Monthly Archives: September 2023

Not Sorry Yom Kippur

September 29, 2023 – 4:11 pm

More than three thousand years ago the Israelites emerged from their nomadic existence and established the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The Asssyrians and later the Babylonians depopulated the lands west of the River Jordan and the Romans completed the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah in two devastating wars and the Jews were set […]

By Peter | Posted in freedom | Tagged | Comments (0)

Essence

September 28, 2023 – 9:47 pm

Essence Last year I died three times. Once on an airplane Coming from Bangkok Twice on an Operating table. Passing from this life To white oblivion Not heaven Not hell Merely a white oblivion Coming back Not as a reincarnation But To this life To this body To the meaninglessness Of the Now. My body […]

By Peter | Posted in brooklyn, Health, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

The Slum of Hope

September 28, 2023 – 9:15 pm

Kibera The Forest in Nubian Nairobi Kenya A million souls Living by the Nairobi Lake On $2 a day A slum Bigger than Boston Filled with every tribe in Kenya, Uganda, the Sudan, Nubia, Somalia Living together On $2 a day Never giving up Kibera is the slum of hope. I have walked through the […]

By Peter | Posted in Africa, freedom, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

G’MAR CHATIMA TOVA ET OI VEY by Peter Nolan Smith

September 25, 2023 – 4:17 am

Several years ago I rode my bike down Kent Street to Williamsburg. Scores of Hassidim were flocking out of the Brooklyn shtel. They congregated by the East River to atone for their sins and the Expulsion from Eden. Men and women were separated by a fence and I thought about taking a photo, but realized […]

By Peter | Posted in Bet On Crazy, holiday, NEW YORK, semi-fiction | Tagged | Comments (0)

A Day Of No Atonement

September 25, 2023 – 3:46 am

Yom Kippur has long been the holiest holiday for Jews around the world. The period of fasting lasts twenty-five hours and eating and drinking, anointing the body with moisturizer or oil, bathing, sexual relations, and wearing leather shoes number the prime rules for atonement for the year’s sins, however Israeli will never atone for the […]

By Peter | Posted in religion, revolution | Tagged | Comments (0)