Reading Kabbalah Naked...
It’s almost two in the morning. I told myself I’d be in bed by now. But I’m still up and writing and there is so much more to write. The air is warm and thick tonight. The world is full of a thick darkness. I can’t come to the end of what I want to write before I climb back into bed. I’ve set to writing a long and rambling poem, totally blasphemous and slightly pornographic.
Kabbalah takes you into the place of terrors and the land of nightmares, and when I have been with Kabbalah I can see into that place and write out of it. There are warnings of too much study of Kabbalah, too much looking into the light or the darkness or what have you. But the truth is the smallest glimpse has you looking and looking, making connections, synapses snap together. It is sitting down to read the Old Testament in a very different way, freed from what keeps most Christians in the modern world from reading scripture: that they are SUPPOSED TO. Not that Ezekiel contains the finest stream of consciousness poetry along with Isaiah and Wisdom, not that the tales are some of the most engaging anyone will ever read.
And of course this attitude that does not allow for the Hebrew Scriptures to be taken as story and poem and sung record, but as rule book, comes from a CHRISTIAN and RATIONALISTIC understanding that story is unimportant, that stories are fancy and fancy is lie.No, story is absolute and infinite truth, layer upon layer of truth, the only way we can say what is without limiting it. Because, in a myth we are already knowing that what we say is limited. In a tale we are already saying things are contrived and so there is no deception in it.
And still you will say: how can a story be infinitely and absolutely true if it’s “just a story” and there are other facts that contradict it? If you ask that you have not been paying attention. Myth is infinite and absolute because and not despite its truth never being ultimate or exclusive.
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Friday, July 23, 2004
dedicated to Jackie Nelson...
you know who you are...
with him you’ll always wonder how real love might have been
but with me--
here’s the downer
you’ll never walk straight again
Don’t you know how filled with love i am for you? if i didn’t love you so purely,
like pure sulphur or unmixed radium, good whole uranium
i wouldn’t want to fuck you so badly
i wouldn’t need to fuck you until i was at the core of you, until over you and around
you all there was would be me and you would ever see me as the secret high priest
telling you eat my body and you will live forever, drink and drink and you won’t die
i’d never want us to exhaust ourselves in each other and on the bed and on the table
and in the shower,
in the car for an hour,
in deep private and in public
and i would not falter
to think of us behind the church altar
love,
this is how i love
there are no doves or angels singing
but demons howling as you take me, rake me with your press on fingernails on my back and
drum my ass until we pass
out.
Turn the light out
don’t you see i’m still an innocent man? innocent of shame,
pure enough to make you scream my name
to fuck you over and over again.
with him you’ll walk with your head up high
with him you’ll walk with your nose in the sky
you’ll never know passion or truth with him
but with me you’ll never walk straight again.
you know who you are...
with him you’ll always wonder how real love might have been
but with me--
here’s the downer
you’ll never walk straight again
Don’t you know how filled with love i am for you? if i didn’t love you so purely,
like pure sulphur or unmixed radium, good whole uranium
i wouldn’t want to fuck you so badly
i wouldn’t need to fuck you until i was at the core of you, until over you and around
you all there was would be me and you would ever see me as the secret high priest
telling you eat my body and you will live forever, drink and drink and you won’t die
i’d never want us to exhaust ourselves in each other and on the bed and on the table
and in the shower,
in the car for an hour,
in deep private and in public
and i would not falter
to think of us behind the church altar
love,
this is how i love
there are no doves or angels singing
but demons howling as you take me, rake me with your press on fingernails on my back and
drum my ass until we pass
out.
Turn the light out
don’t you see i’m still an innocent man? innocent of shame,
pure enough to make you scream my name
to fuck you over and over again.
with him you’ll walk with your head up high
with him you’ll walk with your nose in the sky
you’ll never know passion or truth with him
but with me you’ll never walk straight again.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Kabbalah
The study of Kabbalah hinges on a truth that most Westerners: Christian, non-Christians, conservative liberal, creationists, evolutionists would simply not understand about myth and story. Not that the Bible is a different sort of myth and story, or that myths are a SORT OF TRUTH but that stories are true and everything is real, therefore the Scriptures are read on many levels and all of these levels are held to be true. American religious thought is sadly shallow and often centers around two badly educated people arguing about if evolution happened or not, or did Jesus REALLY feed five thousand people. Kabbalistic thought is mystic and slightly more sophisticated.
