1. |
Emet: 400 Pounds of Clay
03:36
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The myth begins as a lump of clay; another
summer day of collecting taxes and bundled grains.
There’s always some king, czar, or a lord,
Or a warmonger’s candelabras glowin over harpsichords.
The saviors are always men lettin their wives and
daughters sway in the wind as they’re awaitin the end,
Or they’re just depicted as reasons to pillage, feed or filling in
brutes’ bellies seasoned with the spectres of screaming children.
The planet unravels as it spins, rabbis tappin chins.
An eleventh plague, upon every page is a pathogen.
Some fools stumble into wisdom when intoxicated,
Others kill their brothers for nothing with a rock of ages.
Marks of Cain in slaughter committed under the Star of David.
Assimilated from traumatized to the trauma shapin.
Slain our neighbors for power, money, and bargained favors.
Ground our golden rule to dust, and now we’ve gone endangered.
HOOK x2:
Exiled out the way, proud, ashamed.
No two sides of the story sound the same.
Logic says it’s shocking we’re around today
and all it took was 400 pounds of clay.
The only finished Golem is man and all the spirits
we’ve lifted and broken to smoke over sand.
Waiting for Lilith to strike, or a pillage incited by royal-
ty who kill what they like to over suspicion or spite.
Harbingers of the brimstone, partisans in their stead,
who were armed to the neck with old weaponry from Skid Row.
Barrellin through the front lines of the Reich,
rescued Jewish children in disguises at night.
The myth we tell ourselves could save us from the depths of Hell.
Family secrets buried in dead languages, etched in grails.
What they don’t teach you at yeshiva, reading the Talmud,
between Adam’s first breath, and his birthright of wild woods.
What Jewish kids learn losin innocence to violence.
a charm of protection expellihn spirits alive again.
David slew Goliath with a rock, then taught Solomon,
“We have to make a monster of our own or we’ll die from them.”
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2. |
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The Golem of Brooklyn Theme Song
The Golem wakes, closes fists, folds a face. Opposing
armies’ soldiers shake. All retreat, no escape.
Opens space in front lines, unwinds, chokes, and breaks,
any troop of fools who are stupid enough to roam his way
Bastard child of Superman and Frankenstein’s creature,
sanctified slang, out a gray-and-white speaker,
Created by the ether, super ugly, and horrific.
Covered in the sanctified dust of deliverance.
HOOK (x2)
The Golem kept ya safe, Babylonia to Poland.
The Golem’s been the same since the moment it was molded.
The Golem smelled hate. The Golem left it broken.
World stays world. The Golem stays The Golem.
Learned a language soaked in acid, hurling paving stones at fascists,
perfect shade of broken tablets, juggled tanks just for the practice.
Snapped gestapo into pretzel pieces, bent them screaming backwards,
Built homes of shattered bones, Nazis’ bleeding for the lacquer.
Automatics beat and battered it crumbled instead of captured.
The Golem’s spirit left its body a humble cadaver.
heard a Golem’s in the wings, waiting for a waking life,
breaking night, studying English with Larry David’s wife.
HOOK x2
Wise men stand at its forehead, awe, dread,
and nausea gnawing at their calm breath.
The martyrs long dead, this is the final straw
rising tall from the riverbanks in soft reds.
Drawn breath, The Golem blinked at his makers,
who shuddered at his movement, and didn’t seem any safer
til its slow tongue slung Yiddish in their direction.
If they didn’t need it, they wouldn’t have given it their blessings.
But the people were dying and starving for something better,
So the Golem is as precious and haunting as sunken treasure.
“WHERE IS CRISIS,” The Golem asked, and sprinted toward it.
Didn’t even give a threat the privilege of caution.
The Golem’s makers watched it rip necks from shoulders,
and questioned whether revenge was worth the deaths-headed omens
they ignored in desperation for survival and peace,
waited to erase The Golem til their oppressors blood dried in the streets…
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3. |
Creation Myth
01:32
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I was high enough to play God, then the hits
just kept on coming…I’m not Wade Boggs.
I’m not even a single A player,
I had the job security of a rich girl’s waist trainer.
Clay lurching from my closet, hauled it
to the garden, bled on its veins, prayed, it hardened
into a goblin-gray-face. Its features are odd–
Neither of its knees or arms the same shape.
Maybe this’ll be a masterpiece once I sober up
or maybe its quality of life’s best as a swollen lump.
Started hundreds of Novels…then quit.
Figured I’d make more money throwing art shows for kids.
Problem is, they’re wealthy heirs, with stock tips.
I can’t tell em what to do from inside their parents’ pockets.
Still went wrong tryna do more right,
idle hands cradling a too-small life.
Nine-to-five shadow cast inNew York’s heights
burning sorrows inside of a Newport light.
Now I do dumb shit, like get stoned and cast spells,
or take international flights for revenge and blackmail.
