Category Archives: VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Eat, Drink & Make Worship

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With both Passover and Easter approaching, I’d like to point out

that over two millennia 52 great visual artists painted the Last Supper–including Leonardo, Titian and El Greco–and all got it wrong.

They depict Jesus at the First Seder sitting over a loaf of bread.
As every every Jew knows, the seder plate is filled with unleavened
bread that’s flat–matzo.

And when Jesus tells his twelve disciples, “This is my body, given
for you.  Do this in remembrance of me,” he’s offering each a piece
of matzo, as is the custom at the  seder. This transformed over the centuries into a wafer, the host, that Catholic priests at Easter place on the tongue of celebrants receiving Holy Communion.

So no matter the color or size,  the Passover and Easter symbol–of affliction to  Jews, of resurrection to Christians–is the ecumenical matzo.

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

Leon Freilch, Verse Responder: Orphans of the Wash

ORPHANS OF THE WASH

You say these socks are schizophrenic,

That red and green're not as authenic

As a genuine, legitimate pair.

But wait!  Such reasoning's unfair

Applied to struggling stretched-out orphans

Whose experience as recent morphens

Has left them totally bereft,

Both the right sock and the left.

Each lost his dearly beloved twin

While sloshing around, about
and in

A washing machine as it revolved

Soapily till both evolved

Into poor garments without sibs

And cried into some much-soiled bibs.

You know of course that socks have no

Mother or father or granny, so

When a left proceeds to lose its right

Both lives become an endless
night.

The least that you and yours can do

Is foster-parent these poor two;

Bestow a home that's warmly sweet–

Wear them together on your feet.

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Humming in Prospect Park

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HUMMING IN PROSPECT PARK

Keep your eyes peeled
For a green field
With a sky of burnished blue
Rim of roses
That encloses
A magical place for you.

Nothing stressful, only yesful,
On a gently sloping hill.
Robins winging,
Finches singing,
Otherwise the world is still.

It's your very own oasis,
The most personal of spaces,
Dominating the list of bests,
Reserved just for you and your guests. 

Need to find this rare location?
Set forth without hesitation–
Make for your imagination.

Watch your woes yield
At the green field
With the sky of burnished blue.
Rim of roses
That encloses
The magical place for you.

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

Sidewalk Biking in the City of Light

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NoBikesStencil
OTBKB Verse Responder Leon Freilich got this email from Rick Tulka, a former Park Sloper, who now lives in Paris, about city bike riding and "the men—it's always men; never women, never boys— who ride their bikes on sidewalks." This was obviously in response to Freilich's poem Where There Are Spoke, There's Ire

Do you have bike police in NYC?

Here in Paris there are groups of three police who ride bikes. A lot of them are on the look-out for bikers who are violating the biking laws and give tickets on the spot.

Our friend was going up to a red light on a corner. He wasn't going to go through the red light, but stop at the corner, but in doing so he went through the red light. The police caught him and gave him a ticket. 90 euros. His partner  told him to fight it. He did.

They raised it to 300 euros!!!!!!!!

I think something like that would help in NY if people on bikes are idiots!

And Chandru Murthi of Seeing Green responds:
"it's always men" Rot…I've seen many women (usually with helmet and
spandex) and most kids ride on sidewalks…btw, kids under 16 are
legally *allowed* to so ride in NYC.
As a regular, if slow and plodding rider, there are times I deem it
safer to take the sidewalk for a short while, and, yes, I go against
traffic and only pause for red lights too. It's expedient, it's usually
safer (cars coming at you are more likely to slow) and, like jaywalking
(another NYC sport) it's benign if done right.
That said, I hold no truck for the speeding and entitled cyclists who
yell at you and terrorize pedestrians. Nor for cars that speed, come
too close to me and honk at me.
It's a two-edged sword: safety vs. letter of the law. If we all
respected the other modes, there'd be no problem. And if more people
cycled, benignly, it would become safer for all.

 
VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Where’s There’s Spoke, There’s Ire

Where's There's Spoke, There's Ire


Forget about the traffic
light                       


While walking a Brooklyn
street;                      


There's little danger from automobiles, 

Whose drivers are discreet.


But  bicycles are something else,

Even on a guide walk;

You need to look both right and left,

Especially on the sidewalk.

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Bay Ridge Beats Park Slope in Recycling

Despite the influence of the Food Coop, Park Slope
does worse in recycling than Bay Ridge, which is
coop-less.  That's the result of a massive Sanitation Dept.
search of garbage cans.

 "I guess we've still got our work cut out for us," says
Park  Slope Civic Council president Ken Freeman.

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

Leon Freilich, Verse Responder: Damn Scamn

             DAMN SCAMN

I dreamed I'd suddenly grown old    
–Ancient, wrinkled,  hoary–             
And woke with a rotten feeling       
I'd been caught in a horror story.    

To reassure myself all's well                 
And merely had had a bad night ,                 
I looked in the mirror and spotted a plot–  
Someone colored my hair white! 

Serving Park Slope and Beyond