Did God make the world is six days? Of course not. You know better. Of course he did that’s what the story says? What the story says means something different? What is God? What is a day? Are all appropriate answers with question upon question. Kabbalah is the serious initiation into God’s Torah. I use a Hebrew Bible for it.
Much of it does not center around a Bible, but around a book which had never been fully translated: the Zohar. The Zohar reads like Allen Ginsberg’s' Howl meets Green Eggs and Ham attached to the Gospel of Thomas and The Story of O. Men waste their semen in sleep and are raped by demons. Wives cook the resulting children and eat the them for dinner. Mysteries are unsolved but produce still more questions.
Kabbalah is best studied in your sleep, in the passions of the body. It comes to life in your visions and in your dreams.
Kabbalah is not Bible Study. Bible study centers on the idea of reading a text in the hopes of “getting it”. Bible study is a chance for you to expound upon “how you feel” about this passage or prove that it proves what you believe. Both are fruitless tasks, completely different from Kabbalah which presumes that very few conclusions are definite, and translates to English as the phrase” that which is received.” You cannot study Kabbalah. You must receive it, and sometimes you receive very little. Kabbalah is not studied. It is dreamed. It is hearing the Bible for the first time and realizing that it is a series of tales fit only for children. Hence why Christ said you must be a child to receive the Kingdom of God.
The study of Kabbalah hinges on a truth that most Westerners: Christian, non-Christians, conservative liberal, creationists, evolutionists would simply not understand about myth and story. Not that the Bible is a different sort of myth and story, or that myths are a SORT OF TRUTH but that stories are true and everything is real, therefore the Scriptures are read on many levels and all of these levels are held to be true. American religious thought is sadly shallow and often centers around two badly educated people arguing about if evolution happened or not, or did Jesus REALLY feed five thousand people. Kabbalistic thought is mystic and slightly more sophisticated.
Did God make the world is six days? Of course not. You know better. Of course he did that’s what the story says? What the story says means something different? What is God? What is a day? Are all appropriate answers with question upon question. Kabbalah is the serious initiation into God’s Torah. I use a Hebrew Bible for it.
Much of it does not center around a Bible, but around a book which had never been fully translated: the Zohar. The Zohar reads like Allen Ginsberg’s' Howl meets Green Eggs and Ham attached to the Gospel of Thomas and The Story of O. Men waste their semen in sleep and are raped by demons. Wives cook the resulting children and eat the them for dinner. Mysteries are unsolved but produce still more questions.
Kabbalah is best studied in your sleep, in the passions of the body. It comes to life in your visions and in your dreams.
Kabbalah is not Bible Study. Bible study centers on the idea of reading a text in the hopes of “getting it”. Bible study is a chance for you to expound upon “how you feel” about this passage or prove that it proves what you believe. Both are fruitless tasks, completely different from Kabbalah which presumes that very few conclusions are definite, and translates to English as the phrase” that which is received.” You cannot study Kabbalah. You must receive it, and sometimes you receive very little. Kabbalah is not studied. It is dreamed. It is hearing the Bible for the first time and realizing that it is a series of tales fit only for children. Hence why Christ said you must be a child to receive the Kingdom of God.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Cursing Psalm
Goddamn Joseph Daley!
Goddamn him Goddamn him!
Goddamn Aileen Cokely!
Goddamn her fat ass and her horrible wardrobe. Goddamn that little slut, Catherine!
Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn!
Goddamn Notre Dame’s undergraduate program for making such little bitches.
Fuck them all.
May they go to hell! Let them burn in hell!
They are in hell! Let them take their fucking hell from
the rest of us.
God fucking damn them all!
