Strange Loops

Benjamin and I could not have been any more different. He was a genius, and I was, well, an idiot. But he was the first friend who encouraged me to be a writer.

We met in high school. He’d leave early every day to go study advanced mathematics at a local college, and on a good day, my GPA was about 1.5. But I was street smart.

After telling him I wrote poetry, every week he would ask for whatever I had written, and in return, he would explain his favorite math concepts to me, like when he became obsessed with Douglas Hofstadter’s works on recursive loops.

“Even mathematics disproves itself,” he would say. Before I could process that, he’d add, “Even consciousness cancels itself out. The universe itself is a strange loop.”

“So, like, I loop, you loop, then we unloop each other?”

He’d look at me with sympathy, but I’d never let on that I did not understand. Soon, he’d give my poetry his honest feedback.

“The birds are realistic,” he said, nodding, “And the sun, appropriately yellow.”

The years progressed. He pursued more advanced mathematical concepts, and my poetry evolved. The middle ground became ever more elusive.

“Reality obviously exists,” I’d say, “I know because I am hungry.”

“Light doesn’t whisper,” he’d reproach me, “Why are the pigeons speaking English?”

I realize now that both of us were right and wrong, but deep down, I knew he was seeing things I never could.

Soon, I went to college to study literature, and he went to an Ivy League school to study math. We tried to keep in touch, but our conversations became irreconcilable.

“Let the pigeons speak!” I’d say in frustration.

And he’d say, equally frustrated, “Stop saying you are hungry!”

Years later, my poetry improved, and I even understood some of his ideas, but by then, we had long fallen out of contact.

Last I heard, he solved the secret to the universe in an arcane mathematical formula. Rumor has it, shortly after, he was busted for producing high-grade meth out of a garage in Orlando.

Now there’s a man I should have gone into business with. He was smart enough to produce something I could actually sell, and I could have used my street smarts to keep him out of trouble.

Free Palestine

My entire life, Jews and Gentiles alike have delighted in reminding me that I am Jewish, as though it were a hidden truth that they had cleverly discovered.

But I have worn the Star of David with pride, just as I have sat at the table during Passover and in temple, clumsily chanting the Torah, feeling joy, connected with my heritage and ancestors.

I have never tried to speak from any creed or identity, except socialism. But after years of being told what a ‘good’ American and Jew should be, this American Jew has something to say:

I am told to stand behind the American flag, and to stand unconditionally behind Israel. But I reject both, and those who demand otherwise, I reject them too.

Over the years, I have been called many names for criticizing Israel and America’s support of it, such as ‘traitor.’ I took it in stride. But I’m done taking it on the cheek.

If you smeared ceasefire activists and defended the genocide, I have nothing personal against you. But know that the pen, which I hold in my hand and have entrusted my life with, despises you.

It lurks in the shadows, waiting in the brush, ready to cut down your weak, defenseless arguments, and it has names for you too: political opportunists, moral cowards, and spiritual failures.

For 15 months, we watched Israeli snipers gun down children, as American made bombs and bullets destroyed generations of families, along with their communities, schools, and places of worship.

Make no mistake, the Palestinians own Gaza, in fee simple absolute. They won its deed for eternity, its title free of encumbrances. They won it with their blood, sweat and tears.

A day has not passed that I have not felt gratitude for the Palestinians. They illuminated the world with their resilience. And there has not been a day I did not disdain their killers.

And of all the blood spilled for these holy lands, so long as there is blood pumping through this Jewish poet’s chest, his pen will spill ink, for all the ages, for a Free Palestine.

But the sun sets on this page all too soon. The battlefield is set for tomorrow. I lay my pen down before the martyrs, touch my forehead to the Earth, and wait until daybreak, in silence.

The Last Rush

The windows of the buildings looked like pools of glowing magma in the tepid blue light of dawn. White light descended onto the work bench, and in it, were suspended flecks of golden dust.

With its damp odor of acetone and dirt, among the glinting metal of exposed threads, bent rims, and wrenches black with grease, the shop was quiet, as uneasy customers gathered outside.

