The Rebbi of Bangkok 1999

In 1999 I sold a 5-carat diamond on 47th Street and moved the Thailand with enough money to start a small business. I had visited Bangkok often on yearly around-the-world trips during the slow season in the Diamond District. A religious diamond dealer gave me the telephone number of his uncle, the city's chief Hassidic Rebbi. Upon arrival in Bangkok I called the Rebbi. He invited me to his schul. We met at the a little kosher diner near the Beth Elisheva synagogue. A kindly old man. He asked, " so what are you here for?" I was thinking about going into the colored stone business. Sapphires rubies. I have connections in New York and Europe. Can you recommend any dealers." "No, they are all thieves." I thanked him for this advice and went into the schmatztah trade selling F1 counterfeit copies on the internet. Criminal. But the Thais were all honest. .

I GRANT YOU REFUGE Hiba Abu Nada (trans. Huda Fakhreddine)

I grant you refuge
in invocation and prayer.
I bless the neighborhood and the minaret
to guard them
from the rocket
from the moment
it is a general’s command
until it becomes
a raid.
I grant you and the little ones refuge,
the little ones who change the rocket’s course before it lands with their smiles. 2. I grant you and the little ones refuge, the little ones now asleep like chicks in a nest. They don’t walk in their sleep toward dreams. They know death lurks outside the house. Their mothers’ tears are now doves following them, trailing behind every coffin. 3. I grant the father refuge, the little ones’ father who holds the house upright when it tilts after the bombs. He implores the moment of death: “Have mercy. Spare me a little while. For their sake, I’ve learned to love my life. Grant them a death as beautiful as they are.” 4. I grant you refuge from hurt and death, refuge in the glory of our siege, here in the belly of the whale. Our streets exalt God with every bomb. They pray for the mosques and the houses. And every time the bombing begins in the North, our supplications rise in the South. 5. I grant you refuge from hurt and suffering. With words of sacred scripture I shield the oranges from the sting of phosphorous and the shades of cloud from the smog. I grant you refuge in knowing that the dust will clear, and they who fell in love and died together will one day laugh. Hiba Abu Nada is a novelist, poet, and educator. Her novel Oxygen is Not for the Dead won the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She wrote this poem on Oct. 10th, 2023. She died a martyr, killed in her home in south Gaza by an Israeli raid on Oct. 20th, 2023. She was 32 years old. Huda Fakhreddine is Associate Professor of Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a writer, a translator, and the author of several scholarly books. https://proteanmag.com/2023/11/03/i-grant-you-refuge/

Spring 2010 - BET ON CRAZY NYC

JoJo, the security guard at the diamond exchange, was a betting man. He gambled the left-overs from his monthly NYPD pension on baseball, basketball, and football. His losses outweighed his wins. JoJo also wagered on odd parlays and on March 1st in 2010 I said that there wouldn't be another snowstorm. Two days ago the city had been buried by a blizzard. It was raining outside on West 47th Street.

A hard rain.

The sleety wind peeled ferules from cheap umbrellas like bananas. The piles of snow were slush in the gutter.

"It ain't gonna snow." The big Pole/Mick was a native of the Bronx. The weather was colder up in that northern borough than Manhattan and the retired cop was certain of his prediction.

"I say that we get one more dusting." I was counting on 'global weirding'. The last decade had seen three snows in April, TS Eliot' 'cruelest month of all. March offered an even better chance for a blizzard.

"Dusting is bullshit. It snowed a little last year." JoJo was a knowledgeable gambler.

"Okay, 2 to 1 odds that New York gets another four inches of snow before the end of April."

"In Central Park." JoJo was fixing the wager. Manhattan is 5 degrees warmer than the outer boroughs thanks to a micro-climate created by concrete, steel, and carbon emissions along with the body temperatures of fat people. JoJo had lost fifteen pounds in the last month by ending a BId Lite drinking binge.

"Okay." I had a good hunch. Cops like hunches too. His was a sure thing. Mine was more a feeling and I started singing the Arrowsmith hit MORE THAN A FEELING.

"Hey, no fair." JoJo was a rock fan. Red Sox too. "Keep that Boston stuff out of the bet. This is New York."

We grasped hands. A bet was a bet. JoJo went downstairs to the vault. It was lunch time. Manny my boss shook his head.

"What?"

"That was a stupid bet." Manny had lost every wager on the Superbowl since 1967 or so he told his son, Richie Boy, who always bet the toher way. We all did. Manny was an expert at stupid bets.

"It's only ten dollars. Plus you never know."

Like the lottery you can't win unless you play.

"No way it'll snow in the next two months." Manny returned to his paperwork. A purgatory of bills and invoices. I pulled out the job box. Not a single envelope was from my sales. Money was tight same as last year. There was no recovery for the middle-class from the 2008 bank collapse, although Manny's son was selling fast and furious to his rich friends. Their sins had been forgiven by the Fed buy forcing the peopple to pay off their losses.

March passed with the temperature rising every day. On March 14 the thermometer hit 70. I studied the meteorological map of the USA. Snow in the Rockies. Canada nothing. The Red River was cresting with ice floes in the Dakotas. The trees in Fort Greene Park showed red buds on the equinox. The planet was on an even keel. I wore shorts. This weather is no good.

