I
If I’m a good boy
You’ll bless my womb’s fruit – of course
I don’t have a womb
II
Who’s the Cat who took
care of everything? You! Yeah
You – Capital Y
III
Despite our foibles
we still get the land because
of an old promise
IV
Remember that time
Moses had to carve a whole
new set of tablets
V
Love AND fear God, we’re
told – I choose to focus on
love in my dealings
VI
Hear oh Israel
know, the One God controls
the faucet in the sky
VII
Imagine if just
setting a foot on a place
made it become yours
Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created 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 21 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “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.
