The Temperature is gunpowder

The courting gesture should snuggle like a pet,
talking is like shooting from the hip
and the years walking away from 16 and a half
are like kittens
at the edge of the hand.

Finally, even the best gunslinger is a gunslinger.
The hidden face comes to light by the swish of a sword
and the burning city
is reflected
in the glass of every storefront.

I know this neighborhood,
the temperature is gunpowder
and sometimes even silence
is the trajectory of the first word.

Translation: Barbara Goldberg with Moshe Dor

Another Winter

On the nearby river boats painted pink sail on another
errand, the man renting boats goes through another winter
with rolled-up sleeves and he can always ask, “What about
your Dutch, has she come back?”

Translation: Barbara Goldberg with Moshe Dor

Snapshot

So what if I come from the place where Paradise once flowed?
My father never spoke of the Euphrates, nor the Tigris, nor the muscles
rippling down his swimmers’ arms, but I saw in photos the everlasting
mountains and the gladiolas planted as courtyard mementos
by British officers. When I was three, in the dunes of BatYam, the world turned
white
with laundry, flapping in the hands
of hard-working women.
Ben Gurion gave speeches at each election
and on the billboard in front of the cinema, girls
surrounded Maurice Chevalier in his white Panama hat.
Maybe that’s why I loved Marilyn Monroe when I touched
an American girl working her second summer at the Green Village.
I stuttered in English in front of the horses stabled at Ramat Hasharon and the gold
chain
she already wore on the streets of New York.
From shards of words guilt was admitted and recorded,
from shards of words Sh.’s legs were created
and the short skirts hanging in King Solomon Street like billboards
on the butchershop of the body.

Translation: Barbara Goldberg with Moshe Dor

This is the Poem about the Girl who asked me to write a Poem about her

She leaned the mop against the door to the toilets
at the Jaffa branch of the Savings and Loan and wrung it out
with water-logged fingers.
I knew the back of her neck, the bend of her body, the family honor
multiplying buttons on her blouse.
I knew she came from Kalansawa and if there'll be a poem
I'll title it Fatma Morgana.
Years go by. In her dream a bird pecks
at the eye of a happy prince, I sew
on the bird wings
of the poem I promised
and when I meet the girl I'll make it fly over the head of Mohammed Ali
who was called a "dirty nigger" while strolling on the street
and when his friends egged him on
to strike back with a fist he replied,
"And if Arthur Rubinstein walked by
and somebody called him a 'dirty kike'-- would he
knock him out with a concert?"

Translation: Barbara Goldberg with Moshe Dor

The Ecological Poem

The eagles burst in with daybreak
Under the wings only shade was saved
And I in the factory of nature
Just a slave.

Translation: Shirly Someck

Arabic Work

From which thread will be woven the demonstration banner
of Dir Hana’s textile workers.
In the scratch canals along the palms a drop of sweat rows
like a slaves boat towards the Bay of Scars in the fingernails.
I recall my mother’s first years in this country.
A new immigrant sits in the sewing machines room of “Rekem” factory.
Her brow is plowed like a bulb of yarn
the thimble is the war helmet and the needle sword pierces the fabric’s belly
out of which were sewn holiday cloths,
workers’ overalls
and the handkerchief of the tear.

Translation: Hanni Dimistein

Guillotine

or: In regards to a Young Poet

If one of these days you meet the Frenchman, the Englishman, and the German,
Who were all brought to the guillotine, remember!
The Frenchman asked they put him facing
Upward so he can look death in the eye;
The Englishman wanted to bury his gaze into the ground.
And with both of them the blade got stuck
An inch before their head sang
A farewell song to their body.
When they asked the German in what direction to put him,
He answered: "First of all, fix the guillotine."
And you,
Don't forget to stare straight into his eyes
And tell him, it's not worth fixing her who wanted
To behead your thoughts,
But you should let her dream about
The fireworks of the word blood,
Even if she decides to stop an inch before
This impolite encounter with
The nape or
Throat.
Remember!
The guillotine can be as small as clippers
You use to clip off fingernails
That in your love poems scratched
A page's neck.

