TWICE FOR GOOD LUCK             I stand on my balcony and gaze at my glorious throngs. I am after all the king of my life. Sometimes a ledge looks like a diving board into a graveyard sometimes you leap so high you never come down just hover. Then fade like an old wheat paste poster of a Doors concert punctured by staples. Sometimes your heart opens like an umbrella and the intricate effective hinges are the inanimate animating before your wooden eyes. "I wouldn't give a wooden nickel." Neither would I but my pockets clatter with hope these days. At a supermarket sale the bloody meat is on discount. Playing by the rules only wins more rules. For some, rules are inky gods. My heart opens like an umbrella again. I just wanted to say that twice before the rain.   by Rodger Kamenetz A poem from DREAM LOGIC forthcoming from Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre, 2020.

Rodger Kamenetz  is an award-winning author, poet, and teacher. His best-known book, The Jew in the Lotus, has been called a "revered text" by the New York Times and recounts the holy pilgrimage of rabbis to meet with the Dalai Lama. It became a PBS film of the same title first broadcast in 1999. Stalking Elijah (1997) won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought. The History of Last Night's Dream (2007) was featured on Oprah Winfrey's Soul Series. Burnt Books (2010), a dual biography of Franz Kafka and Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, combines literature and religion in a hybrid text of fiction, biography, and memoir. Kamenetz's seven books of poetry include The Missing Jew and The Lowercase Jew. His most recent books of poetry are To Die Next To You (2013) and Yonder (2019). Kamenetz has degrees from Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Stanford and is a retired LSU Distinguished Professor and Sternberg Honors Chair Professor who focuses now on writing and helping others with Natural Dreamwork. You can link to his page here, http://rodgerkamenetz.com/biography.php