As a bicycle mechanic in New York City, I lived this thousands of times, but this was no ordinary day. It was my first birthday in the city, and a blizzard was forecast.

“I don’t get paid enough,” said Luis, already busy with repairs, when suddenly, a strut slapped his hand and a bolt flashed across the shop.

“OUCH!”

“You okay?”

“You tell them it doesn’t work. It’s not safe.”

“Start with one side, then the other.”

“Tranquilo. It’s not going to work.”

By afternoon, the sky turned white as the snowflakes started to fall in globs, forming big, fragile piles.

Hunkering figures emerged from doorways. Soon, we heard the sound of the scraping shovels, pausing only when the figures looked up into the storm.

The city stopped, but the door kept opening with the freezing gusts of air. In came doctors, teachers, artists, people whose lives I dreamed of having, as we beat our hands on the cold metal.

In the evening, the sky turned purple and dark, and wind shook the flakes loose from the building faces, filling the air with white, twinkling dust.

Silhouettes lined up outside. Behind them, the black streets, streaked with red light, were reduced to rivers of mud.

“What is going on out there?” I said to Luis.

“Delivery bikers,” he said, “It’s the last rush.”

I locked eyes with one of the bikers. He was trying to pull the chain back onto his rear wheel, with a bleeding hand. I stepped out into the cold to help.

They came from every corner of the world. Each spoke a different language. Now, being immigrants, they are hunted.

Anyone who has spilled their blood on a bicycle chain is family to me. That doesn’t mean I like you, but that don’t mean I don’t love you.

We were the spokes of a wheel, traveling apart from each other with time. But at the center will always be the shop, where we lived and bled by the wrench.

Power

Come, listen to me speak, but know that my words are not for the weak. My words are for the brave, and for the alive, and if you would survive, hear my prophecies:

I have watched the skeletons of the dead exhumed, and their bones bore the scars of the slavers’ chains. And I have seen the slavers live happy lives, dying warm deaths by the fire.

I have watched the innocent on the gallows crying out to God, pleading—Why, why, why! And I have watched them fall through the blood-soaked boards, strung lifeless for the laughing crowds.

I have watched the sword raised for false prophets, and watched the best of a generation sent to death upon the killing fields, their honor, mere decoration for their twisted corpses.

I have watched the courageous lose everything to the cunning of evil, and I watched their killers eat bread and cheese, drinking wine on the great picnic fields fertilized with blood.

I have watched the strong give their freedom to cowards, liars, and the depraved, and I watched as the treasuries of the corrupt piled with the stolen riches and gold.

I have watched neighbors turn against neighbors, those who had given them comfort and nourishment through tragedy and calamity, for nothing more than momentary gain.

I have watched the good turn their backs on their friends for nothing more than cheap titles, sending their loved ones to death so that they could walk among nobility.

I have watched the brave, like you, go down fighting, and I have seen the bodies of heroes ground to dust, and their names erased forever from the ledgers of history.

I have fallen to my knees before kings, begging for mercy for their subjects, only for their gaze to turn away, as the roads piled with the dead and the destitute, dying of hunger.

Fools have doubted my evocations, now they are dead, for when the cursed oracle speaks, past and future are one, and I, the caster, conjure from beyond the reach of the living.

I have watched these crimes, as will you, and you shall remember the words of the prophet, speaking to you: all of these were and will be done, not for money, nor fame, but for power.

The Seekers

In my years in New York City, I have guarded against poverty and misery with a sacred ritual, one that has always healed my body and protected my mind, a divine prayer called walking.

Moving through the crowds, I was a passerby that came and went, and after so many years and so many miles, I learned to recognize others from a distance, only by their footfalls.

The lovers, with their haphazard, intertwined steps. The rushers, with their fast gaits. And then there are those who float slowly, moving over the pavement with no direction or purpose.

They walk, keeping their hands in their pockets, as their eyes travel over the building tops. They move step by step, with no urgency or direction. I have a name for them–The Seekers.

Who are they, and what are they searching for? I have wondered this often, and I have questioned if they are seeking God, or a meaning that they lost.

