Kick ‘em in the where? – A poem for Torah Portion Vezot Habracha

May the Lord …strike the loins of those who rise up against him
and his enemies, so that they will not recover.

Once in the Chicago airport, I took a picture of myself
in front of the Nuts on Clark store, under their sign
which read “Hot Nuts.”

I sent it to my nine year old, who is now a twelve year old,
because I knew he would delight in this image
at least as much as I did. This reference has been

an ongoing source of joy in our relationship.
Whenever I’m lucky enough to travel anywhere
he’ll ask me upon my return did you get some hot nuts?

and we’ll laugh about this all the way to the bank
which doesn’t mean anything since we do our banking
online and, frankly, he doesn’t even know what banking is.

So you can imagine my delight when I saw the holy text
in which Moses tells the people that God will strike
our enemies in the loins. It’s kind of nuts.

I’d like to provide a list of enemies who deserve this.
Most of them I know by name but have never been
in the same room with. People famous for tearing the world apart

for sowing division, for denying science, for swaggering around
in armored cars while hundreds of thousands die.
These are the enemies who have risen up

who deserve the Holy One up in their front.
so that they will not recover.
As we come to the end of our story –

Just a few more pages to go
before we read the whole thing again
Let these blessings and curses guide
the actions of our elected enemies.

We’ve got all the right protective gear on
as me, and my son, and everyone we’ve ever known
walk into the Promised Land.

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 23 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 “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) 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.