Translation: Robert Manaster & Hana Inbar

Swan Lake

Make it so that the tear from the swan's cheek
Becomes a cornerstone
For the Ocean of Joy.
There
I shall learn to swim.

Translation: Robert Manaster & Hana Inbar

Ararat Express

For Benni Efrat

No one expected the horses to remember the Flood.
Time's nail had rusted in the horseshoe when God
Let the wet shout go into the world.
Since then warriors raced upon their backs,
Nations wandered
And the wind's whip snapped a gallop in their legs.
I therefore ask my friends in the donkeys' parliament
To hide pride's tail between hind legs
And offer our brothers, the horses, to be honor guard
On the day we lead messiah.
Only a saddle scorched by sun and scratched by wanderings
Will perhaps convince that rainbow over Ararat
To scribble the face of the clouds again.

Translation: Robert Manaster

Airports

It’s a pity we can’t say: I landed at Brigitte Bardot,
I saw a thong in the duty free at Marilyn Monroe
or in Rafah I bought eyeliner and mascara
at the airport named after Cleopatra.
Thus the clouds of the day would become scarves draped
on God’s shoulders and the night clouds before the landing
lace dresses at a banquet of
stars.
Instead we say “Charles de Gaulle,” “Kennedy”
or “Yasser Arafat”
and we see how the helicopter of politics
always flies in a low sky
as though it were a spark from the crown of a king
challenging the sun.

Translation: Vivian Eden

Sun Sonnet

It will not rain today
and the earth’s lips like a concubine’s lips
will not be moistened by a stolen kiss.
Today the sun will come to caress the feet of hills,
whisper at the tip of a stalk a lullaby
for sleeping groundsel
and flake rust off a command sign
on the wall of the military camp
where my daughter shines.
Today love will slide
like a banana down the world’s throat
and its peel discarded among the stars
will be patched above my head
like a personal moon.

Tractors

The sons of Doctor Mengele sell tractors
On the road between Munich and Stuttgart,
Whoever buys them will plow the land,
Water a tree,
Paint his roof tiles red,
And during Oktoberfest will watch the band
March in the square like tin soldiers in a shop window.

In the beauty salon of history, they know how to comb a forelock
Even in the hair
Of a monster.

Hear Ronny Someck read the poem in Hebrew > here

Kærlighedens offside

Kineserne fyldte den med hør,
egypterne med avner.
Romerne syede den af komaver,
og renæssancens lærde
stoppede den ud med hestehår
for at minde den om, at den skulle galopere.
Så vil du have bolden tilbage
på dit livs bane, skal du fylde den op igen
Med hår fra en kvinde, du har elsket,
heppe på hende
og aldrig nogensinde sparke til det,
der ruller under dine fø.

Love's offside

The Chinese filled it up with flax
The Egyptians with wheat chaff,
The Romans stitched it from ox's innards
And the scholars of the renaissance stuffed it with hair
Plucked from a horse, to remind it to gallop.
 Therefore, if you want to bring the ball back
 To the court of your life. You must fill it again
With the hair of woman you loved.
To root for her,
And never kick
What rolls
Under your feet

'Love's offside' was translated into Danish for the magazin Goldberg.
The poem is from Ronny Someck's book 'Algeria'.

A poem written by Ronny Someck from the book '7 Shurot al pele ha-Yarkon' (1987).

The track is from the cd 'Al Xurvot HaAviv' (2010) by Quetev Meriri with original artwork by Israeli artist Merav Shacham, which you also can see in the video.

Read the poem > here

Revenge of the Stuttering Child

I speak today in memory of the words which once stuck in my mouth
in memory of the toothy gears which crushed syllables
under my tongue and smelled the gunpowder
in the gap between the gullet and the arid lips.
My dream then was to smuggle the words packed like stolen goods
in the mouth’s warehouse,
to rip the cardboard boxes open and pull out the
toys of the alphabet.
The teacher would lay a hand on my shoulder and say that Moses, too,
stuttered but nonetheless made it to Mt. Sinai.
My mountain was a girl who sat
next to me in class, and I had no fire in the bush of my mouth
to ignite, before her very eyes,
the words consumed by my love of her.

Translation: Vivian Eden