…Committed illicit theft from the school,
copped weed from Waleed, and some edibles, too,
scrawled “emet” in the forehead of a goon,
waited for it to awaken, but then at the second it moved
I leapt back. …
Even with everything I read, I didn’t expect THAT.
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4. |
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I’m having dreams of cuttin PBR&B hipsters.
Ironic bow ties sliced in seventeen slivers
On a bed of bread asleep, til I see three sisters,
taking ussies with me, guzzling green tea mixtures.
Giggle. hashtaggin this fat cat to oblivion.
Miri in the middle, and wincin at the experience.
This was a decent neighborhood til they gentrified it
and there were WASPs in the shop dressing like Ellis Island
interrupting my power nap for photo ops,
so I figure I might as well wander out the back to poke and prod
at any trash or rats or mice or rodents I can
slash out my wrath on in a single motion.
switchin focus when I hear the yelp of the cash box,
slinking back toward the register, smelling an ascot,
Bodega cats are only special to outsiders
Who I’d murder in a second if I weren’t worn down, tired.
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5. |
The Golem Speaks
02:36
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Where is crisis? All I see is shipwreck
dressed like schemdrick. This is not rabbi.
This is not prophet. Avu iz mayn shmok?
Shit. He wrong kind of dickhead.
He make lips like insects. Plus now The Golem limp
toward danger cuz he shape The Golem’s sloping hips.
Black rectangle on wall. Smaller one in hands.
The Golem might launch both up his ass.
The Golem not know what this strange music is,
But The Golem smell Jew hater’s head, play pool with it.
Let them choke in fear. How The Golem listen
Til he fix The Golem’s ears? Why The Golem here?
WHERE IS CRISIS? WHERE IS CRISIS? WHERE IS CRISIS? WHERE IS CRISIS?
WHERE IS CRISIS? WHERE IS CRISIS? WHERE IS CRISIS? WHERE IS CRISIS?
Last thing The Golem remember: rounds of guns,
bodies melted into mounds of mud.
Plus, little piece of shit with mustache
Right before The Golem would become ash.
This not how The Golem pray to come back:
after Jews drown with no drain for bloodbath.
Almost none left, why no one make The Golem? It not
enough to pray away the hate, The Golem told them.
The Golem can’t cry, just ache and hurt others.
Clay can’t soften, it can only turn tougher.
The Golem can’t fail, show The Golem where is crisis?
Shield for the living, vengeance for the lifeless.
THE GOLEM MISSED CRISIS. WHERE IS NEW CRISIS?
THE GOLEM MISSED CRISIS. WHERE IS NEW CRISIS?
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6. |
Thrash, Memory
05:41
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Lilith and the Golem, a dybbuk or an omen
Floatin in the fog of the evening.
Silence as long as a tree limb.
Is she speakin, or can she read this
Simpleminded chatter scattered in the breezes?
The first time the Golem’s involuntarily speechless.
She breathes like a secret.
Cast out of Eden for her independent streak.
To men of faith, she’s an enemy.
How any woman with her own brain’s treated,
And now she’s bein blamed for that very same reason.
Doesn’t occupy the spaces where Eve is
Seedless fruit of knowledge fallin
Like her fig leaf did
And the Golem is expected to demolish her
Like God does idolators
He throws a punch and she disappears inside of him.
The Golem’s shocked for the first time. She lays a hand
On his cheek then she skirts by.
The Golem’s eyes squirm wide…
Why? Why? Why?
The Angel of Death breathed life
Into a hulk of pyramid brick mud.
After the tenth plague ate through the rich blood.
Emerged from the sea of reeds covered in thick scum.
Moses rubbed the aleph off its head, and it went numb.
(Or)
Judah Maccabee’s father was a zealot
The Golem throttled him to death and made a martyr from a menace.
In wars for God’s love, it guarded the temple entrance.
Or it was sent to lure the king away from his empress.
Or it grew too large and smart to keep alive
Or it found love in a shikse’s beady eyes
Or it was the myth of blood libel’s antibody
Or in cloaks it was the monastery’s Mata Hari
Or it raised children whose parents were slaughtered
Some evil you can’t beat with a sacrifice to an altar
Mysticism is the cheat code of religion and
The Golem was always the largest mole embedded in its system.
Or so it remembered…or so it remembered…
At the crown
Of a cliff face in the caliphate of Cordoba
Where rabbis and imams offered each other warm shoulders
A stable hand who wanted knowledge of more than horses
Built The Golem out of mud and cautiously walked toward it
A tower of books leaned from his steady palm,
As the rest of his body shivered in sweaty awe.
The Golem opened his eyes and nearly chose violence
Then looked over the land, saw no smoke or riots,
Furrowed its earthen brow, and asked, “Why?”
