we forget to thank them!

those wonderful objects like shoes, telephones, washing-machines. this is my way of celebrating them: www.pbase.com/wwp/prayers help me celebrate the unsung heroes helping us everywhere.

zen we went

so far i haven't mentioned theater. always thought i'd get rich and famous as a playwright. no such luck. but i've written a lot for it. and these short meditations pretty well sum up my conclusions. www.pbase.com/wwp/laughing and as an afterthought, i'll add a slight entertainment: 'henry & alexandra, the journey to cairo'. it's a piece that's never been done and that i'm fond of. www.pbase.com/wwp/cairo

fantasy loves

all my life i've suffered from fantasy loves and anima attacks! maybe this is what drove me to poetry: the muse. alas, this ended with my last collection dedicated to the unobtainable lady, 'bagatelles.' one of my few ventures into prose poems, i had an ecstatic time writing them.

MOONLIGHT

I met an old woman in the forest who asked me to carry her pack, puffing uphill like a grampus to her little cabin where spitting geese and her ugly daughter waited. How was I to know I'd hang out of a tree at midnight watching the daughter peel off her face and skin revealing the princess who'd been thrown out of the house for not saying she loved the king her father enough? In that moonlight I lost whatever innocence I had and I've been carrying the parcels of old women whenever I can, hoping they'll lead me to that same home.

you can read the progression of loss at www.pbase.com/wwp/bagatelles

more poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

the angora lake letters of rabbi niemann

my friends give much better advice than i do. read: 'my sister from the black lagoon' by laurie fox, 'foolsgold' by susan wooldridge, 'gentle vengeance' by charles lebaron, and 'a little book of forgiveness' by d. patrick miller. that said, i have tried my hand at the trade (many times). an example is the summer i worked at angora lookout and wrote to my friends, changing their names and my own. here's an example:

July 10, 198_

Dear Skeezix,

Hurry is the hidden enemy. I'm never safe from anxiety. When I begin bumping into things, watch out. I'm as likely to run you down as say good morning.

How is it I accomplish so much sometimes, not skipping a heartbeat, and other times do nothing, panting all the way? It must have to do with organizing my time, options for breakdowns.

My car broke down yesterday, as I was returning to the lake. I drove thirty miles in second gear. A simple, one-hour repair turned into a three-hour ordeal. Wondering, waiting, worrying, I banged into a railway barrier and bloodied my head. That finally slowed me down. I sat and meditated by a river. I watched two kids learning to kayak. I watched a young woman come home from work. She bent over a man stretched out on a backyard couch. She massaged his temples gently. I felt lonely.

Somehow, when we do the essential first, what is close to our heart, whether it be work, play, or love, we accomplish a lot, we do what we need most, and the rest is simply extra.

No wonder we need to sit by a river, let it wash our cares away. If love comes first, don't substitute bowling, or the rigors of the office. Seek out love, and be satisfied.

Love,

Neimann

read the rest at www.pbase.com/wwp/rabbi
poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems
pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

greek salad days

it's so strange to go back and look at all the stuff i've written. much of it seems like doggerel and preaching! on the other hand once in a while i'd escape into things much more fun, like the only novel i've written, "Visible", based on my eight months on a greek island in the sixties. i combined myself and other characters, so don't take this as strictly autobiographical!

5.

"You're very inexperienced," said Minaret.
She was leaning on her elbow, looking down at him. He had just opened his eyes. Sunlight streamed in a window. It was brutal. It was morning. "You really are," she said.

His mouth tasted like ashes.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"What?"

"How old?"

"Old as Methusala."

"No," she laughed. "Not so young. Twenty-two, or three, I think."

"Twenty-three," he said, remembering.

"Amazing! Twenty-three, and never been bred."

"I have been...briefly."

"God, I'll bet it was brief! Minaret's bare breasts quivered before his eyes. Two pink pears tipped by tiny, grey-blue nipples. She must be cold, he thought. "Tell me something about yourself," said Minaret, stroking the hair on his chest.