At times, I have also been a seeker, walking ‘til my feet were broken and blistered, and there was nowhere left to go. Yes, I have been a seeker, searching for truth.

On many days, I could not contain the endless hours, and the countless miles. My mind could only wander, and I never worried about the time, nor did I ever hope to recover it.

People and history passed, without me ever leaving any mark or trace. And all I found at the end of those aimless days was often nothing, only myself, looking in the mirror.

In my time, I have known a few other seekers, and we have sat in each other’s presence, often in silence, both wondering what this was that we were wandering through, and trying to find.

Many seekers I have known have passed from this world without ever finding what they were looking for, and I have questioned, as I do about myself, if their lives were in vain.

But I cannot think like this, for I begin to despair, losing hope that I will ever find the truth. But I know it is there. I feel it in everything, in the sunrises and the stars, and the untold miles behind me.

Three Essays in Winter

I.

When I was a young man studying literature at the University of South Florida, I was always searching for activism in the books I read. It made me a terrible scholar, but it sharpened my view of social justice.

I dreamed of being a writer, thinking I could learn by studying the greats. Instead, literature showed me the problems of every age. Through Dickens, the tensions of the French Revolution; through Kerouac, the disaffection of post-war America. Ellison laid bare the pervasiveness of racism, and Plath, the crushing weight of patriarchy.

By my final year, I discovered Adorno and Horkheimer, and soon Marx, Lenin, and Bakunin. The Frankfurt School taught me power and culture are inseparable, while Marx and Bakunin showed me the urgency of action. By graduation, I was no closer to being a writer, but I could describe every problem in the world.

Literature in this way led me to activism, where I hoped to turn its lessons into action. For fifteen years, I chased justice, first in the streets as a community organizer, and now in the courts as an attorney. Over time, I have come to understand a truth I had missed in my classes: words hold the power to transform reality, ignite movements, and change the world.

Now I have come full circle, for it is activism that has led me back to literature. Protest chants, petitions written in fury, and legal pleadings that break the chains of incarceration—have revealed to me the power of language and the purpose of literature.

Every thought and action we take is mediated by words. Out of language, we conjure the world, and this conjuring creates action. Hope, belief, and doubt are shaped by language, limited only by our imaginations.

The courage to change the world begins with using words that spark action, as action always comes from words that measure our belief in possibility—whether of justice, or in ourselves.

If all our days are pages, what words will you write? Will they echo the past, or speak in a voice entirely your own? If change begins with words, where will you begin?

II.

I stood under the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument among the diamond encrusted ice of the stone platform, and I heard the prisoners’ cries, choking in the stifling hot air of the jails.

The largest and first battle of the Revolutionary War was fought here, in the hills of Brooklyn. Perhaps the first battle of the next Revolution will be fought here, as well.

Some 250 years have come and gone since those Continental Army volunteers, doomed in the damp prison ships, perished. Yet the Republic for which they stood, has continued to live.

When the first skirmishes of the war broke out, victory was a distant dream, and the Republic itself, an unshaped notion, yet hundreds of militiamen died in the very first hours.

Soon, through genocide, the conquest of indigenous Native Americans, the slavery of Black people, and disenfranchisement of many, the Republic spanned coast to coast.

Now, this Republic, which derives all of its legal and political power and sovereignty from the people, and the land upon which it stands, we are told, is incapable of fitting the people.

The Declaration of Independence, for which the ship martyrs perished, declared of government: “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” The Power is with the People.

Yes, this land can fit you and me. It can fit every religion, it can fit every race. It can fit every political persuasion, even the deranged fascist, or the idealistic socialist like myself.

Even so-called ‘illegal aliens.’ Whatever label they are given, I call them them one of us. It fits our gay and trans loved ones. And your friend with the over-sized truck.

Despite how flawed our founders were, the prison ship martyrs died of hunger and despair for these principles, they died so you could wear the flag, or desecrate it if you chose.

This land does not belong to political parties or corporations, it belongs to those who are prepared to build the Republic, by and for the people. This land belongs to you and me.

