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IF I COME BACK FROM the dead
do not hesitate to tell me
I was once a living person
If I come back from the dead
do not talk to me about death
don't even think of mentioning the weather
If I should come back from the dead
do not talk about the beauty of my body
or the duties of my past lives
Should I come back from the dead
ask me about poetry and crime
inform me of the last murders
Coming back from the dead
I walked through a forest of breastless women
A dying tree is something you never forget.
The Barking Poets
(written in the 6th international poetry festival in Jerusalem, 2003)
1.
A dog barking
seems to be very poetic
in any language
a dog barks
un perro ladra
keleb noveahh
it's poetic
There were seven of them
barking into the hall
from mouths of poets
but I didn't see one dog that day.
2.
I have nothing against barking dogs
I just don't like the sound
I prefer when they do it in poems
as if they were in the closet.
Too many barking dogs
that's another story.
3.
The day you read
you are entitled to a free dinner
it's like donating blood.
they used to give you a voucher
for a hot dog and glass of juice.
Now, that dog
he didn't bark.
4.
Jerusalem
crowded restaurant
twelve poets in three tables
barking
wouldn't it be poetic
Oh, so poetic
if we all blew up
in a terrorist attack
we'd be famous in a day
known all over the CNN
read by the masses
make our own statement
change the word
all the dogs from the universities
would bark around our graves
and we'd be anthologized
as the dead poets from Jerusalem
one from Serbia, one from Russia, one From
Spain, Portugal, India, Arabs Jews Christians Buddhists, Hinduists
Now wouldn't that be poetic,
But I
don't want to be poetic
I want to bark.
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5.
The old poets they don't bark anymore
they fall asleep while the young ones read
they've heard it all read it all.
when I am very old
a five thousand years old poet
I will be honored by Ph. D.'s
and too many festival
and I will fall asleep in my seat
telling them poets
I know what you've written
my friends
I've read it all
But I also know every poem you will write
or anyone will write
I have seen the one letter
I am not a barking poet anymore
I am not a man
I am not a poet
I am poetry
and then fall asleep
Oh! deep sleep
forever,
an bury my letter
with me
my barking secret
into the night.
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6.
Old Buk didn't like the festivals
Old Buk doesn't bark anymore
only his poems bark
The End Of My Exile
And
when evening comes and you're not here
I feel you more than anyone else
and I cry
the end of my exile
the beginning of my pain
and I cry being half of me
being part of me without you near
and when
morning comes and dreams are real
and reality is a dirty sock
a messy joke
an angle that does not fit
call me know my dear my queen
I am not a king without your eyes
I am not a king without your voice in my ears
And
now that I have found my other half
the roots of my tree my other in the world myself
my true me my only me my only other
where do I go from here
where do I come from
you change my past in every word
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CALL ME NOW I AM SHOUTING
I am howling my lost years
you were always there and I knew it
and it was easier then being just half a man
but now, now that I know, do I have a choice
can I choose at all, who am I to choose
who are we to choose what's been chosen
thousands of years ago, long before we were born
––––––––
BE THE END OF MY EXILE, be the end of my pain
take me where I can only take you
make it as the steps you walk lead me to walk
let our traces become the traces of one being
for we are one, my dear, we are one
and one day we will be born.
The Night
The night is young for the young
and old for the old
and a bird anybird
fears
flying
The cotton year has come
to carry us away.
A small Jew from Tetouan
When the Spanish writer asked me
how come a man of the world like you
eats kosher
I wanted to spit my cheese
all over his face
but
I just smiled
then came the emails
antisemitic articles against Israel
and Zionism
he also used the words
Jewish tanks
as if tanks had chosen gods too
I was polite again
and tried to convince him
that instead of knowing everything
and after he has traveled to every Muslim country
in the world
he comes to Israel and see it by himself
maybe then he will have arguments
based on his eyes
and not the medias
but he could not do that
these Catholics European
have just changed religions
they expect the Jews to be like them
or almost
they can call themselves Jews if they want
but they should act like them
Last article he sent to me
I just told him
that I will take no shit from anyone
and that he is an antisemite
although he thinks he is enlightened
and I am not a man of the world
I am a small frightened Jew from
Tetouan.
11 April 2003
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MY POEM ABOUT THE WAR
So
have you already wrote your poem about the war
your poems are not as good as Celan's
more like an Israeli William Carlos Williams
if you want I can send you my poem about the war
don't you write against the war
there is a whole site with poems against the war
there are seven million poems against the war
famous poets, put their names
along unknown ones, they have courage
they are soldiers of peace
have you written your poems against the war
No, man
I can't write against the war or for the war
because I am not an adolescent anymore
because
I AM THE WAR
and you, you are the war
and each one of these poets is the war
and their pensions in the universities
depend on the war
and the possibility to write about the war
comes from the value of their currencies
and the beds in which we sleep
were developed to win wars
and not to sleep on them
star wars, and the shoes we wear
were made by the wars,
and as long as we don't understand that we are vultures
living from the dead, rising from our graves
there will be wars
because we are the wars.
