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February 19th, 2021 
Awake Goy And you shall make a menorah of pure gold.
Exodus 25:31
When the first thing we were asked to make
required us to use solid gold, gold taken
from our former captors, it explained all
my expensive tastes.
My solid gold house
My fat wallet
My trees, bedazzled with
jewel-encrusted fruit.
The groceries we order from
the solid gold market out of principle.
If our artichokes don’t cost double
that of the un-Godly artichokes
they’re not worth putting in our mouths.
Our floor tiles – made out of hundies.
My office chair – live sheep.
We put in an ocean as a wading pool.
The salt-water feature was extra but
I don’t have to tell you it was worth it.
One button and it parts, just so we
don’t have to watch the movie.
I could go on, but I don’t think they’re
paying me enough.
Not a thought given to where the
gold came from while human people
still wait for their forty acres and a mule.
You know, as I read this back
it’s starting to feel like overkill.
I’d like to melt down the golden menorah
and use the proceeds to spruce up Skid Row.
I’m sure we could make do with
something more modest.
We’re about to take a forty-year walk
and no-one’s even discussed
what we’re going to eat.
Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 25 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.
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