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Nat Lipstadt Jun 2017
A Hebrew Prayer from the Sabbath Morning Service



THESE ARE THINGS that are limitless,
of which a person enjoys the fruit of the world,
while the principal remains in the world to come.

They are:

honoring one’s father and mother,
engaging in deeds of compassion,
arriving early for study, morning and evening,
dealing graciously with guests,                                                       
visiting the sick,                                                            ­                  
providing for the wedding couple,
accompanying the dead for burial,
being devoted in prayer,
and making peace among people.

But the study of Torah^ encompasses them all.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I briefly considered editing, adding to, rephrasing this translation.
But reconsidered almost immediately, and instead wrote this down.
*Among the things that are limitless perfect is this prayer.
^ the study of Torah (meaning here,  the totality of Jewish teaching, culture and practice)  offers the knowledge of what is right and how to live justly. Jewish study includes the expectation that the lessons will be applied to life.

San Francisco
Cheyenne Nov 2017
I can't shake it--think I've been
Lost in translation.

Words aren't enough right now
Maybe they never were.

I go and try to put it down--to speak out loud--
Something's being left out.

All this rephrasing
It is so caging
That's not what I meant
You're getting in my head

I can't speak.
Stumbling over my words

Can't think.

And then they don't understand--
and that hurts

This can't be it--that's not it
The words--the terms--nothing fits.

It makes more sense when I'm silent.
Rae Monroe Mar 2013
On a cold November morning
She awakens
Her eyes
Sunken and unaware
Of the beauty
That lies ahead

All she sees
Are the fears
The weights,
Dragging
Pulling
Gnawing away
At her frail, fragile bones

She is lost
She is broken
She is gone

Sitting
In a ***** room
Picking up a pen
And trying
Desperate and futile
To take back
What she believes has died

She stops
The naked scars taunting
Watching from her forearms
She grins
In that eternal moment
She is perfection

Her scars smudge
Her flesh smooth
Those vicious weights
Nowhere to be found

She is free
Untouchable
She is the words
That she has written down
She is the future
Which she had feared

She is the reality
**Which she can believe in
Floor Nov 2019
o talkative listener
what do you do
always rephrasing sins on your skin
you are a devil in disguise
and I love you for that
you are ragged edged with a hint of silver
wanting to make gold with stones
you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders
and walk like it's your last time to shine
o talkative listener
what do you do
always marking your words with a metal edge
you are a devil in disguise
and I love you for that
Filmore Townsend Feb 2014
“but you are too old for apprehension.” her
voice had sounded so, and of this one’s voice,
‘you are never too old for wariness of
an unknown.’ responded astute, drunk
on logic. returned was breathless thought
to the void, filling emptiness with irony.
(oxymoron) and weened the way thru,
concision turned derision with repetitious
definitions that found no actual meaning.
all thought without justification and no
thought with classification. words,
actions, wailing:
          empty, empty, empty
then existed less and less from want
of purpose. less and less from interest of
the known; this once forged fear of life. and
with impressive derangement, grabbing at the
only sober keychain. they, with twitching vesper eyes,
their hands jit’ for a false-meeting fix. to nix
the nihilism. and:
      ‘People can go **** themselves.’
words of this one’s voice. of her’s, “thank
god you’re alive.” from those days, when rains
ranted down, and the trains tripped us out.
those days of our wood’s reclaimed trailer. and
each syllable was never thought to be anything
until aged eyes ached for review those epochs
of breath. but:
      ‘People can go **** themselves.’
voiced in response to a romanticized thought. and
all epochs lingered upon are no more than a
journal of the winds that blew while we were present.
some diary of listless lust left undated. of the woods, of
a reiterate span in once anonymized transience. and falling
back, thumbing pages for proof of experiences passed into
skewered memory. left are three lines, ill-verbed, to represent
an entirety of past lives. of time once present in yellow-lit
motel room, of apocalyphic musings, and veering prophets
of doom. they, turned sincere apocalyphites. their prayers
writ boldfaced, platitudinous, in concern of endless words
restating – in constant rephrasing:
      ‘People can go **** themselves.’
but they just kept goin’ on without concern for the dawn.
Star Gazer Sep 2016
I held my breath just right
trying to figure out if I'm alive
until everything faded, just darkness
because your words
will only ever remain the harshest
and I'm forever reminded of you...
how you made me skip school
because I could tolerate dodgeballs
and projectile rocks...
...After all they are merely skin deep bruises
And the hatred produces
nothing but swelled bones and broken muscles
till everything was a struggle
But they are merely skin deep bruises...
It was not the dodgeballs that sent me crying
it was not the rock hurling that sent me home early
it was the poisonous ravenous tongue
that slithered on lies like it was at a skateboard rink
trying to drink the life and soul out of anything alive.
So you sent your fake condolences, your pity parties
made something 'arty' pretending that you were a friend
yet a fiend coated in a cloak of condescension
you've mentioned death by my ears enticing my every step
hoping that I fall to wreck and fail to ever stand tall, *****,
to be a pawn in your hands, your master plan
just holding back the tears as my palms push away
all your damaging words pretending that they never hurt.
I spent years and years rephrasing, repeating, remembering
'talk to the hand because the man isn't listening'
but the tears glisten in my eye sockets and though I
can convince myself I wasn't listening, I guess
I couldn't convince myself just enough...