Goddamn Joe deCant! Goddamn Gerlac O’Loughlin, Goddamn Vincent Bataille, Goddamn Tim
Kelly, Goddamn Luke Armour! Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn all of these fuckers!
God fucking damn them. God damn people who hide behind the cross of Christ and you
know--you KNOW they don’t fucking believe in it.
Goddamn the little ushers at mass on Sunday! Goddamn the Folk Choir! Singing those songs
they know they don’t believe! Goddamn the priest for trying to snowjob the fuck out of us. God
damn the servers, esepcially that little fucking prick with the glasses!
Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn them all!
2.
Goddamn the war in Iraq!
3.
What is curious is all the things I do not wish to damn. Surely there are other people, places,
things, institutions that I am not happy with. And yet, I have no wish to damn them....
4.
Goddamn global warming!
Goddamn Saddam Hussein!
Goddamn George Bush!
Goddamn NAFTA!
Goddamn Roe V. Wade!
Goddamn the fact that sodomy is still a crime in Texas!
Goddamn all the men who fucked over my female friends.
Goddamn all the men who fucked over my gay friends.
Goddamn nuclear meltdowns! Goddamn forty-thousand children dying of starvation everyday!
Goddamn all of this shit!
5.
Goddamn that Tibet is still not free!
6.
Goddamn the bastard who fired my brother, Nick! Goddamn him roving around like the Son of
Man with no place to lay his head while the birds have the air and foxes have their holes.
Goddamn that Bill is in Arizona when I need him now.
Or would like him here now!
Goddamn the Devil!
Goddamn whatever he did to make all the people I hate into the people they became.
Goddamn whatever turned you and you and you into what you are so that we are at war. So that
we cannot be at peace. I am a Holy Peace, not a Holy
Let’s-sit-down-close-our-mouths-and-fucking-pretend-they’re’s-not-a-problem!
And that’s why,
ironically,
we won’t be having peace.
Why we’re at fucking war!
7.
Goddamn this fucking war!
Kevin,
I hate the fact that I hate you.
8.
And the congregation says: “Selah!”
9.
And King David having slain his tens of thousands lays down his sword and says, “Shalom,
shalom, Amen.
And I say:
Part 10.
God bless Rachel
and bless Griffin
and Cody playing outside their house, secure in their love.
Love still pure,
all of seven,
may they possess the love of seven year olds their whole life long.
It is the love of seven year olds which will stand against all this darkness.
Bless my mama who just took her dialysis bags out--I can hear her doing it--though she
know’s it’s easier for me.
Bless my papa who still ain’t bought coffee
Bless Linda, and Joni and Sarah at the library, bless the public transit system, bless the
sun ,the moon ,the trees who talk to me if I listen, the sweet eternal wind.
God Bless me.
Bless all my brothers and sisters. The ones who agree to be my brothers and sisters.
Bless our tears for all the motherfuckers who hurt us.
Bless the motherfuckers who hurt us.
Bless us when we are hurtful motherfuckers.
Goddamn Joseph Daley!
Goddamn him Goddamn him!
Goddamn Aileen Cokely!
Goddamn her fat ass and her horrible wardrobe. Goddamn that little slut, Catherine!
Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn!
Goddamn Notre Dame’s undergraduate program for making such little bitches.
Fuck them all.
May they go to hell! Let them burn in hell!
They are in hell! Let them take their fucking hell from
the rest of us.
God fucking damn them all!
Goddamn Joe deCant! Goddamn Gerlac O’Loughlin, Goddamn Vincent Bataille, Goddamn Tim
Kelly, Goddamn Luke Armour! Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn all of these fuckers!
God fucking damn them. God damn people who hide behind the cross of Christ and you
know--you KNOW they don’t fucking believe in it.
Goddamn the little ushers at mass on Sunday! Goddamn the Folk Choir! Singing those songs
they know they don’t believe! Goddamn the priest for trying to snowjob the fuck out of us. God
damn the servers, esepcially that little fucking prick with the glasses!
Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn! Goddamn them all!
2.
Goddamn the war in Iraq!
3.