"Looks like I've lose my bet," I said at the breakfast table to AP, my landlord.

"It was a stupid bet." He had won a bet on St. Patrick's Day for when our party of four would see a green plastic hat. $5 from each of his three friends. Another $5 for one plastic har worn by a female.

"It might snow in April." His wife was from San Diego. Coronado Beach had never experienced a snowfall.

"Thanks for the optimism." Snow crowned the thrones of the mountains east of San Diego. I was positive too. Ten more days of March and another 30 in April. The odds are heavily in JoJo's favor, then again he had bet that the Red Sox would sweep the Yankees in 2004. $100. He was right the first three games of the playoffs and dead wrong the last four games. That was a bet I loved seeing him lose. The Curse of the Bambino no more in 2004. My snow bet was a goof, but neither of us were welshers and $10 will buy three beers in the East Village bar on May 1.

They will taste good.

Win or lose.

Spring Equinox 2021

This year was a so-so winter.

Snow came late in March and bitter cold was a rare visitor to the City That Never Sleeps.

On several occasions I exited from the 387 Commune in my ski gear, which was good for -20 Fahrenheit.

Today the thermometer hit 60 and I celebrated the Spring Equinox by packing away my parkas, fleeces, gloves, scarves, sweaters et al.

Flowers should blossom in Fort Greene; magnolias and tulips.

This day was as long as the night.

The equinox or Alban Eiler in Celtic commemorates the equality between night and day and my tribe regards the 'Light of the Earth' with great veneration, since the feast signaled the time to sow crops with the sun high over the equator.

I honored Alban Eiler with sobriety, having drank more than my share of beer and whiskey on St. Padraic's Day.

It will be good to be warm again.

It Was The Worst Of Times

It Was The Worst Of Times

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..."

This sentence famously opened Charles Dickens' epic novel of the French Revolution, THE TALE OF TWO CITIES. The end of the 18th Century. The Terror in France. Heads lopped off by the guilotine. Royal heasds, aristocratic heads, few if any priests, beaucoup des citoyens. And there was more to come, as the king and emperors and all royalty from the ancien regime sought to overthrow the Republic, then came Napoleon. Victories, victories, adventure. An emperor. And then defeat. An exile.

We the world presently live in a time of chaos birthed by Donald Trump and every morning and afternoon and even before I go to bed I read about the evil of this man and ask, "Does he ever sleep?"

I've come to understand that 47 has been on drugs to keep Him going, but even He has to crash, the valium made that fast, then His AI persona takes the reins, driving his message from His CHAPgbt clone to complete a 24/7/365. There is no rest for the wicked. 47 eternal for this moment and the next and the next, but one day we will wake and say good riddance. And I thought to paraphrase THE TALE OF TWO CITIES.

"It was the worst of times with even worstest to come. It was an age of ignorance and religious fanatics. People believed what they had been told to believe and some believed in the beauty of nothingness. In the beginning there was the horseshoe crab.

And of course the words of Sydney Carton ascending the stairs to La Veuve or The Widow.

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." One of the greatest fare-wells from a ne'er-do-well ever, but we all not ready to go. Never without a fight.

Communality of Minds

There is no problem that doesn't have a solution. Most people are fighting to make enough money to provide for themselves and their family. They have a thirty second window to get the message and sometimes even that is too long.

Between work and home their heads are bowed to the phone. I walk without the phone in my hand. I see instead of look. I hear instead of listen. I smell instead of breathe. I feel when I touch. As for eating, I taste.

In live in Brooklyn I speak with people on the streets and avenues. I am trapped here for medical reasons, but I make the effort to be human. I say hello. Maybe the next time we speak. Never if 'they' are on a phone.

I don't talk to people about quantum physics, but do tell them about eternity. About the color of the sky. The breeze on my face. To create a communality to bridge the gap. We exchange names. I ask if they want to hear a poem.

For the most part and surprisingly they say yes. And they enjoy interaction with someone who isn't trying to sell them something. As for my friends. My smart friends. Their minds are also closed to ideas by the day to day worries.

"So what about you?"

Everyone's minds think all the time. Usually a looping of worries regrets and hopes and dreams and a slice of pizza too in NYC. With pepperoni. AS for intellectualism. I prefer Communality. 137 is just a number. A prime number. 1/137 is something altogether different and is the answer to nothingness. 137 is the odds that an electron will absorb a single photon.

Gimme Shelter

Listen to it loud

Foto Angkor Wat 1999 PNS

The Quiet of the Equinox - 2025

This afternoon I will travel up to the Cloisters to visit Professor Ollman at his rest home. to the hospital for my monthly blood work. Afterwards I take the M4 bus to the Explorers Club and while away the afternoon in the members lounge. Quiet, dark, and warm. Reading the Zen poems of Ryokan.

When asked to live at the temple of a nobleman, Ryokan sat before his humble Hermitage and wrote for the lord. "The wind gives me enough leaves to make a fire."

Hopefully before the cool climes cease a blaze burns bright at the club___a spring equinox haiku

Twelve hours of sunlight.

Twelve hours of night.