You tore at me till there was nothing to tear at,
you prayed and preyed that I bit the dust,
hoping that there was nothing of me left,
and so...
I held my breath just right
trying to figure out if I'm alive...
because in that brief moment the only way to escape
was to remind you that 'there's nothing left,
you can't **** me today, or tomorrow,
because I have been nothing but dead'.

I held my breath just right
trying to figure out if I'm alive...
Turns out I did survive
And as I finish up this write,
I'd like to remind you
that you are all beautiful,
that you can survive
in the ways that I have
because the gentle touch of a rain
never cleanses the wounds
nor numbs the aching pain,
it merely reminds you
that there's another sunny day.
morseismyjam Dec 2019
My mind, it sings
my ears, they ring
and this is true
because of you.

No simple thing,
no mild fling
the times we spent;
I felt content.

These phrases set
lest you forget.
Here's some rephrasing:
you're amazing!


My only source of some disgust is,
the words I write don't do you justice!
I love my friends so much. So naturally, I have to write sappy poetry about them. An aroace has to squeeze in the love poems where they can get them.
Murredith Mar 2015
Every time those three words left my mouth, I knew I'd hear them come straight back.
I liked the way those words sounded rolling off the tongues of others all so effortlessly.
I collected those words, said each time by new people, hoping someday maybe I could mean it but I never did.
Person after person, all I heard were those three words ringing through my mind.

The first time you said my name, I realized I could never let those words into my mind without a great deal of feelings behind them.
I thought about those three words millions of times, rephrasing them, placing them in different orders, hiding them between other words, but they never seemed to sound right to be said to you.
Suddenly those three meaningless words, didn't seem to cover all my feelings, though I still say them to you repeatedly, hoping maybe someday I will find stronger words to use, but for now,