Needless to say
I don't want to read your poems about the war
and I don't want to write poems about the war
because poems about the war
are the war.
Trains
I have traveled half Europe
on buses
because when I think of trains
I see Nazis delivering Jews
to the camps
it's like when I discussed with my wife
long ago about the bank's overdraft
and she told me that numbers for her
were numbers on hands.
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I LIVE IN A COUNTRY with many buses
and few trains
in the fifties the Germans
proposed to build
railways in Israel as indemnity
even the offer
was an offend and just a bit too much
60 years later
we are starting to see something
that resembles a railway system
but still, there is no Jerusalem Tel Aviv express
and no plans to start one.
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I ONCE TOOK A BUS THAT came all the way
from Tangier to London
entered it in Burgos
36 hours to make
it to London
––––––––
I LIKE BUSES
because they help me
avoid trains.
A Fool Such As I
––––––––
WHAT A FOOL I HAVE been
I thought, what did I think, or did I think at all,
these were normal problems,
but you've been investing most of your time
in avoiding me
avoiding my body
my love for you
my tenderness
and now I feel sad
my body feels sadness through every pore
I was such a fool
and now I am pitying myself
and you
look at me and never ask
how I know
what I know
but I just think now
that I deserve more
that I can't punish myself no more
(now that I know)
that I am not a monk
and that you are not
the woman I think you were
and I don't answer your questions anymore
you'll only use them
to tell me more lies
and I am tired of lies
I prefer fights.
Ten good years
Ten years in love
and ten years wondering
where has it al disappeared
making concessions
trying to relive the past
don't we know
that things forced
are dead
we cannot ask for more than that
darling
the gods get angry when people love too long
any small discussion, over the door of a kitchen
or the name of a neighbor
can break it all
at once
into fragments
that will never again make a glass,
we can only remember, we can only thank them
that they forgot about us for ten long years
it's not what they meant, they just forgot us
didn't really believe we could make it so long
or they were just busy preparing more wars
whatever the reason
we must go on
life is full of disappointed men and women
from lost loves, shorter than our love,
we can only accept that it was a miracle
and miracles only happen in our minds
we cannot transmit them to others
or to ourselves
once they have decided
to leave our imagination.
Love in These troubled times
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WHEN THIS WOMAN BORN in my hometown
known and unknown
not met and always in me
sends me her emails
or invites me to chat
I don't care about wars
gas, atomic bombs, politicians
my mother calls me to ask
if I have stocked water
for the coming war
I laugh
and then ask
any news
I have not heard about?
No, nothing new she says.
More people were wounded In Israel
in the gulf war in 1991
from the gas masks
than from the scuds
one hundred people, twenty of them dead
suffocated by the misuse of masks
and since then
seven hundred fifty million dollars
has gone into updating the masks
we are paying for it
and who's making the big money
makes me think of "all my sons"
But then
She
the mystery woman
who has written a novel
just like I write
the mystery woman
she invites me to chat
and she tells me I am her
I tell her she is me
two halves of the same energy
roaming in the world
a thousand miles away
and I am again in that paradise of fear
we called childhood
or in that time in space
when energies collide
I don't care about wars,
I know there are no wars
we have not fought within ourselves
I know that death is nothing and even less than that
I know that there is this energy that flows
this energy that is us
and is more than we can ever dream to be
because if my body dies somewhere
I know my energy is still there
––––––––
AND HERE.
Top Models
––––––––
EACH TIME I SEE ONE of them
I think of Chinese women's feet
forced to be small
in steel shoes
The other women jealous
of them
their toes deformed forever
Same as they look at models
dressed by gay designers
forcing them to look like
male adolescents
They are never sexy in my eyes
I wonder when they ate
their last steak, pizza, goose liver
every girl jealous of them
and they
living in a jail
very few will survive.
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CHOLERA
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THE DAY THE RUMOR ARRIVED
that there was a cholera epidemic
my grandfather heard
a strong noise
coming from his room
In two years 10% of the city died
they carried their half dead bodies
to the cemetery
and no one in the house
entered the room
Two years after the epidemic ended
my grandfather went to sleep there
and became ill
but he recovered
In 1929 he lost all his belongings
the banks offered
to cut his debt
but he paid it all and was left without a penny
He became rich again
and died of diabetes
when he was 65
and I was 5
He was richer than me
taller than me
and balder than me
we bear the same name
and I hardly remember
half pictures of him
Those who knew him
say I resemble him
I would have liked to talk with him
today, now
in these troubled times
when my life is all falling down.
Call me
––––––––
CALL ME LATER
when your parents are dead
and the line is not busy
Call me, call me later
when your teeth are not bleeding
from the men you ate
and your mouth is not on fire
from the words you did not say
Call me later
when the air is not humid
and your sons stop killing
call me, call me later
when the sauna is closed
and the cars stop smoking
Call me, don't forget to call me
when I have forgotten you.