The stable hand thrust the pile of books past its eye
And said, “The true name of God hides somewhere in these texts
I’ll teach you to read, then reread again.”
It took twelve years, the Golem tried, then it failed,
So enraptured with the language he died in its spell
Vines around its body, the stable hand wailed,
A wasted life balancing what can’t be scaled.
The stable hand made stairs from the books,
Wiped the aleph off the golem’s face, sunk in soot.
A clay tree of knowledge stumped forever by faith,
Escaped its thrashing memory a century too late…
Or so he remembered…
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7. |
Lord Costanza The Third
02:44
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George Costanza, Junior, kavorka passin through him
Fallin through the streets of New York holding half a Reuben
Never rock a Yankee fitted or a Mets cap, back
up in the kitchen, mashing filling into the kreplach.
Any step’s a set back, vengeance is a Mickey Finn, resent-
ment slipped it in my whiskey as she blitzed me with a grin.
Quit my job, then showed up early swirling lit cigars in circles.
Friends I had a crush on pulled their partners off commercials.
Got a dad who’s partly Morty, mostly Frank, feats of strength:
holdin hands around the table, grievances for grace.
Anger wheezing from our faces, trayf is steaming from the plates.
The dinner got so awkward, thought, Well, eating’s a mistake.
Reality’s escape, lived a fantasy, it sucked.
I just charge it to the game until my battery erupts.
Only loser in my circle somehow women find me cute.
order coffee, start kvetching and then slip inside the booth.
HOOK (x2):
Flaws in the mirror rinsed off with dismissiveness
Any job I get, give em cause for dismissal, then
Wander the wilderness, awkward and bitter, it
is I, the Lord of the Idiots.
Living at home, chest littered with snacks.
Grown ass man sneaking women into the pad.
Napping in the break room, face full of dried drool.
My IQ’s: surprised they let me teach high school.
Landed my dream job, and still planned a getaway.
Works of Art Vandelay dancing on the resume.
Befriended Elaine Beneses, and yes, I’m afraid of em.
Cuz they cracked me in the chest when I tried dating em.
Got my little kicks talking shit at Christmas parties,
Or in diners sipping coffee as my hair is thinning oddly.
That Indianapolis Colts logo pattern baldness,
My daily prayer’s that God’s too busy to keep track of all this.
As off as I am, when I’m on, I’m the man,
Applause at the office, of course they’re a fan
Until they figure out my success is an accident,
And failure’s my true nature, cuz I’ve spent years practicing.
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8. |
Kosher Nostra
04:15
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Tough Jews: zip guns, bareknuckle uppercuts split lips, piss
blood, plantin Vegas in the sand and waitin til it spit bucks,
fixed the World Series for less than six figures,
brewed and shipped liquor.
Meyer, Bugsy, Purple Gang, Dutch Schultz, Moe Dalitz,
Mickey Cohen…we know the hits, soldiers shifted
from broke to rich, calloused fingers, soft palms,
roast you without your knowing it just for wearing a watch wrong.
Hot blonde hangin off the sleeve of this tailored suit,
two-person dinner party, packed house, take the booth.
olive skin razorproofed, lamb meat off the shankbone,
hit the party late, dipped early to take your date home.
Smooth criminality, wealthy off the books with
two-digit salaries, lootin or griftin factories.
Princes of industry, they’d never gift us majesty,
so our kids and theirs did once they hit the academies.
On some, “Look at the nerds we’re not,” in purple Birkenstocks,
and conjuring their great-granddad’s silkiest shirts and socks.
Purchase stocks, assimilation complete,
early exits from the game, centuries away from the streets…
HOOK: We threw fists before fits,
drew guns before liquor store shifts.
We ran the city til we left the neighborhood.
Kosher Nostra, blessed the poor, ate the goods.
Christ-Killers weren’t made, so they learned trades,
protection rackets, gambling habits, a firm gaze,
The phoenix rising from the Triangle Shirtwaist
blaze with no First Aid, but the purse saves.
We weren’t white yet according to white people,
just hidden bullseyes disguised as white evil.
Eventually we sold out to the Italians, capped
hydrants of blood with wellsprings of ration.
Skimmed action for them, and kept most of it for us,
without notice or interruption while we’re brokerin distrust.
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9. |
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Carry my chair aware of when and where I lose my feet
God got me bodyguarded, front and followed two-by-three
Pocket full of candy and politicians who you might need
Long as you don’t leave the world I built you like peace
Or would you prefer a crude bench,
Comforters covered with newsprint
Home is where Hashem is, why struggle just to lose this?
Nudge a nuisance from the lava under pumiace in a couple subtle movements
Hundred units reproducing none of us are eunuchs
No other ruler is as studious so the doctor thinks
You’re fine, but the doctrine says you’re losin it
Yiddish script with the caduceous
I survived the Holocaust so why are you so moody, kid?
Stop being stupid, kid.