I sat with these words flashing through my mind, as the sky turned black above the flaming torch of the prisoner monument. I put on my cap, and with the ghosts of the martyrs, departed.

III.

A time came in winter, when I sat by the East River on the edge of Brooklyn, watching the frigid waters, and waiting for death.

Since childhood, I have had bouts of paralyzing Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. As a boy, I would wear lotion filled gloves at night to mend the skin of my hands, torn apart from compulsive washing.

This malady has manifested in many ways. At times, for weeks on end, the front door has seemed to me nothing but a passageway between life and death, which I dared not cross.

To go out in the height of these bouts felt like certain death, but a day came when out of exhaustion, I was ready to die, and I decided to go in search of it.

I walked past the barren trees of Brooklyn, stopping every few blocks, scared to leave life behind, scared of every passerby and shadow, but I pressed on, determined to meet my fate.

When I finally came to my favorite bench on the water, where I was sure death awaited, I sat down, waiting for something or someone that I knew was sure to kill me.

Hours passed. Nothing or nobody came, and it seemed that despite my fears, it was not my day to die. Reflecting on this, my eyes fell upon the remnants of a nearby broken bottle.

I stood and went to stomp on the bottle to celebrate my marriage to life. I brought my foot down—and missed. I turned back to the river, and I looked upon the city that had given me so much.

What could I bond my soul with, what could I trust my life with, that had always been there, that would care for me and I for it with complete abandon, for the rest of my days?

I turned from the river and back to the bottle. “From this day forward,” I said aloud, “I am married to the pen.” I steadied myself with a handrail, raised my foot, and drove my heel into the glass.

I stood there, frozen for a moment in a cloud of glittering glass. The Earth beneath me shook. I felt a strength that I had never felt. Now that I had the pen, not even death could touch me.

The sun broke. I could hear the birds singing in the branches, and I saw the gold-tipped waves. In order to grow, we must always leave something behind. I turned without looking back, and I left my fear with the glass, ground into dust.

On Sleeplessness

On a Monday night in June, in the early hours of the morning, I lay in bed sweating, listening to my window fan that was so overworked the fan blades looked poised to jettison out of the window onto the street below. This night was like any other, except the day’s machinations were historic. The Supreme Court issued decision after decision overturning half a century of precedent, and the administration was well into the process of collapsing.

Often, in bed like this, thinking about every problem in the world, as well as some of my own, going to the bathroom an endless number of times, and wondering if I would ever get some sleep, I’ve passed many evenings and just as many mornings.

These nights of sleeplessness started at an early age and often caused me a great deal of distress. Looking back, I couldn’t tell you what kept me up, as my life has changed many times over the years, not always for the worse, but even when life is great and I have no complaints,  these unpredictable nights of restlessness still come without warning.

I have approached the problem with the usual menagerie of drugs, alcohol, excessive exercise, hot showers, cold showers, and some other approaches. Each of these has worked at least once, but never more than occasionally, and only for a time.

On the worst nights, I often find myself in the kitchen, hunched over cheese, feverishly eating an entire block of cheddar or a triangle of parmesan, or even worse, worked up over not being able to sleep, my thoughts turn to love, and to my terrible luck.

This particular night, I had traversed the long road through the various creature comforts, the cheese, and all my thoughts about everything. Usually, this is when I throw in the towel, and sure enough, out of frustration, I finally put on my pants and left.

I walked down the five flights of stairs, through the corridor of steps lined with dust and heat. On the street, I found my first relief of the night. There was nobody out, and the air was far cooler than inside.

The corner store is a beacon on these late nights, of which I have had many in New York City over the last twelve years. The store’s windows were blinking with glowing advertisements, and the white light from inside cast the nearby buildings in relief as though it were day.

Even though the hour was now approaching four, a few punk rockers and graveyard shift workers stood about, waiting for chopped cheeses, halal chicken over rice, and bacon, egg, and cheeses. I put in my order, an egg and cheese on a roll, lettuce, tomato, salt, pepper, and ketchup, then walked to the front and leaned against a tower of La Croix boxes.

