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SOMETIMES WHEN I LIE near you
I think of your thousand lovers
those you loved
those who bought you
those who deluded you
who exploited you
who took advantage of your dreams
those you used
those who desired you
those who used you
I think of your thousand lovers
think of them and I want you
more, think of them and become
angry with myself
angry with them
angry with my abysmal loneliness
with my fear from women
with my fear from you
when I think of your thousand lovers
about your crazy life before me
I can’t understand what happened to us
two lunatics, how two lunatics
become after x years boring
deadly boring, when I think of your
thousand lovers I love you more, I hate you
I want you, you repel me
when I think of your thousand lovers.
When I think you are the only lover in my life
I am proud, I am angry
I want you, I want to kill you
when I think about
my gorgeous loneliness, universal
about my fear from women,
from the thousand women
who wanted me, from whom I ran away
and drove away.
When I think of your thousand lovers
and see you staring at me with your naiveté
I want to embrace you, I want to strangle you
I feel I am going crazy
where are you? Where are you?
I want you, I don't know you
don't recognize you, who are you?
When I think of your thousand lovers
of those who loved you
those enchanted by your eagerness
those who bought you with money, with presents
those who hated you
those who wanted to dominate you
who am I, when I think of those
who visited you before me, before I knew you
who are you when I think
of your thousand lovers
who am I when I want to lie with other women
to be with a thousand women who will love me
or not, I will love or not.
Who am I within your thousand lovers
within and without your thousand lovers?
Come, the tears have fallen
––––––––
COME COME, THE TEARS have already fallen
you have cried enough a star would dry
the coma of our pain cannot tell
who is going to feed the rain.
Come come on you can cope with it
you are stronger than mountains and seas
stronger than waves and winds.
We have seen bones walk again.
We have seen the dying bird fly
the poor become rich
the amputated hand grow again.
We have seen in the mirage of our imagination
the desert become a river and its water
was never enough for our thirst.
So, now come come again
your tears are sweet.
Time To Go
––––––––
AND IF IT'S TIME TO go I'll go
but you rarely know when the time has come
to do the right thing
to leave the things that have perished
when they look as if
they were just born today.
It's a place that once was home
or a friend that was once best
or a woman you never loved
a street where cars are torn
or a book, a poem with too many lines
a line for years in my mind
If it's time to go I'll go if I ever know.
You never asked for anything
––––––––
YOU NEVER ASKED FOR anything
when I offered money you just smiled
you had nothing but nothing you wanted,
and then
you left twenty years ago, the smile on your face
the laughter melted to your skin
you didn't say why, you didn't say where
there was no one to ask you were
and you weren't as well.
Now here you send me this beautiful flower
so much like me so much like your memory
she says she's my daughter,
she says you said so
on your deathbed, you never said why you left
to France, you never said you'll be back
half you half me.
Like you, she doesn't ask for a thing.
She just smiles.
Nothing I'd rather do
––––––––
THERE IS NOTHING I'd rather do
than lie with you in bed
this cold sunny winter day
without an erection.
Kiss your lips again and again
smell your skin and your hair's shampoo
not say a word for hours
just a smile from time to time.
Nothing I'd rather do than sit and talk with you
while only the streets remember there is a war.
––––––––
SALTY LOVE
I came all this way to ask for your hand
my camels need water
my hands, olive oil.
I came all this way to sit by this tree
your hands never smile
your breasts always do.
In my Ketubah I give you
100 poems people will dream about
and one day
pay
100 camels for them.
I came all this way to ask for both hands
but more than that I came
to ask for your tears
those you cried before you knew me
before you dreamt me, I come for
those tears in the jar
to taste the saltiness of your love.
She writes a diary
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SHE SUN ON HER FACE cafe Friday noon
writing her diary it's not the first time
I see her
we frequent the same cafes, she ignores me
how lovely, her face changes
from line to line
now she is almost crying
looks like she's writing in jail,
then it returns to normal
and then she smiles she is running
naked on the beach
the sun on her breast and face,
and then it's pain again.
Lady, I have seen you in your secrets
so many times
and wanted to write this poem in front of you
but I didn't have a pen,
no notebook like I used to
in those early days when words were waves
floating into my hands, then you go inside
the winter's sun is too hot to write
I still see you and can decipher
all your secrets
and I want to tell you,
I want to see you everyday
every day writing your diary, know you love you,
be afraid to say something
that might turn into words
but instead of that I am thinking
that the war is near
half of the people sitting in this cafe
will die, half, I mean it,
it's either you with your diary or me,
pure chance,
either me or my wife, my son or my daughter,
I wish I didn't believe my thoughts,
and all this time
you are still there writing,
turning the pages back and forth
writing such wonderful words,
tense and intense,
and your face changing from silver to blue
from gold to black, what's a young girl like you
writing such things, obscure and wonderful.
Sane at last
––––––––
IT'S AS IF YOU ARE not here
you don't listen
and when you talk things don't make any sense
when did you disappear,
when gone away from the world,
years ago I did not notice,
or just an hour ago, have I changed
or have you,
or did our directions change,
I am not even asking you to come back,
there is no coming back,
no place in the past for both of us
we can now let ourselves distance
and hope to meet or try to force it,
but force is not love,
I am not even disappointed or crying
like I used to
it's like I am living in a cave full of light,
like a dream
where waking up is impossible,
I am not in despair, not in pain,
where am I, is this enlightenment or
dissociation from the world, am I
crazy or am I sane at last.
Speech of the man after the birth of his first son
––––––––
LOOK, HE SAID,
while eating a croissant quickly
and drinking capuccino
she is so busy with the child
she doesn't even think of herself
her whole world is the boy
so so how is it possible
that she'll pay any attention to me
attention I need so badly.
don't misunderstand me
I love her
but also need some attention.
Speech of the man after the birth of his second daughter
––––––––
LOOK, HE SAID,
after he finished his cafe au lait
I was always the one to concede
but one day I suddenly felt
I couldn't compromise anymore
I can't communicate with her anymore
and I don't hide our discussions anymore
and the tensions, I don't mind if
everybody knows
I try to survive day by day
somehow continue another day
but relationship,
there's no relationship anymore.
oh... I need some warmth
someone to give me some warmth,
he said while smiling to the girl
with the enormous earrings
sitting with her two friends
in the table near us,
how I need some warmth...
The Speech of Rabbi Akiva
how hard this separation
from this woman I love
or loved
how hard this departure
if there was no love in it
if there were only fights and anger
we could say
this separation is better than joining
but how difficult this separation
to set out for a new road
from this woman who bore my children
who gave me a home
who taught me to love
who saved me from the dark
who helped me study
how long and hard this separation.
The Body
––––––––
AS THE TENSIONS GREW
and silence invaded our lives
sex improved
intercourse grew longer
fuller
and more
communicative
as we learned
each other's body
silence grew longer
conversations became
autistic
each one in his corner
quiet and shouting
roaring and still
only
the body
could express love
hope and frustration
all the possibilities
and the impossibility of being fulfilled.
Between me
Between me and the crown
she stood
she
stood between me and the crown
and I knew I should make peace with her
to reach the crown
but I fought
and fought her
till I reached the crown.
––––––––
GOOD BEING ALONE
It's so good being alone
I write poems to you
I sing the trees
it's so good being alone
on my way to London
on my way to Paris
on my way to you
I sing the trees
the snow and the wing
I sing Europe
I sing you a love son.
It's so good being alone
wonderful loneliness
of coming back to you.