How had this happened? He'd gotten drunk and gone to bed with a woman. He'd done something spontaneous, something human. It gave him a headache. "What about some coffee," he said.

"Oh, you poor boy." Minaret leaned down, kissed him on the chest. "You're getting brown."

Yes, his body less like a white slug every day. "Coffee?"

"Alright, alright." Minaret bounced out of bed. She threw on a robe, and disappeared from the room. A minute later, P. heard pans rattling and Minaret singing:

Barely, barley,
Whip it all up fairly.
Jennie's got a blue nose,
Judy ate a cankered rose.
Barley, barley,
Whip it all up fairly.

How had it happened? Astrology...Mozart... She was going to show him something. I guess, he thought, she's shown me.

there's the raciest part in the story! however, i think the rest is fun. www.pbase.com/wwp/greece you're welcome to read for free.
pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp
poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems
enjoy.

trial and error

when young, i dreamed about a beautiful, dark-haired witch with black eyes, who, everytime she kissed me, sapped my strength. i'm still living in that land, and this is one of my favorite collection of poems.

LUCK

The fool falls on his feet,
that's for sure, and the wise
man breaks his bones, that's
how it happens. For example,
a fool and a wise man decided
to go on the road. They bought
a cart. The wise man wanted
to put the horse before the cart.
"No," said the fool, "that way he'll
get tired, and besides, he might
fall in a hole." So they put the
horse behind the cart and began
their journey by going backwards.
They were halfway around the world
when the wise man said, "This
is getting me nowhere, I'm,
going home," and he set out
to follow their tracks back. Now
what he didn't know was the
Devil disguised as a huge worm
had eaten a hole in the road
somewhere between here and China,
so he fell in the hole and broke
his neck. The fool went ahead,
singing songs and having a good
time. He came home yesterday,
and I'm marrying him tomorrow.
Marry somebody lucky, I say,
and you'll never go hungry.
The Devil can't second-guess a fool.

read the rest of them at www.pbase.com/wwp/fairytales
more poems: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/poems
pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

escape

yes, leaving town is one of the best ways to escape chores! in 1992 i spent four months in europe, two of them with my travel partner, berta gardner www.pbase.com/wwp/berta (the picture from mexico on another of our trips)

here's a few notes i wrote after coming home.

3. Whatever makes the present everything makes us live: an accident, love, travel.

4. Because everything is strange when we travel, we look with children's eyes, hence renewal.

5. It's strange that what makes us comfortable also makes us miserable.

12. It's a fine line between feeling alien and feeling refreshed.

15. He searches the world for intimate spaces. The grand did nothing to comfort him.

17. All our lives it's a battle between buying a house and taking a trip.

19. We search and search for the place that feels like a mother to us.

20. Only when he knew the whole world would he feel safe at home.

32. In becoming spiritual we often desire to escape life.

33. More often we are in love with the idea of liberty than liberty itself.

47. We take ourselves seriously until confronted by the inevitable.

54. Just the motion itself, the rocking of the boat, the clicking of the wheels, it was enough. He'd returned to his mother's womb.

60. The only freedom is the love of change.

74. Travel grants us the freedom of ignorance. In a new culture we don't catch the subtle signals telling us what to do.

79. Why do I always end up having a cultural experience when all I want to really do is lie on the beach?

89. After being bewildered by people it's a relief to turn to books.

95. He ruined his body, but had a good time doing it.

108. Hidden from the world he could be what he wanted. As long as he could live without an audience he was free.

144. It's not that we don't know what we want. It's that we fear what we want.

160. When he took his past back from her he, at first, felt empty, for she had confirmed his existence, even as she seemed to steal it.

169. The child reaches for a glittering object. This is the history of humanity.

176. They loaded up the trucks. As Lenny Bruce said, when he died his precious possessions had become junk.

201. Too often we mistake changing the world for changing ourselves.

231. Love or coffee, take your pick. One or the other will give you inspiration.

if these have made you curious, you can browse the whole collection www.pbase.com/wwp/zen

pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

thanks for listening!