HOOK: Mention my name, and they dance in the street
As the tablets decreed, kiss my hands and my feet.
Let my presence be a blessing to your family and friends.
When I leave, they’ll be dancing again and again…
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10. |
Knights of Broken Glass
01:54
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Satanic worship at a Klansman’s idol.
Passin Tiki torches, flasks and Bibles.
Packin rifles, prayin for a target to pop up.
The marksmen are cops who gobble down a box lunch in their squad trucks.
News vans pass through slowly like fat blue stogies
capturing Swastika tattoos glowing in the bonfire.
Glaring at the counterprotestors like, “WHO WANTS THEIR JAW WIRED?”
Claim to be history majors, and they’re all liars.
YouTube university graduates with digital diplomas,
trophy room of baited breath, fishing for a culture.
It’s all bad oral hygiene, rivers dyed green, misin-
formation phasin through their minds at high speeds.
Demanding their free speech be protected, when Colin
Kaepernick takin a knee had them cleanin weapons.
They blame George Soros for the factories the George
Wallaces closed, tobacco smoke all in their nose
Bouncin off of their clothes, they don’t bother with robes
They want you to know what side they’re on,
And how they’ll oppose anybody sayin otherwise,
Stars-and-bars colors fly, chests puffed like they’re the tougher guys.
Strength in numbers, unless it’s their reading comprehension scores.
Tension torn, they smell Jew, find Miri and Len and swarm…
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11. |
Miri's Lament
03:50
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Eye for an eye in the land of the blind,
Panic inscribed in the plans she divined
Blood jumped in her eye reading history in the present
A homeland that’s only known misery as a tenant
Fanatics in the streets setting Jews alight
For now it’s an effigy til they’re ready to do it right
might be tonight, surrounded on all sides
By Smiling lynch mobs trotting out their war crimes
Where can she go and feel safe? It wasn’t at home,
or trapped here, in a stove of real hate
Seared, plated, insatiable, saliva from their fangs
Her escape was too great for her to have died in a cage
Of other white bodies, genocide abridged
Into cute hashtags on shirts, visors, and limbs.
It’s time to battle for survival again,
…but maybe if they all died, it would end.
HOOK x2
If there’s no one to fear, maybe they’ll disappear
If we scare em bad enough, maybe we’re in the clear.
When peace doesn’t work, and the police in the square
Are just new gestapo, we gotta fight with more than prayer…
Shattered swastika skeletons for blackboard chalk
A more effective lesson than the Admor’s talk
What happens when the protection we asked for stops,
gore dries in the gutter, and the last foe’s dropped
Will we be able to live with ourselves in the stillness?
Can we truly heal the world with shelling and killing?
Or will that be when our humanity’s fed to the kindling,
And there’s bloodstained bones ahead of where we led our children?
Is this how we’d want our neighbors to do unto us?
What’s been done to our bodies in ovens and ruts?
When mud becomes dust, will our reflection remain,
…Or will we be a mirror image of vengeance and pain?
Cottonmouthed with bloodthirst, tongues burst,
Lungs hurt breathing in the cold suffering of a rough earth
Can violence cure violence, or is the virus uncontainable?
We’ll sort all of that out once we make it through…
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12. |
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Southern Cross flyin in Zion like a semaphore. Can’t say, “I’m Jewish, not white” anymore. Claimed to be forthright, yet jumped at the chance to captain the Fourth Reich in the matter of a fortnight. It’s a metaphor–we chose flight
and could have built something beautiful from the ground up. Instead, we decided we didn’t like having Black or Brown people around us.
Redlining God’s country, busting blocks with bulldozers. Cold world, we sheared fat from the land for wool pullovers
that never slid past our faces. Enraged if someone justifiably calls us racists. Many of us became who we hid from in basements.
Leo Frank lynched on a postcard, Goodman and Schwerner buried with Chaney, so we ask for a gold star when the question is, “What have we done for you lately?” Blind eye to the nonwhite immigrants we won’t allow to be Israeli. We should open up the books, and instead…we get cagey, compare the Holocaust to slavery, align ourselves with the same people who compromise our safety.
Sheldon Adelson shared the wealth, and wound up fundin domestic terror cells. Bloodstained synagogues in Pittsburgh–his legacy wears the shells.
It’s not just him–shaking hands with people who discuss our extermination over non-kosher lunches. Tell jokes about us when we don’t attend those functions, something about what we have in common with pizzas and ovens. Yet, we trust em, like at the final frontier they wouldn’t turn everything we hold dear into buckskin. First ones out are the last ones in
and the door’s cracked. We turned our backs to ignore that.
Like the text of the social contracts we signed didn’t include a catch. The second there’s nobody left to oppress but the rest of the white people they detest and an appetite for our flesh, that same wailing wall we built for ourselves will be the ones we’re shot flat against…
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