") , in the NYT, May 24,2006:
As John Heilemann notes in New York, the Gore boomlet is also driven by 'the creeping sense of foreboding about the prospect of Hillary Clinton's march to her party's nomination.' Hollywood's top environmental campaigner, Laurie David, a producer on the Gore movie, argued, 'It's not time to experiment with trying to put in office the first female president or with somebody people feel is such a polarizing figure.' Some Democrats are secretly compiling data to prove that Hillary is unelectable to derail the notion that she's inevitable. Gore loyalists suggest that they could be co-front-runners - a couple of raccoons in a bag. The two hall monitors have always bumped against each other, first competing to be Bill Clinton's co-president, and then over Democratic money in the 2000 election. So we are left with the prospect of a race between these two Democrats (Al, a popularly elected president; Hillary, a co-ruler) . Neither was president, but both think they have been. Al's a seeker and Hillary's a triangulator (or you might say she's inflating her tires to the right pressure) . They have shared the problem of stiff, situational personae, when they seemed to wake up every morning trying to figure out who they should be, how they should appear or how they should position themselves. By fashioning their identities all the time, they condemned themselves to being seen merely as identity fashioners.
Hillary is keeping Bill at a distance so he doesn't overshadow her, contradict her, embarrass her or hurt her attempt to pander to the right. But Al, who says he and Bill have made up and are now brotherly, may want to embrace the Big Dog this time, realizing the cost of muzzling him in 2000 (and the cost of taking hired guns' advice to soft-peddle the environment) . Since Hillary and Bill often rendezvous to watch 'Grey's Anatomy' on Sunday nights, that's a good time for her to soak up his unmatched political smarts. But as someone in Bill's circle wryly told Mr. Heilemann, the boy can't help himself: 'You can see him talking to Hillary one minute, then ducking into his study to take Gore's call and advise him on how to beat her.' What a contest: two ersatz ex-presidents vying for the support of a real one.
5/24/06
uncaged, yet often suffer colic
by biting off more than I chew;
to whom should I cry out, "Adieu"?
On sunny LA afternoons
my ex and I are like raccoons,
and hyper, being hyperbolic,
like freshmen friends we're free to frolic.
I hope that you've enjoyed this ditty
written quickly at the Getty,
in the sunshine, sitting pretty,
proud of her who is not petty.
Inspired but someone of whom I am proud even though, like raccoons, she is beyond my control, and Maureen Dowd, who writes disparagingly of Hillary Clinton and Al Gore ("Enter Ozone Woman") , in the NYT, May 24,2006:
As John Heilemann notes in New York, the Gore boomlet is also driven by 'the creeping sense of foreboding about the prospect of Hillary Clinton's march to her party's nomination.' Hollywood's top environmental campaigner, Laurie David, a producer on the Gore movie, argued, 'It's not time to experiment with trying to put in office the first female president or with somebody people feel is such a polarizing figure.' Some Democrats are secretly compiling data to prove that Hillary is unelectable to derail the notion that she's inevitable. Gore loyalists suggest that they could be co-front-runners - a couple of raccoons in a bag. The two hall monitors have always bumped against each other, first competing to be Bill Clinton's co-president, and then over Democratic money in the 2000 election. So we are left with the prospect of a race between these two Democrats (Al, a popularly elected president; Hillary, a co-ruler) . Neither was president, but both think they have been. Al's a seeker and Hillary's a triangulator (or you might say she's inflating her tires to the right pressure) . They have shared the problem of stiff, situational personae, when they seemed to wake up every morning trying to figure out who they should be, how they should appear or how they should position themselves. By fashioning their identities all the time, they condemned themselves to being seen merely as identity fashioners.
Hillary is keeping Bill at a distance so he doesn't overshadow her, contradict her, embarrass her or hurt her attempt to pander to the right. But Al, who says he and Bill have made up and are now brotherly, may want to embrace the Big Dog this time, realizing the cost of muzzling him in 2000 (and the cost of taking hired guns' advice to soft-peddle the environment) . Since Hillary and Bill often rendezvous to watch 'Grey's Anatomy' on Sunday nights, that's a good time for her to soak up his unmatched political smarts. But as someone in Bill's circle wryly told Mr. Heilemann, the boy can't help himself: 'You can see him talking to Hillary one minute, then ducking into his study to take Gore's call and advise him on how to beat her.' What a contest: two ersatz ex-presidents vying for the support of a real one.
