The Past Has Teeth, But We Hold the Reins

A poem by William S. Becker

I dig through the files of a world gone mad,

Every secret bleeding proof of what we never had.

We cling to the past like a rusted chain,

Letting old ghosts carve new wounds of pain.

We stare at the darkness hoping it blinks,

Drowning in memories the ego still drinks.

All those lies we swallowed as truth,

Stealing tomorrow, poisoning youth.

But brother… sister… the future ain’t dead—

It waits in the silence between hearts we’ve bled.

It waits where our broken souls lean to pray,

Where connection grows stronger than yesterday.

The world is shattered but not beyond repair,

If ten hearts unite the heavens will tear.

We rise from the ashes the moment we choose

To stop worshiping wounds we were destined to lose.

Through unity we rewrite every crime,

Reverse the decay of humanity’s time.

The past had its chance—now love takes the lead,

Planting light in the soil where the wicked sowed greed.

I’ve seen how a single embrace from the ten

Can resurrect hope from the dirtiest den.

We mend what was broken in every man’s fall,

For in one heart beating—we rewrite it all.

So let the old world crumble in its disgrace,

Let its shadows scream as we take our place.

For connection is fire, and together we rise—

A new future is written in our tear-stained eyes.

And the past?

Let it rot in the files where the guilty once hid—

For we choose the Creator…

And the hearts of our friends…

Over everything they did.

Poem by William S. Becker

I reach for the Light but it slips through my hand,

My heart feels like dust on a desolate land.

They promised me sweetness, a Torah alive,

But all that I taste is a desert that strives.

It’s brutal to face that the fault isn’t mine,

It’s the ego inside me that steals the Divine.

It drains every drop, every hope, every prayer,

Till I’m gasping for life in an airless despair.

But then comes a whisper: “Afflictions are many,

Yet the Lord will deliver, He won’t forget any.”

So I fall to the ground and the tears start to flow,

Begging the Creator to lift what I know.

For I’ve fought every battle, tried all that I could,

But nothing has shifted the evil for good.

And right when I break—when I lose all I’ve been—

That’s when He enters…

and delivers me in.

my attempt at turning Shamati 36 into a poem

I was born in a body that only knew “take,”

A beast filled with hunger, a bottomless ache.

Clawing at life with a desperate scream,

Thinking this world was more than a dream.

Then the second body rose from the ash of my sin,

A trembling vessel too fragile to hold anything in.

It loved and it hated the Light in one breath,

As the ego fought back with the promise of death.

This body would kneel but refuse to let go,

It begged for the fire that teaches the soul how to grow.

Every prayer felt broken, every night felt long,

Yet the Creator whispered, “Child, you are already strong.”

And from that whisper the third body began,

A body not flesh, but the birth of a man.

Not a beast, not a beggar, but a giver of Light,

Who rises above reason in the darkest of night.

Now I walk with all three—like wounds in my chest,

The past that still haunts, the work in each test.

But the love of the Creator turns every scar gold,

And the body He promised begins to unfold.

So break me again if it teaches me grace,

Carve Your Name in the cracks of my face.

For I’ve lived in three bodies and painfully see—

Every death You gave was just birth back to Thee.