I love you.
vircapio gale Oct 2012
painful urge to write
spifflicates want of reading --
words rephrasing world
TR3F1LD Aug 2024
in realness, I don't dig villains, although
there are some ways
villainous jerks are preferred
by me; ones with thE̲Y̲ hands blood-stained
without excuse, like usurpers, deserve
to be, like it was with European nations once, plagued
by a big misfortune, for sure
[the "Black Death" plague pandemic regarded as a big misfortune for Europe]
[to avoid misunderstandings: I don't mean then Europe deserved the Plague]
[the "European nations" part is used only to have a simile]
but, like someone with an RH̲-like mind frame
[Jason Todd as Red Hood from the "DC" universe]
I wouldn't mind 'em mU̲rked, like some works
of mine made as if by someO̲ne cray; guess I ain't
really the type who becomes fazed by dark ways
like someone walking through nocturnal suburbs (dark ways)
wouldn't mind a torturer of a guiltless pers. to get forced
to intense tortures that hurt
so much he'd admit he's a horrible ****
unless that **** meets the fourth of those horsemen before
the admission of his ******* occurs
[the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse is death]
don't confuse it fO̲r someone's door
taken off by a spetsnaz force in the course
of a storm if my mind seems unhinged according to yours
like a perp with no other means of ge[ɪ]tting rI̲d of
a corpse than to undertake a burial o[ʌ]f
it, ones watching rainbows should be digging deeper
["undertaker"; by "watching rainbows", I mean something like]
["being distracted by something nice"]
on how much this world A̲I̲n't like fairytale stuff
it's corruption that is a base of evil (corruption)
sim. to the astounding peninsula compound linked
to that psychopathic ex-KGB̲ heel (base of evil)
["KGB heel" is supposed to be read/pronounced with the stress on "B"]
so the wicked aren't really bothered by morals
and stuff; then why should injustice-perpetrating people
with power be treated like sO̲meone who's normal? (***** 'em)
those means of dealing with issues that make us civil
[journalism, massive peaceful protests]
[the independent court system, fair & transparent elections, etc.]
shouldn't be disregarded, of cO̲U̲rse, al—
[shouldn't be disregarded in normal circumstances, but under autocracy]
[or when organized crime groups are as powerful as the state]
[civil means aren't effective to change the status quo]
—though, in my view, like I've cracked a sA̲febox brimful
with paper cu[ʌ]rrency rO̲lls, jewe[—]ls
["dough in my view"]
it's V-/Red-Hood-like a[ɛ]ntiheroes
who're required to fight O̲nes from the circle
of so-called depraved supremos
[powerful members of the underworld & agents of authoritarian regimes]
for if you think a state as corrupt & infernal
as the North Korean one can be changed in legal
ways, it's pro[ɑ]b'ly white **̲rse y'all
are on, like a knight with his armor shining
sadly, such men o[ɑ]ftentI̲mes end
up a la Navalny (sadly)
rephrasing what I've tried to convey bY̲ the writing
if there's a large-scale fire po[ɑ]pping
I'd advise to deal with it by air water-bo[ɑ]mbing
"vigilante mind frame" by TR3F1LD (TRFLD) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (to view a copy of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0)
night unkind Jun 2020
a truism, an overused, abused entrée to the first poem of the day,
they always are night-born, from a slow passage of dark to a light-triggering recording event, a 6 hr. poem period, gestation, incantation

and a sort of relief, temporary

many the miles voyeured, a mentaller feasting sated,
simple rhymes to covet, rephrasing the complexities of
our other lives, where our sub-selfs exclaim, out loud!
this is me unchained, this is me chained, this is...someone


besotted by the rottenness of honesty, once air-exposed,
eyes fixed, no away-turntable, all that well hidden spoilage
in dreams reverent, forsaken, my ashamed-ness, is willing
taken to the scaffold, and by daylight first, perceived, conceived


we may examine the half of me, nay, the all of me, open-face
secrets secreted in my nighttime travelogue, of crimes, revelations,
insects, drownings, strawberry moons, all the fraying edges of a
linen covering, my cadaver pouch of well used words


inscribed thus:

”human born from a sac, and to earth returned, in sackcloth
Bill murray Apr 2016
Rephrasing Ex President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. President, Barack Obama, TEAR DOWN
Your wall's of payola!
"I don't have feelings"
He told me
Rephrasing what the doctors named his demons.

The shadows lurking behind every corner of our precious moments.
Lashing their whips to control this lion of a man.

"I'll be good"*
He tells me
Bending down to his knee as a sacrifice a soldier makes to protect his Lady.
I do not know of any woman less worthy than I
Odd Odyssey Poet Sep 2024
Yours: were those repetitions of actions; underneath the comment of
her starry eyes, waiting to add an explanation of my place as her caption.
We both explore the aftereffects of years of catching onto one another—as the successful hunt shows pleasant results; while the longer course of it comes with many love scars… but along the way, I heard the spinning tales of your story by the roundabouts. All the places you had been, shouldn’t have been, and a lot of questions about your whereabouts. Whereas the hoodlums turf their side from the thugs, and I make a territory between us, to avoid long hugs- a criminal kind of love

We both know the boys who keep a contact list of girls to pick out from, as like commodities well kept: she knows a message well sent, as the night gives the best of time for us to act like our true selves

Let’s not jump into so many conclusions as if leaping into big decisions; as our memories are well kept in sky, but at times we seem confined by these crying ceilings. For a worthwhile love, we live to find a means of making a quick buck, copying that success and sitting back while the currency prints- there’s nothing wrong with such money-making schemes; unless it gives others the idea of buying into dreams. And unfortunately, we both quietly know what that means



