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EVERYDAY HE ASKS HIMSELF
what's the purpose of his poems
and for whom does he write
everyday he decides to stop writing
to publish a book immediately
to be in a literary clan and make contacts
so he can publish
and in spite of all he always writes
in incredible quantities
everyday he asks himself
about the purpose of the world
his purpose in the world
and everyday he changes his mind
a strange man, very strange in my eyes,
everyday he decides to leave the country
to divorce, to have another child,
to love another woman,
to relax, to change his work, to write a novel,
to write a poem, to speak with editors,
to travel abroad
to write to Marlene to talk to Beni,
to study medicine,
to leave medicine, to give a lecture
on vaccinations,
to attack vivisection, or against
the government, to make a revolution
in his life and his country, to do justice,
to be a criminal
to steal, to return what he stole
and what he didn't steal
to put the tefilinn starting tomorrow,
to keep the shabbatt,
to send his wife to the Mikveh,
to make love during menstruation,
to leave everything
sit down and write no matter what,
to publish in Hadarim
in Moznayim, to publish a literary review
how many decisions in one day,
a man of decisions
he can think
about seven things at the same time
and indeed his head works all the time
the fuses burn every seven days
he thought about moving, buying a car
having a license, closing his bank account
buying the Passion According To Matthew
selling the sound system
repent, become an atheist,
travel abroad, write a letter to the chief rabbi
and pray to God that the rabbinic court will fall
he cursed the rabbis but didn't hate them
they are not more idiots than the others
afraid to talk to literary editors
afraid of examinations, of being criticized
afraid of publishing wants to be famous
as the year passed he became a frustrated poet
but not frustrated enough to get a degree
he rather hates literature, especially prose
but poetry too,
poets and writers get on his nerves
leftists too,
he doesn't get along at all with Ashkenazis
they somehow
always seem to be strangers to him
was scared of the Russian immigrations,
but was happy they came
he never spoke with an Arab
more than ten minutes
he never had an Arab friend, once in France
almost became friends with an Arab
but of course no, as a matter of fact
he doesn't have many friends either
even with himself the situation is not that easy
he was dismissed from the army
because of his auditory problems, a week ago
he hears but only when he wants to
he hears Bach all the time
even when the system is off
he likes Torah classes, and Talmud too
but hates authority, any authority but God
hates politicians, rabbis, doctors, judges, editors
hates them but not really
hates them theoretically
when he meets them he pities them
for thinking they are important
because of their position
they look ridiculous to him, there are days
when all people seem ridiculous to him
a very strange guy this guy,
very strange in my eyes and yes,
why doesn't he learn from experience
they said you'll be thirty and you'll see
he didn't see anything and now
he doesn't hear, what's there to see
that you can be an idiot he always knew
honestly he would leave everything
and emigrate
leave his wife his children for two years
but return after two months, you can never know
he may do it, he is a psycho
but not enough to get a degree
he may divorce but he has no reason
beside the fact that he once decided
he will divorce
married as an experiment for six months
now he is already married six years
his wife is nice understands him
and puts pressure on him
loves his children but all this
just drives him crazy
he is a Sagittarius
more exactly a Libra ascendant
Sagittarius and the moon in the first house
looks for freedom, scared of limitations
once he thought he'd make a living
from literature
at the age of thirty
wrote seven novels (where are they now?)
once he wrote a novel in three weeks
but didn't find a publisher
wrote a thousand poems or more
but published thirty or less
and a poetry book that sold seven copies
some say he is talented
poets expecting him to say they are talented
talent for sale
he thinks he is a genius
of Bachian proportions
but he is not sure anymore, he thought once,
look it is years of frustration
without publishing almost
years of searching
he went to study natural medicine in France
he always has malaises
colds, asthma
less than once but not brilliant
the truth is I wouldn't befriend him so easily
he is strange, moody
sometimes unbearable, yawns
near people who bore him
he doesn't notice, his wife tells him
he likes to think about himself but also avoids it
he of course is not egoistic nor egocentric
no no, he is not like the other poets and artists,
he is different
he avoids them, most of them
they are only into themselves
when he is with people he seldom talks
he talks only of big subjects
philosophy, vaccines, death
and other depressing subjects
he interests his listeners
but gets bored quickly from his own subject
and changes to the next one
what's going to happen to him, seriously,
he asks himself, what can his life interest you
and really what do you care
and really it doesn't seem to, for the moment
who is this man I know and don't know
who is me but I am not him
who is this man
I criticize so much
this question is called positive schizophrenia.