5/24/06
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - afternoons
Leaning into afternoons I cast
my nets into your eyes, because I wish
the feelings that I hold for you to last
far longer than the flavor of a fish.
The signals that I send to you are crossed
so often when we make love in the night,
that almost every morning I feel lost
and try to put your demon fears to flight.
When looking in your eyes I see that you
believe I'm always asking you too soon
for love to be requited, and renew
my efforts with my nets each afternoon.
Don't tell me that you think I'm building castles
in Spain, or in the air, or in my mind,
and wait again to see the night's blue tassels;
now, in broad daylight let us be entwined.
Inspired by Leaning Into the Afternoons, by Pablo Neruda
Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.
There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man's.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that smell like the sea or the beach by a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.
Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that is thrashed by your oceanic eyes.
The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.
The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land.
5/27/05,4/27/07
my nets into your eyes, because I wish
the feelings that I hold for you to last
far longer than the flavor of a fish.
The signals that I send to you are crossed
so often when we make love in the night,
that almost every morning I feel lost
and try to put your demon fears to flight.
When looking in your eyes I see that you
believe I'm always asking you too soon
for love to be requited, and renew
my efforts with my nets each afternoon.
Don't tell me that you think I'm building castles
in Spain, or in the air, or in my mind,
and wait again to see the night's blue tassels;
now, in broad daylight let us be entwined.
Inspired by Leaning Into the Afternoons, by Pablo Neruda
Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.
There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man's.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that smell like the sea or the beach by a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.
Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that is thrashed by your oceanic eyes.
The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.
The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land.
5/27/05,4/27/07
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - against the jews
Those who ancestors killed Indians and pursued
white whales are different from the Jews
who're influenced by Talmud to be crude
and argumentative, avoiding booze.
At least, that what was said by Gore Vidal,
complaining about Malamud and Bellow
and Philip Roth. It boosted his morale
to think that only goyim can be mellow.
Perhaps old Isaac shared his prejudice,
considering that Jacob was a runt,
and chose to give his Talmud tent a miss,
preferring Esau, who knew how to hunt.
5/20/05
white whales are different from the Jews
who're influenced by Talmud to be crude
and argumentative, avoiding booze.
At least, that what was said by Gore Vidal,
complaining about Malamud and Bellow
and Philip Roth. It boosted his morale
to think that only goyim can be mellow.
Perhaps old Isaac shared his prejudice,
considering that Jacob was a runt,
and chose to give his Talmud tent a miss,
preferring Esau, who knew how to hunt.
5/20/05
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - age makes you hear the music
Age makes you hear the music in a different way,
the harmonies and overtones,
but when it doesn't cause your bones
to tingle, blame yourself not how the people play.
Aging and dying are themes that are just as relevant today as in the Dark Ages. In his youth, Beowulf saves the Danes from the monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's vengeful, bog-dwelling mother before returning home in triumph to become king of the land of the Geats (what is now southern Sweden) . Then, as he is approaching old age, he must fight a terrifying wyrm, or dragon, to save his people, knowing that he probably won't return from the battle. Seamus Heaney says, about his new translation of "Beowulf": 'I was particularly drawn to the last third of the poem, when the old king encounters the dragon. There is a sense of a destined fatal encounter, ' Mr. Heaney explains. 'Maybe it's because I'm 60 - age can make you hear the music differently.'
2/23/00
the harmonies and overtones,
but when it doesn't cause your bones
to tingle, blame yourself not how the people play.
Aging and dying are themes that are just as relevant today as in the Dark Ages. In his youth, Beowulf saves the Danes from the monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's vengeful, bog-dwelling mother before returning home in triumph to become king of the land of the Geats (what is now southern Sweden) . Then, as he is approaching old age, he must fight a terrifying wyrm, or dragon, to save his people, knowing that he probably won't return from the battle. Seamus Heaney says, about his new translation of "Beowulf": 'I was particularly drawn to the last third of the poem, when the old king encounters the dragon. There is a sense of a destined fatal encounter, ' Mr. Heaney explains. 'Maybe it's because I'm 60 - age can make you hear the music differently.'
2/23/00
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - age transformation
Age transformation is devoutly to be wished
before the darkness that encroaches on the light;
but unresponsive to the cry "Mehr Licht"
it can't remove the curse of cellulite.