Sort of met by carnivorous eyes- feeding desires
into one another; a few lives cut short to the unsettling sound
by an incomplete strung of a chord. Rebellious young ones
sneaking out to the clubs, later on tamed at home; there’s
such a thirst for our wrongs when we’re perfectly alone—
but as you miss someone as much as a faithful faster
misses lunch, even a clone of them wouldn’t do you much…

Breakups do cause ill actions; “you said you’re not sick
of me,” but I subtly taste a bit of ***** in these latter kisses
—let’s talk to unlock our deepest feelings; dialogue is
key.
The end of her blush is the brightest of spots, but is
a sign to end a conversation with an abrupt full stop
“Fool, stop,” her forced smile must annoyingly be saying

Those face masquerades must be working hard today;
without sounds of cries- pretending we enjoy telling
each other, “yeah, we’re fine,” or was it the rephrasing of it,
to admit to ourselves that this love has always felt like a fine
the wallflower Mar 2018
A poetess sleep is non-existent without
Analyzing
                 Decoding
Rephrasing
      Ticking
My mind is poetically undisturbed
Until the morning dawn breaks the surface of a midnight blue
A pen turns into a harpoon
And a poem forms from the gloom
up like an insomniac
Kurt Philip Behm Mar 2018
The ribbon is cut
The die is cast
The cement is dry
Yet nothing lasts
The brazen rewarded
The hero a fool
All reason outdated
New fury the tool

A journey presented
Your ship to go far
With doldrums eclipsed
By the light of new stars
The lands will seem foreign
The people most strange
But they’ll smile as you pass
And call you by name
You run and you run
And you run from it all
With no map to guide you
The albatross calls
And then sweet intention
Returns from respite
Rephrasing the unmentioned
Where maybe you might
In fear of the tonic
All healing disdained
Right, left-side disjointed
The cork from the drain
The covers pull back
Your bones are now bare
The tiller is slack
And there’s nobody there
So you take to the helm
Hands firmly in place
And you care not a whit
If it’s all empty space
As a raven is perched
On the yardarm so high
A land bird that lurches
Cawing all truth a lie
And you wonder then maybe
Have you wandered too far
As you ladle the future
From a long empty jar
The wind starts to move
A gift from the moon
What’s whole has been halved
And the sun almost noon
The rigging is creaking
The mast ever tall
The wind has died down
With no new ports of call
The feeling still burns
In the fire within
To find that one thing
That unfound—to you sings
The ocean is flat
The seas become calm
The seasons repeat
From reflection embalmed
The night sky is clearest
The darkest the days
The winds have escaped you
Adrift you now stay
But then just a wisp
Of a breeze on your cheek
Portends of a magic
And the vision you seek
It strengthens and gushes
Throughout all the night
As the red sky last evening
Had hinted it might
As the headsails go up
The big linen comes down
And you climb up the mast
Stepping over a frown
The creak of the lapstrake
Splashes over the bow
The present’s in sight
Incarnate right now
You look down on a lifetime
In this moment of joy
As the smell of the brine
Covers anything coy
And an Island approaches
From the mist up ahead
As the stillness reproaches
And retreats to its bed
The wonder returns
All speculation begins
Of the magic you’ll find
In this newness again
At the top of a mountain
Strange trees then appear
In a shape that’s uncertain
Neither familiar nor clear

The closer you get
The more they seem to move
As their shapes become giant
And your hopes then behoove
Now anchored offshore
With the dinghy in place
You can see them more clearly
Each shape and each face
Like monolithic Gods
They reign high on the hill
Looking down on who enter
With a warning that’s shrill
But where are the people
The Island is bare
Just giant stone carvings
That linger and stare
As you land on the beach
The ground starts to shake
And from deep in your heart
The primordial aches
The mountain then trembles
All paths become closed
With the thunder a warning
Any trespasser knows
As you run to the dinghy
Its been stolen and gone
And your ship is now missing
In its place just a song
Calling out in those words
That you already know….

