In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Bob Dylan Is God
  • Jeff Friedman (bio)

Dylan is God. You want proof? Look at his scruffy beard, tormented eyes, scarred hands healed after centuries, his stomach still a little bloated from his time on the cross.

Look how the goyim follow him everywhere. Even birds copy his songs, singing from sturdy branches. His words raise snakes up from the dust. Satan buys all his cds and plays them for friends.

God writes his own songs and prayers so people won’t misquote him. Money and fame are vanities, he claims. All night women bang against his four-posted bed, looking for salvation. [End Page 93]

He’s a tiger, he’s a lamb. He writes, “Jesus strangled Moses for a matzah. And me I scattered the hoses and went into a wilderness of roses.”

The rusted garden blooms again. God disappears when you need him. That’s how God is. That’s how Dylan is. If you say the word God, Dylan answers. Tickets to a concert cost more than a Passover weekend with the Pharisees.

Once he came back as a duck, quacking in Hebrew, davening on High holidays, leading the children out on the water. Once he swallowed fire in a tent and exhaled gold coins and watched the audience tear itself apart.

Joan Baez says, God’s a prick— what does she know? She’s still singing his songs. [End Page 94]

Jeff Friedman

Jeff Friedman’s fourth collection of poetry, Black Threads, was published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. His poems and translations have appeared in many literary magazines, including American Poetry Review, Poetry, 5 AM, Margie, Agni Online, North American Review, and the New Republic.

“As a result of being a Baby Boomer, I’m still having flashbacks and everything I love also makes me very angry, except a good chocolate chip cookie. I would also love to do everything over again from the beginning, except I want to change almost everything I would do over again; and that’s why every poem I write creates a circle.”

...

pdf

Share