What is curious is all the things I do not wish to damn. Surely there are other people, places,
things, institutions that I am not happy with. And yet, I have no wish to damn them....
4.
Goddamn global warming!
Goddamn Saddam Hussein!
Goddamn George Bush!
Goddamn NAFTA!
Goddamn Roe V. Wade!
Goddamn the fact that sodomy is still a crime in Texas!
Goddamn all the men who fucked over my female friends.
Goddamn all the men who fucked over my gay friends.
Goddamn nuclear meltdowns! Goddamn forty-thousand children dying of starvation everyday!
Goddamn all of this shit!
5.
Goddamn that Tibet is still not free!
6.
Goddamn the bastard who fired my brother, Nick! Goddamn him roving around like the Son of
Man with no place to lay his head while the birds have the air and foxes have their holes.
Goddamn that Bill is in Arizona when I need him now.
Or would like him here now!
Goddamn the Devil!
Goddamn whatever he did to make all the people I hate into the people they became.
Goddamn whatever turned you and you and you into what you are so that we are at war. So that
we cannot be at peace. I am a Holy Peace, not a Holy
Let’s-sit-down-close-our-mouths-and-fucking-pretend-they’re’s-not-a-problem!
And that’s why,
ironically,
we won’t be having peace.
Why we’re at fucking war!
7.
Goddamn this fucking war!
Kevin,
I hate the fact that I hate you.
8.
And the congregation says: “Selah!”
9.
And King David having slain his tens of thousands lays down his sword and says, “Shalom,
shalom, Amen.
And I say:
Part 10.
God bless Rachel
and bless Griffin
and Cody playing outside their house, secure in their love.
Love still pure,
all of seven,
may they possess the love of seven year olds their whole life long.
It is the love of seven year olds which will stand against all this darkness.
Bless my mama who just took her dialysis bags out--I can hear her doing it--though she
know’s it’s easier for me.
Bless my papa who still ain’t bought coffee
Bless Linda, and Joni and Sarah at the library, bless the public transit system, bless the
sun ,the moon ,the trees who talk to me if I listen, the sweet eternal wind.
God Bless me.
Bless all my brothers and sisters. The ones who agree to be my brothers and sisters.
Bless our tears for all the motherfuckers who hurt us.
Bless the motherfuckers who hurt us.
Bless us when we are hurtful motherfuckers.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
FINE
Everyone here will do well. I know it. Now it’s evening. The day is ending and I am thinking of all of my friends. Annie, I know you will get past this crap. You’re so strong and you keep on loving. Frema, you know I cannot thank you enough for all the hard work you do for me, after yu have done the hard work at school and the hard work at the office. I know you will be exactly the writer you want to be and Andrew, you may not know it, but your very desire is making you the writer you need to be. In time you’ll know everything you need to do. I know you’re thinking: but I’ve already given things time. Give it more time. You can’t make a thing happen before it’s time. There’s no good from that. Trust me. David, you really have no idea how good a guitar player you are, and that’s your trouble. You idolize other people too much and don’t understand your skill. Once you trust your voice and find your vocal range (which is probably a lot higher that you’d like it to be) you will soar and no one will be able to stop you. Everyone will idolize YOU. How does that sound?
Everyone here will do well. I know it. Now it’s evening. The day is ending and I am thinking of all of my friends. Annie, I know you will get past this crap. You’re so strong and you keep on loving. Frema, you know I cannot thank you enough for all the hard work you do for me, after yu have done the hard work at school and the hard work at the office. I know you will be exactly the writer you want to be and Andrew, you may not know it, but your very desire is making you the writer you need to be. In time you’ll know everything you need to do. I know you’re thinking: but I’ve already given things time. Give it more time. You can’t make a thing happen before it’s time. There’s no good from that. Trust me. David, you really have no idea how good a guitar player you are, and that’s your trouble. You idolize other people too much and don’t understand your skill. Once you trust your voice and find your vocal range (which is probably a lot higher that you’d like it to be) you will soar and no one will be able to stop you. Everyone will idolize YOU. How does that sound?
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