12,849. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,071

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,071
(hidden glories ? why)
A number of things I 

want to cover. Sometimes 

I forget them, and have to 

go back. To begin with, 

from early on I've been 

all screwed up with words; 

they've always sort of inhibited 

me, kept me in check, all 

those meanings and variations. 

I never did get too far off-center 

from any of that. The different 

tongues of different people.

Sometimes I'd go over to 

Williamsburg, Brooklyn just 

to hear the strange and

ancient inflections of the 

Jewish people there. That 

sort of religion is very layered; 

there are all levels of Jewishness 

going on, and they each have 

their own proclivities, and they're 

all clawing at the same old 

mythology that comes out 

of that strangely distant and 

alien Hebraic tongue. Weirder 

yet, it all sounded somehow 

unearthly to me, as if this massive 

wave of people from some other 

'place' certainly, had been

dropped here as aliens. And  I'm

not meaning the Middle East or

Kiev and Russia or Eastern Europe 

either. I'm meaning outer space; 

the deep environs of some old

and timeless and matriculated 

culture of another blood entire. 

There was no way I was fitting in, 

and I knew that. Just walking there 

had me suspect  -  I'd pass tables,

a few times more organized than 

other times, at which there'd be 

stern Israeli types, anguishedly 

angry, seeking funds, support, 

money for trees, and any other

sort of support they could get. 
Militants, spitting words out
in that common tongue they
just heaved around, brusquely.
The Christian embrace of the
'reverence' afforded by acting
and speaking softly, whispering;
of that there was none, or little.

There was a big campaign for 

tree-plantings too, and all I could 

ever think of was how barren 

and sandy it must be? Or, must it 

be? I remember, in the seminary, 

the land there was like that, but 

with lots of grassy places too,

and with small rises in the 

topography. In fact, back there 

when I'd walk around, or when

Leo Benjamin and I were out 

walking  on those great, odd 

jaunts we'd take, it all seemed

very Biblical; New Testament 

topography for sure. It was easy 

to picture a bunch of seedy,

cast-offs, itinerant disciples, and 

their lead guy, just waltzing 

and talking their way across the

landscape until some town or 

village was reached and a small 

scene suddenly arose, for preaching 

or further talk. Appearances were 

always miraculously pre-announced, 

and people would already then be 

gathered, with their sick and lame 

too. And with pointed maps for 

where the newest dead were.

How weird was that? All my 

imaginings. 

-

But, anyway, back to Brooklyn.

Everything was a storefront, which

was also strange : Some old homes, 

even houses, that had somehow 

outlasted time and which had 

been given Yeshiva or Temple

uses. It was all strange, and cheap

too, cheesy. I noticed these people

gave little over to the churchly sort

of 'decoration' that Christians often

did  -  these places were as unkempt

and plain as the Hebrew clothing

I'd see hundreds still wearing. The

long, black coats, and the tufted 

hats that denoted various ranks 

within the religion, or the usual,

plain old Jewish fedora, tophat 

things, whatever they may have 

been called. The tallis, the vest,

the robe, everything most often

already soiled or creased or 

dirtied. None of that mattered;

this was all God stuff. Of course,

for them it was G-d stuff. Why one

couldn't even utilize the proper

name, that baffled me; all that 

Yahweh stuff and the rest. It all

seemed like the one same word

to me; Jesus looked enough like

Yahweh, over eons of language

years, that I could even believe

that happening  -  again, all the

layers of Messiah tales, stories

untold of the Meschach to come,

all the differing faction, those

saying He'd already come, those

saying He was here now, but

hidden from us, keeping the

world together, doing magical

Hebraic things all past recognition

and exposure. The secret mantelpieces

of a G-d of unspeakable atrocities and

bizarre promises, rejections, changes

of mind alterations, second tries,

enhancements and finally, to my

mind, abandonments. Until?

Until He, She, It, or They return

again, which always brought me 

right back to my initial point  -  

these people really were aliens. 

They distinguished in a million 

ways,  differences between meat, 

pork, clean, kosher, bled correctly, 

or not. They haggled over sweaters 

and shoes, prices, torn weaves 

and variable shekels and dollars. 

Who knew and who cared? Women 

in wigs? The plainest-looking

women in the world? But said to

be sexually voracious? The married 

women had to cover their real hair 

with wigs to not be seen? By others? 

Hair? Head hair? What gives? The 

little sitdown eateries, to be then

carefully considered and marked 

as 'dairy' or 'non-dairy.' Each had 

terrible coffee, no matter, but in 

half of them you couldn't even 

beat the wrap by using milk or 

cream! They'd throw you some 

artificial crap instead, a steely 

powder, to color of one's coffee. 

How real or authentic a Creation 

was any of this if the real world 

couldn't even be faced? They 

seemed to worry over every 

little iota of the strangest things, 

each a blemish, and yet ignore

completely other things. Their

supposed other-worldly concerns

were superseded, constantly, by

their concerns over money. Each

day yellow school-buses, with

adults aboard, thirty, forty at a 

time, and with Hebrew lettering

on the sides of each bus, would

be seen crossing the bridge, back

and forth, to the diamond and

the jewelry district around 47th

Street, where their only concerns

turned suddenly very real and

material  -  jewels, gems, diamonds,

and all the glitz that 'their' Heaven

held. A heaven of profit and gain,

one penny and nickel at a time.

So strange, but plant a tree in the

holy land nonetheless.

-

Secret words. An ancient language.

Tribal clannishness. I once went

to Emerson, NJ, in order to find

the grave of the (Jewish) writer

Delmore Schwartz  -  (who died

in midtown, miserable, mad, and

abandoned, and was only buried,

later, by his uncle, after the body

laid unclaimed)  -  and, asking

for his name - location - burial

site, amidst thousands there, not

one of the ancient Jews in the

directory office recognized the

name, the reputation, the writer,

but their first questions were of

'Which tribe was he?' They meant

'Cohens,' Levi's,' etc. I guess 12

in total; which each had their own

sections. I had no clue, but we

were able to locate him by the

name anyway. This was just one

of my quandaries. 

-

I always wondered about how 

people would say, for instance,

that the 'vowels' were AEIOU,

and sometimes Y. English was

quirky. What did they mean,

sometimes 'Y'? All I ever figured

was, for words like myopic, or

synthetic, or synergy, or mystic,
or symbolic, or psychotic or cyclic.

that the 'Y' in those words acted

really as an 'I'. But, like the Jewish

wig thing, who cared? Then I just

figured, maybe they meant to

say, 'And sometimes Why?'

Strange word, that 'why.' Is

that a vowel at the end, or not?