What crushes my soul,
More than anything else
Is the nagging thought,
“You’ll never feel your spouse.”
I suppose I thwart myself because of it.
What is the wealth of nations
Without someone to love?
The thought of being rich is frightening.
What’s more frightening is being rich
Without a woman who loved me when I was poor.
What’s more frightening
Is being poor, without a woman
And never eating from this labor.
My own stink rises up to my nostrils…
That foul smell of pajamas
Which were worn a little too long.
The smell of sleep.
Sleep… though ever pleasant
Scares me.
To sleep a life away
In my own stink…
Frankly, I’d share this body with my wife
And I’d be happy
Though poor.
But, the looming catastrophes lurk somewhere…
Are there trustworthy women?
I don’t know.
Seduction is an art…
There are men, many of them,
Who will seduce even the best of women.
There are women, the best of women,
Who turn bad, and then seduce the foulest of men.
So, I look at the riches.
I can eat…
Be praised.
Praise and wealth scare me.
I say to God, “If you can add no sorrows to it,”
Which, I forecast the sorrows of success.
Two times thwarted
I had the greats read me.
Pilidod Grass looks fine
And so does the harvest bread…
It will satisfy me if my bonny lass
Waits for me.
I’ll love her when she has mud
Upon her boots, and the dung of cows
Plastered on her worn out shoes.
Her hair tawny, and a mess
With a frown on her face because the cow gave no milk.
Her father waiting in the pantry,
For her milk to come, and the look of sheer astonishment on her face
When her favorite cow—she’d call it a heifer—
Didn’t give the milk needed.
Crying, she’ll go,
Where her father will beat her
For disobeying her…
Calling hers slack hands
Like mine…
Always disciplined for hard work
Thus it’s all we can do
To sit side saddled on our furniture
In our pajama stink.
Because work,
When we enjoyed it,
When we made the slightest mistake
That we could not control,
Was always disciplined.
Her with a rod,
I with a cruel rod too…
My dove…
Shunned by the ones I love
Because the utters didn’t produce milk.
And sure enough, my family and friends would go,
And miraculously—or otherwise cynically—
Pull and get a long draw of precious milk.
As if I’d never drawn milk from a cow…
They’d then tell me to draw the milk.
And it would work.
Happen to be…
They’d also know I tried
And would still discipline me.
What crushes my soul is that I have married a strange wife…
Like Elijah in Nehemiah,
Yet I cannot awaken from my sleep.
Be my muse tonight,—
A beautiful Savant has had visions
She has shown you happy with me
But impervious to the outside world.
Rightly, my suitors are chosen by God.
Which one would I want?
I don’t know, o’ angel spoken of in the pilidod grass.
Loneliness creeps very close to all of us…
The Laurel, the Savant, the Gift from God.
No… there is one for me…
I just have to choose.
Though I cannot…
We both mourn for this world
O’ Daughter of Zion.
It seems like sadness is in all men’s bones.
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B. K. Neifert 