He was a vegan for six months,
didn't really work out,
a vegetarian six years,
now he sometimes eats meat
the doctors proposed he have an operation
for his ears
he thinks doctors are priests,
medicine has become a dogma
they create feelings of guilt,
they cause the illnesses,
they create dependence
they left the angel of death unemployed,
their churches are full of expensive
and frightening machines
he talks a lot about medicine
once he talked a lot about Judaism
with him it is neurotic, the neuroses stay
the subject changes
he is egocentric but less than the average poet
which doesn't say anything
because the egocentricity of poets
is of leviathan proportions
he likes coffee, whole rice, and organic carrots
yes, he eats organic foods
yuppie without money
listens allot to Bach
and Schubert Beethoven Satie and others
for example now while writing he is listening
to Bach
not so long ago he was caught
by classical music
his neighbor Birman also listens
to classical music
they exchange cd's between them
but they have nothing to talk about, yes really
this long poem is starting to resemble
Ashberry's "self portrait in a convex mirror"
that was not the intention,
or maybe there is no resemblance at all
I read it a thousand years ago
he is very cultivated, can talk about any literature
and say interesting things,
he reads allot of poetry
or at least did, read thousands of books
in the four languages he knows
English French Spanish Hebrew
honestly he would stop
in the middle of this poem
take a plane and fly abroad
always dreaming of flights and journeys
dreams and accomplishes, in the last two years
he flew five times, to London and Paris.
He put his daughter to sleep to be able to write
he guards the children, he's had enough of it
would like to find a job
that keeps him away from home
for 20 hours a day
but he is lazy, he needs space
many sleeping hours
the son now asks "what are you writing?"
"I am writing a poem"
"what is a poem?"
and the irritating kid
with chewing-gum in his ears
he proposes to them that they play in their room
and let him write
"where?" really, where
how can you write a poem
in the middle of a family
really how, what does it matter
househusband half a week
I want out
now they climb the desk
both of them, that's enough
the kid got hurt, he cries
and this is no way to write,
he tries to raise his children healthy
granola kids, but the big one already got it
he wants chocolate, chewing-gums,
and everything with sugar
once a day he thinks of moving to another town
of leaving everything, in nature
this is also stupid bourgeoisie
he has a theory
about the strength of imagination
that can be resumed in one sentence
imagination is an industry
that produces reality all the time
he is convinced, like any other theory holder,
that reality proves it
the day after tomorrow he will give a lecture
on vaccinations
he didn't vaccinate his daughter,
but he did vaccinate his son
he didn't know at the time about the corruption,
and the lies behind vaccinations
he can't accuse himself all the time,
he will extinguish himself
but that's what he does
he has a strong Pluto he changes all the time
every time he questions everything
and starts again
this poem is probably a new start
he has changed his ars poetica
a thousand times
now he is thinking about printing this poem
in a hundred copies by himself,
he's had enough of sending to publishers
to literary prizes and foundations without guts
but tomorrow or the day after
he won't be able to read this
it will bore him, like most of what he wrote
he runs all the time, runs with no end
his head explodes from races, always forward
his wife is Leo with ascendant Leo
quite dominant in his eyes, but all women are
was a virgin when he got married,
impotent before that
impotent in his head
was in psychological treatment,
and it solved the problems
he never had intercourse
with any woman but his wife
it is a bit out of date, or maybe
a new avant-garde
for a long time he put the tefilinn every morning
then he stopped, this week he bought new ones
when he treats a patient he puts them and prays
so he won't forget there is no doctor but God
God is the doctor and the others
are his emissaries,
monotheist, but likes stereo
today is the fifth year of his father's death
he had a very nonexistent relationship with him
toward his death they started talking a bit
maybe now that he has a son
things could be different, they could talk
his father was a vegetarian at eighteen
and a communist
and the first one not to fast
on Yom Kippur in his town
he used to listen to the Russian radio,
but he was never a communist
a socialist maybe for six months,
he is for a free market
he was ounce in a demonstration of Peace Now.
