Mizraim

[PrinceMyshkin]

“If we fail in Israel, where will we succeed?”
Sen. John McCain

But Israel was created,
it may be,
in order that we might fail there
and everywhere.

As we struggle
each of us
to leave our own Mizraim*
and to thirst for 40
times 40 times 40 years
in Sinai, bleeding
toward Gethsemane,
scrabbling with torn fingertips
up Masada,
to suicide there
we guard our hoarded identities,
those false and flickering lights
against a massive dark.

“Follow me,” said the Lord,
“and I will lead you
to the Promised Land,
all of you Zionists:
Jewish, Christian, Moslem...
I will lead you to the Promised Land,
where I will unleash
the hornets of self
against you.”

We whirl around,
stabbing our forefingers
desperately this way and that,
crying out
“Who is my enemy?
Where is my enemy?
Who is my enemy?
Where is my enemy?
Who is my enemy?
Where is my enemy?”



*Mizraim, “the narrow place," is the Hebrew name for Egypt.
Jerry Newman © 16Dec07

[Virgil]

I'm not going to comment on the politics of this, but it is a good poem. I really ike this:

to suicide there
we guard our hoarded identities,
those false and flickering lights
against a massive dark.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I'm not going to comment on the politics of this, but it is a good poem. I really ike this:

I'm not sure what you see as the politics in it as I tried to employ each of the places I mentioned in a symbolic or archetypical way. The inspiration for the Zionists of the three faiths came from Christiane Ahmanpoor's PBS series "God's Warriors," in which she reports on militant zealots of each of those faiths.

[Virgil]

I'm not sure what you see as the politics in it as I tried to employ each of the places I mentioned in a symbolic or archetypical way. The inspiration for the Zionists of the three faiths came from Christiane Ahmanpoor's PBS series "God's Warriors," in which she reports on militant zealots of each of those faiths.

Well, the three faiths obviously don''t agree. In fact within the three faiths you have extremely differing opinions. And the implementation of those views is politics.