Ahmed, who has worked there since before I moved here many years ago, sat behind the counter on his phone watching videos.

“Busy, huh?” I asked.

“Always.”

“That’s good.”

“Hot night,” he said.

“Yeah, I can’t sleep.”

“Again?”

“Always.”  

A man came in off the street asking for change. Ahmed barely looked up, and only said, “Not in here, bro.”

“Ten . . .”

“Not in here, man.”

“Do you have five dollars. Five?”

Ahmed stood, and the man turned without speaking and walked back out onto the street, and Ahmed sat back down and said to himself, “I don’t get paid enough.”   

We had lost the train of thought after that and soon I was back out on the street with my sandwich and a pack of cigarettes in the bag. After I made it to the roof of my building, I sat eating my sandwich, looking out over the skyscrapers and neighborhoods, as I have done many times, straining my neck to look up at the constellations and smoking until my throat hurt. For the first time all day, in the crosswinds on my roof, the air sent goosebumps over my neck.

They say that New York City is the city that never sleeps, but in these hours, the towers go dark, and the skies above the city are quiet at last, save for a few white lines above, left by the blinking airliners speeding past the Big Dipper and the Summer Triangle.

On nights like these, my thoughts turn to the decision-makers sitting over the chessboard of humanity, then inevitably to the genocide in Palestine, as they have constantly over the last nine months, and about the unlikeliness at this stage of any decisive action by any nation to stop the killing, and all of this triggered in me an awareness of the brutish and ruthless logic of empires, more terrifying than even the worst nights of insomnia.

I remind myself in these moments: being alive doesn’t make any of us wiser or more experienced than the long dead generations before us. Many have come and gone, particularly with revolutionary ideals. But even the Jacobin set settles well into the life of statesmanship, just as many are not so lucky, chasing revolution and dreams into poverty and oblivion.

Every archetype is reproduced by the ages, especially the insomniac, as he sits here, writing these words. Perhaps only the stakes grow higher as history and time progresses.

I thought of the dark rooms housing the Black Paintings at El Prado, and Tres De Mayo. The fear in the eyes of the insurrectionists standing before the firing squad is as real as fear can be upon the canvas, and the look in their eyes reminds me of the fear I have seen in the eyes of so many children in Gaza living under constant bombardment.

Who will be the Goya of our age? Who will take these atrocities, papered with endless propaganda, and immortalize their truth for the ages? Who will explain the course of events to future generations so that truth is not lost in time? Someone will, but whether the materials of their ideas will survive time, is more uncertain.  

After many years, the anxiety I feel during sleepless nights has subsided, and the predicament has evolved from one of anxiousness to one of mere annoyance. Perhaps my years of apprenticeship in insomnia are over, for now I almost always stay up until the arrival of that sound, once so cursed but now so welcome, of the birds chirping, and after my mind has grown weary with the hours, I can often make out what the birds are talking about. That morning, the pigeons were enthusiastically discussing last night’s Yankees game.

As the first light of the morning drifted in with the conversations of the birds, my mind was a swirl of unanswered questions about the world and myself. I lay down, closing my eyes out of exhaustion, and soon I fell into the inky blackness of the mind, on an island deep within myself, far from everything, even world events and love.

It was long after night was over, but far before morning, a period that very well could have been a dream. The general proposition, which I believe is supported by the scientific literature, is that during these hours not a single soul is awake on the entire planet, which is why so many strange things happen: the air is charged with potential, stored up for tomorrow, and one is bound to encounter large thoughts about nations, and birds with their pleasant conversations.

The morning after, I usually spill an entire bag of coffee beans on the floor or drop a fried egg on my foot, but by midday, I grow so numb from the discomforts of restlessness that I can mostly be said to be awake. Tiredness is never far, though, and a dryness about the eyes throughout the day is a reminder that rest will come.   

If this was a respectable non-fiction essay, I might detour into philosophical and scientific theories on sleep, or quote Shakespeare, or expound on arcane histories of insomnia, but I’m just a guy trying to get some shut eye.