Now he can't stand them
but it is maybe a common feeling
for Peace Now peoplethey
can't stand anyone, nor themselves
but this is not engaged poetry,
so let's change the subject
a movement of Ashkenazim,
he gets along better with Sephardim
also with French Jews and gentiles
once a neighbor, a Goy from Australia,
who came to study Torah and Hassidism,
said to him-
"the Ashkenazim have a problem,
they are either religious or secular
the Sephardim don't have this problem,
but they will,
they become Ashkenazim in the middle east
he knows very well that the moment
he starts talking
about Morocco
about the cookies of aunt Sultana
or about couscous
there is a good chance that the poem
will be published
the Ashkenazim want action
they want tamed Sephardim full of longings
to the couscous, to the transit camp
but not Sephardim who will write
philosophical poems
no no no, we won't agree to this,
it is our territory,
what the hell
do they think, they should sit in the corner
we will choose a representative Moroccan poet
or writer that will be mediocre enough
not to put us in danger
or maybe he develops such a point of view
to feel Jew, persecuted, diasporical,
someone has to persecute him
everyone can make it here,
everyone can publish
if he has the right connections
the right group, like anywhere else
a Sephardi has chances to publish
if he is mediocre or worse
even if you are Ashkenazi it is not easy.
(you've had enough of this, haven't you?)
There are people who keep a low level
of literature
it is their main job
he really questions himself, really asks himself,
what's the use of all these words,
for what, for whom
not only you ask yourself
he really doesn't know why he writes
he doesn't think it is important or significant
he wants to be famous but is afraid of fame
he doesn't want to expose himself but he does
come on, really, what's going to happen to him,
he doesn't compromise at all
walks in the room, looks at the mirror
doesn't see himself, bald, glasses,
thinning hair, beard,
someone who missed the year,
comes from May ‘68
or from the October revolution,
or from the next revolution
he often changes his mind
but he has a strong base of ideas
you can't say he is unstable
he aims for the truth with all his heart
accepts the Torah but hates rabbis
the Torah is for him the only divine law
the children have brought down
all the books now
the house is a mess,
his wife will make a scene
when she comes back
he hates her scenes and faces
it reminds him of his mother
he cannot stand criticism but he is very critical
he swallows a lot of vitamin C
magnesium and plants
he passed his exams on naturopathy,
he succeeded,
couldn't believe it
he is afraid and he hates examinations,
in a pathological way
he doesn't have a driving license,
he sleeps allot, ten hours a day
like La Fontaine, always mentions him,
the sleeping genius
he is always looking for pens,
a poet out of his time
who doesn't find himself, who was knowledge
who knew but forgot, who was in Har Sinai
and forgot
that forgot and forgot until he forgot
that he forgot
wandered like the Jewish people
almost everywhere
and now can't find his place
even in his own country
and his feet are worn but his shoes are new,
his clothes clean
like he bought them yesterday, he wandered
in all the countries and his tunic isn't worn out,
and now he doesn't know Hebrew
but it is his upper tongue
with his lower tongue
he speaks three more languages
he doesn't know Hebrew
but knows it better than any other language
he studied English and Latin-American literature,
physics and mathematics, computers
natural medicine, and other stuff
he can't remember,
works as an accountant clerk,
was a cashier, bell boy, translator, librarian
in the national library,
was the manager of the Agnon house,
two months and they fired him,
made a mess
always making a mess everywhere,
now he has settled a bit
but only to make a bigger mess
now he has to feed a family
to go out of the house and chase the beast
he was a journalist for six months
wrote about pop music, worked two weeks
in the plaza hotel
he couldn't wake up in the morning,
six months in the Hilton
now an accountant
for the binational science foundation
and also treats one patient per week
he doesn't have the time to write prose,
that's why
he writes poetry
it asks for high concentration in a short time
prose asks for medium concentration
for a long time
he decided that he'd only write prose if
he is paid for it
at least a small advance,
he likes to think of himself
as a poet who will be discovered after his death,
but that won't happen either
he will be famous long before that,
he works on it with his imagination
and now it is just a matter of time,
a bit of luck, the right place, good relations
and money
but fame is not important
it is important to live well
yes fame is important to him, very important
he has to check all the time if others love him
when they do, he doesn't believe it,
he doesn't believe he will ever be loved
or that it is possible to love him
his head turns in all directions
and he doesn't have time for public relations,
and especially he doesn't have the strength,
he went a few time to the literary cafes,
and spoke to all the editors
in every literary review he was published once
they gave him a chance but he was
not consistent in his attempt to publish,
and the editors weren't consistent
in their will to publish him, all this has to change
all the foundations rejected him,
never won a prize
except for the Amos Foundation
that once gave him a hundred dollars
and with it he published The Suicide Of God
a book not understood,
so what, he is happy about that
and that it won't be understood so quickly,
––––––––
IT WILL TAKE TIME
he has time, everyday he has more time
and more patience
but the frustration accumulates
if it didn't he wouldn't have written this poem
if he was famous he wouldn't have written
this poem
everything has a sense and a direction
and every thing has its time
now he waits, it will come, tomorrow it will come
it will come
at its time.