Holland Cotter review an exhibition of the photos of Martha Wilson at the Mitchell Algus Gallery (NYT, April 4,2008) :
In an annotated series of costumed self-portraits called "A Portfolio of Models" (1974) , Ms. Wilson played what she called "the models society holds out to me: Goddess, Housewife, Working Girl, Professional, Earth-Mother, Lesbian." Earlier she photographed herself as a woman playing a man in female drag, as well as an older woman trying to look like a younger woman. Her continuous and most complex role was, of course, as artist, which was done with audacious invention and wit.From there she moved into live performance (she still specializes in impersonations of presidential first ladies) and became a founding member, with Ingrid Sischy, of the feminist punk group Disband, which appears on video in "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution" at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, Queens. The photo-and-text pieces at Algus should be in that survey too, alongside related work by Eleanor Antin and Adrian Piper. Like those artists, Ms. Wilson is major history, and well deserves the excellent essay on her career by the art historian Jayne Wark reprinted in the Algus catalog. Not every artist could withstand such close scholarly scrutiny and leave you wanting to know still more. Ms. Wilson can and does.
April 4,2008
before the darkness that encroaches on the light;
but unresponsive to the cry "Mehr Licht"
it can't remove the curse of cellulite.
Holland Cotter review an exhibition of the photos of Martha Wilson at the Mitchell Algus Gallery (NYT, April 4,2008) :
In an annotated series of costumed self-portraits called "A Portfolio of Models" (1974) , Ms. Wilson played what she called "the models society holds out to me: Goddess, Housewife, Working Girl, Professional, Earth-Mother, Lesbian." Earlier she photographed herself as a woman playing a man in female drag, as well as an older woman trying to look like a younger woman. Her continuous and most complex role was, of course, as artist, which was done with audacious invention and wit.From there she moved into live performance (she still specializes in impersonations of presidential first ladies) and became a founding member, with Ingrid Sischy, of the feminist punk group Disband, which appears on video in "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution" at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, Queens. The photo-and-text pieces at Algus should be in that survey too, alongside related work by Eleanor Antin and Adrian Piper. Like those artists, Ms. Wilson is major history, and well deserves the excellent essay on her career by the art historian Jayne Wark reprinted in the Algus catalog. Not every artist could withstand such close scholarly scrutiny and leave you wanting to know still more. Ms. Wilson can and does.
April 4,2008
Poetry by Gershon Hepner - agnostic
You do not hold a grudge for long
if you are an agnostic,
and think that no one can be wrong,
with no need to be caustic
towards devout believers who
say God's alive and well,
the bigot who believes the Jew
will surely rot in hell,
the fundamentalist who thinks
that man was never ape,
the priest who thinks he's serving drinks
of blood from juice of grape,
towards the stubborn atheists
who think belief baloney,
and most devoutly all insist
that God's extremely phony,
quite confident there is no power
above the human species,
and so from Hades do not cower
in A.D. times, like B.C.'s.
You don't condemn the ones whose fears
are based on faith-formed fetters,
since for their drummer you've no ears,
and cannot read his letters.
You think life's a kaleidoscope,
but don't preach of your prism,
the spectrum radiating hope
till death, agnosticism.
Warren Buffett once told Rabbi Myer Kripke: "The nice thing about being agnostic is that you don't think anybody is wrong" (N. R. Kleinfield, "The Rabbi and the Investor, " New York Times, May 9th,1997) .
5/9/97,3/27/07
if you are an agnostic,
and think that no one can be wrong,
with no need to be caustic
towards devout believers who
say God's alive and well,
the bigot who believes the Jew
will surely rot in hell,
the fundamentalist who thinks
that man was never ape,
the priest who thinks he's serving drinks
of blood from juice of grape,
towards the stubborn atheists
who think belief baloney,
and most devoutly all insist
that God's extremely phony,
quite confident there is no power
above the human species,
and so from Hades do not cower
in A.D. times, like B.C.'s.
You don't condemn the ones whose fears
are based on faith-formed fetters,
since for their drummer you've no ears,
and cannot read his letters.
You think life's a kaleidoscope,
but don't preach of your prism,
the spectrum radiating hope
till death, agnosticism.
Warren Buffett once told Rabbi Myer Kripke: "The nice thing about being agnostic is that you don't think anybody is wrong" (N. R. Kleinfield, "The Rabbi and the Investor, " New York Times, May 9th,1997) .
5/9/97,3/27/07
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