“A price not paid dearly
     is only for show”

You turn back to the mountain
And in an explosion of light
You’re lifted up to the heavens
Spun around in a fright
Then shooting straight downward
Toward the mountain below
With force you are planted
Along monument row
And now that you’ve joined them
All questions abide
The distance and separation
In heaven collide….

“Can I leave, am I destined
   to be left here entombed ?”

And in language you recognize
You hear back so soon
From those pillars immortal
Voices start to be heard
Your welcome now total
Reborn in their words

“You can leave if you want to
  the choice is now yours
  but this mountain goes
  with you
  all places defer
  you’ve reached
  through the mystery
  you’ve passed your own test
  the tonic’s within you
   —the raven has fled”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2013)
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2017
The ribbon is cut
The die is cast
The cement is dry
Yet nothing lasts
The brazen rewarded
The hero a fool
All reason outdated
New fury the tool

A journey presented
Your ship to go far
With doldrums eclipsed
By the light of new stars
The lands will seem foreign
The people most strange
But they’ll smile as you pass
And call you by name
You run and you run
And you run from it all
With no map to guide you
The albatross calls
And then sweet intention
Returns from respite
Rephrasing the unmentioned
Where maybe you might
In fear of the tonic
All healing disdained
Right, left-side disjointed
The cork from the drain
The covers pull back
Your bones are now bare
The tiller is slack
And there’s nobody there
So you take to the helm
Hands firmly in place
And you care not a whit
If it’s all empty space
As a raven is perched
On the yardarm so high
A land bird that lurches
Cawing all truth a lie
And you wonder then maybe
Have you wandered too far
As you ladle the future
From a long empty jar
The wind starts to move
A gift from the moon
What’s whole has been halved
And the sun almost noon
The rigging is creaking
The mast ever tall
The wind has died down
With no new ports of call
The feeling still burns
In the fire within
To find that one thing
That unfound—to you sings
The ocean is flat
The seas become calm
The seasons repeat
From reflection embalmed
The night sky is clearest
The darkest the days
The winds have escaped you
Adrift you now stay
But then just a wisp
Of a breeze on your cheek
Portends of a magic
And the vision you seek
It strengthens and gushes
Throughout all the night
As the red sky last evening
Had hinted it might
As the headsails go up
The big linen comes down
And you climb up the mast
Stepping over a frown
The creak of the lapstrake
Splashes over the bow
The present’s in sight
Incarnate right now
You look down on a lifetime
In this moment of joy
As the smell of the brine
Covers anything coy
And an Island approaches
From the mist up ahead
As the stillness reproaches
And retreats to its bed
The wonder returns
All speculation begins
Of the magic you’ll find
In this newness again
At the top of a mountain
Strange trees then appear
In a shape that’s uncertain
Neither familiar nor clear
The closer you get
The more they seem to move
As their shapes become giant
And your hopes then behoove
Now anchored offshore
With the dinghy in place
You can see them more clearly
Each shape and each face
Like monolithic Gods
They reign high on the hill
Looking down on who enter
With a warning that’s shrill
But where are the people
The Island is bare
Just giant stone carvings
That linger and stare
As you land on the beach
The ground starts to shake
And from deep in your heart
The primordial aches
The mountain then trembles
All paths become closed
With the thunder a warning
Any trespasser knows
As you run to the dinghy
Its been stolen and gone
And your ship is now missing
In its place just a song
Calling out in those words
That you already know….

“A price not paid dearly
     is only for show”

You turn back to the mountain
And in an explosion of light
You’re lifted up to the heavens
Spun around in a fright
Then shooting straight downward
Toward the mountain below
With force you are planted
Along monument row
And now that you’ve joined them
All questions abide
The distance and separation
In heaven collide….

“Can I leave, am I destined
   to be left here entombed ?”

