7 haiku for parsha Matot-Massei by Rick Lupert (honestly I wasn’t in a good mood when I wrote these)

I
Fathers and husbands
could annul daughters or wives
vows – but not today

II
Soldiers give gold to
God as thanks for not one death
Why does God need gold?

III
Descendants of Gad
want to stay on this side of
the Jordan – cold feet.

IV
Forty two journeys
from Egypt to this moment.
Tents open and close.

V
Our claim to Canaan
will require a Canaanite
genocide, says God.

VI
Forty years out of
Egypt and we’ve still got to
build someone’s cities.

VII
Despite war, refuge
intra-marriage – we survive
strongly and strengthened.

Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created a the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 20 collections of poetry, including “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Donut Famine” (Rothco Press, December 2016) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.