UnPoetia:Shtisel

Poetry for people who hate poetry

Shtisel is a 2022 poem written by Kakun and dedicated to his favorite Netflix series in the whole wide world, Shtisel. Kakun hasn't watched The Squirt Game and After Life quite yet so that claim is not definitive. But still, I've had the pleasure to catch this amazing show on my local televised VOD service, and I have to say it made it up for me after I was forced to limit myself to only three seasons + 1 HBO movie of Deadwood. Shtisel is very Wild West-esque and it has all the correct characters in it, from Trixie through Mr. Wu to Al Swearengen. The show is from my country of Israel and is about an orthodox family in Jerusalem, mostly about the local Al Swearengen and his son, a painter who struggles to claim his place in the secular art world.

The show is written by two writers, one an ex-orthodox guy, and the other is a currently orthodox director. It stars all the greatest actors & actresses of Israel, they even brought some lady actresses from the theater whom have almost never set foot in a TV/film studio in 75 years. But what makes this show great is clearly the fucking writing.

The poem Shtisel will hopefully become available on CD in the near future, to the sounds of Deadwood's opening tune. I hope you enjoy it. Mazal Tov.

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City of gold,
Where all people dressed in black,
And they just keep on looking for the perfect pickle or even,
A nice woman to marry and chat with,
But it's too hard to do with all the nice smells of kugel,
So they just keep sitting home and eat their garlic pudding,
And discuss how hard it is to keep not thinking about food,
But then she comes along, another gorgeous girl,
And she just wants to fuck and have a new kid with them,
But they just smell the chicken soup all over her again,
And it's so sad,
So very sad,
They think of food,
Instead of sex,
And the poor girl,
She almost dies.