And in language you recognize
You hear back so soon
From those pillars immortal
Voices start to be heard
Your welcome now total
Reborn in their words

“You can leave if you want to
  the choice is now yours
  but this mountain goes
  with you
  all places defer
  you’ve reached
  through the mystery
  you’ve passed your own test
  the tonic’s within you
   —the raven has fled”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2013)
Michael Marchese Feb 2023
First it must break
Like a heart
Through a stake
Then partake
In the making
Of others relate
To creating,
Rephrasing
Our own contemplate
And pervading us
Phasing through
Matters
Too great
To control,
Or predict
To behold The Great Rift
And then swiftly
Through history’s
Rivers we sift
Joseph Molobi Feb 2020
Since I've seen the sins of the hypocrites that seem to stare at the sea of purification but never want to purify their sins. Fornication should be sanctified inside the well - well the satisfaction of the heat hit the surface ready to surf that ace? Out from the vacation of comfort zone as we zone in the vexation of undesirable thoughts that stumble our vision less in the minute size of a bacteria unseen with a naked eye. Furthermore the vision clear as the crystal night, hence a mission is now persuaded. Rephrasing these verses in a method of paraphrasing to bless the land with the verses of scriptures. Here's the scrolls with me prints in it, history has been made with his story
Kurt Philip Behm Apr 2020
The ribbon is cut
The die is cast
The cement is dry
Yet nothing lasts
The brazen rewarded
The hero a fool
All reason outdated
New fury the tool

A journey presented
Your ship to go far
With doldrums eclipsed
By the light of new stars
The lands will seem foreign
The people most strange
But they’ll smile as you pass
And call you by name

You run and you run
And you run from it all
With no map to guide you
The albatross calls
And then sweet intention
Returns from respite
Rephrasing the unmentioned
Where maybe you might
In fear of the tonic
All healing disdained
Right, left-side disjointed
The cork from the drain

The covers pull back
Your bones are now bare
The tiller is slack
And there’s nobody there
So you take to the helm
Hands firmly in place
And you care not a whit
If it’s all empty space
As a raven is perched
On the yardarm so high
A land bird that lurches
Cawing all truth a lie

And you wonder then maybe
Have you wandered too far
As you ladle the future
From a long empty jar
The wind starts to move
A gift from the moon
What’s whole has been halved
And the sun almost noon
The rigging is creaking
The mast ever tall
The wind has died down
With no new ports of call

The feeling still burns
In the fire within
To find that one thing
That unfound—to you sings
The ocean is flat
The seas become calm
The seasons repeat
From reflection embalmed
The night sky is clearest
The darkest the days
The winds have escaped you
Adrift you now stay

But then just a wisp
Of a breeze on your cheek
Portends of a magic
And the vision you seek
It strengthens and gushes
Throughout all the night
As the red sky last evening
Had hinted it might
As the headsails go up
The big linen comes down
And you climb up the mast
Stepping over a frown
The creak of the lapstrake
Splashes over the bow
The present’s in sight
Incarnate right now

You look down on a lifetime
In this moment of joy
As the smell of the brine
Covers anything coy
And an Island approaches
From the mist up ahead
As the stillness reproaches
And retreats to its bed
The wonder returns
All speculation begins
Of the magic you’ll find
In this newness again
At the top of a mountain
Strange trees then appear
In a shape that’s uncertain
Neither familiar nor clear

The closer you get
The more they seem to move
As their shapes become giant
And your hopes then behoove
Now anchored offshore
With the dinghy in place
You can see them more clearly
Each shape and each face
Like monolithic Gods
They reign high on the hill
Looking down on who enter
With a warning that’s shrill

But where are the people
The Island is bare
Just giant stone carvings
That linger and stare
As you land on the beach
The ground starts to shake
And from deep in your heart
The primordial aches
The mountain then trembles
All paths become closed
With the thunder a warning
Any trespasser knows
As you run to the dinghy
Its been stolen and gone
And your ship is now missing
In its place just a song
Calling out in those words
That you already know….

“A price not paid dearly
is only for show”

You turn back to the mountain
And in an explosion of light
You’re lifted up to the heavens
Spun around in a fright
Then shooting straight downward
Toward the mountain below
With force you are planted
Along monument row
And now that you’ve joined them
All questions abide
The distance and separation
In heaven collide….

“Can I leave, am I destined
to be left here entombed ?”

And in language you recognize
You hear back so soon
From those pillars immortal
Voices start to be heard
Your welcome now total
Reborn in their words

“You can leave if you want to
the choice is now yours
but this mountain goes
with you
all places defer
you’ve reached
through the mystery
you’ve passed your own test
the tonic’s within you
—the raven has fled”

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2013)

— The End —