7 haiku for Parsha Acharei-Mot-Kedoshim by Rick Lupert (resist your urge to combine animals)

I
Only the High Priest
has ultimate back stage pass,
Holy of Holies.

II
On the seventh month
on the tenth of that month, it’s
self-affliction time.

III
You know it’s pretty
serious, when they tell you
again – don’t eat blood.

IV
It’s not a good time
to bring up gay marriage. The
Torah steers us wrong.

V
As exciting as
a llama-leopard might be
you may not make one.

VI
When one says they feel
descended from Abraham
we love them like kin.

VII
So many things to
do and not to do. Bottom
line is be holy.

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.