The fire and the city
The poets are saying it
and the poets are fools
this world is going to destroy itself
we are only discussing
the number of survivors
Because the world was born from chaos
and chaos is what creates a world
Tohu and Bohu were a happy couple,
Tohu the chaos outside
Bohu the chaos inside.
Chaos was enough for chaos
and chaos was enough for the earth
enough also for the sky
and more than enough for God
But Chaos had no choice
and a new world came out of it.
And Neron Burnt Rome
because he knew
that the fire
was more important than the city.
We Wait
We have come to the city
to witness our own death
we have paid the taxes
to build the bomb
and now
we want to see the results
We wait
we don't know who will drop it
we are our own enemies
we just wait
when night comes
and nothing happens
we come back the next day
We have paid a high price for this show
we cannot accept a refund
for unused tickets
We have the right to see the real show.
What kind of God is God
Admiel Kosman, respected poet
was saying on T.V.
that God is in our body
and I couldn't help but think
Does God fart?
The same day
I was thinking about him
what kind of God is God
to choose a people
to ask us to choose life
and then having all the others
kill us all the time
Does this make sense
I wonder
if somewhere along the road
He will have some explanation about this
But, from knowing him
I know He won't dare
to explain anything
His silence
will be the only explanation
we will hear.
The pain of seeing
This is where I belong I said
but by the time I ended the sentence
I didn't belong there anymore
I was out of my own sight
I am one within the whole
I am whole within the one
so, this is the pain
of giving birth to yourself
the world looks more colorful
than color can blind
the world is more depressing
than the new moon
in a clouded night
I am whole within the hole
I have lost my teeth
and the new ones
refrain from growing
This is not where I belong
my place is somewhere else
but else is just a myth
always back to this world
and my dear human race
racing against me
loving the whole
within the hole
I now know the light
the aura
exists
although I still can't see it
I feel it around your head
I belong now to the things
I cannot see
around your head.
The Greatest Writers
Often, years ago
I used to ask myself
how come my favorite writers
were unknown in their lifetimes
or recognized very late
Rimbaud, Bukowski, Kafka...
so many of them so great
I could not understand
how their generations
could miss
such obvious talented writers.
Now, I feel like them
and asking myself
how come
I have been so misinterpreted
misunderstood
the clearer my work looks to me
the darker the others find it,
now I know
it's the clearest writer
that is declined immediately
for
literature
is
faking the real thing
and covering reality with words
and great writers
are exactly the opposite.
The Ballad Of Tommy Banana
The people who bought my book
Horses and Other Doubts
from Amazon.com
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Performance Fleece from Amazon's Old Navy Store
Cashmere sweaters definitely fit very well my poetry
I can see people reading my poems
dressed in a Tommy Banana shirt
but what the hell is a performance fleece
and what's that got to do with horses
Buy Two clean underwears and one cashmere sweater
and get a 20% discount on Moshe Benarroch's books
Buy One Tommy Bananna shirt and
get 30% discount on Horses and Other Doubts
I love you Tommy Banana
and the wonderful world of Marketing.
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REBIRTH
Everything is going to change
every cell is going to die
and be reborn
and all is going to be different
the whole nervous system
he who remembers
will have a new memory
a newborn out of the living cells
for the first time
like Jesus born from himself
from the woman he once was
and is no longer
born from the cells
cells that became light
in the singing of the sun
in the songs of the moon
light born from itself
and light born from light
and then there will
be no more shadows
to lead the light
and no more lightning
to hear the thunder.
A new life
There was a time when I was the future
so how does it feel
suddenly
to be the past?
There was a time when I believed in the future
and what it held for me
so how is it feeling
a living dead?
The game was more serious
than words on a page
and the years
they were the barking dogs
silent in dreams.
There was a time when time was a question
a project a concept
I needed to understand my life
now it's parallel lines
meeting unexpectedly
and breaking the silence
in which all lies lived.
So, how do you feel now, myself my lie
how do you feel now
that you have nowhere to hide
how do you feel now
that myself is sitting in front of you
and you cannot skip it
you cannot tell any more lies to him
so how does it feel now
to see that everything was in vain
that even thinking everything was in vain
was useless.
There was a time when I could believe
I could live without belief
when I could think I was strong enough
to beat the word
to conquer the word
to rape the word
and convert her
into the perfect lover
but now
her clitoris
is nothing but a dream dreamt long ago
her naked breasts
lack the milk
that fed the earth since the day Abel was killed.
Here,
sit down
break a leg
breathe deeply
the air
that will kill you
breathe it into your soul
break into it
take it
take it as long as you live
take it as long as you die
despair
love thy fear
love thy defeat
kiss it in the legs
there is nothing heroic about it
don't lie
there is nothing in it
more than life
and lies
take it breath it break it
despair into you broken love
you gave everything to the word
and never
got anything in return
you expected a reward
but you never wanted it
you never knew what it was
so take it tease it break it
despair until kindness appears
a different kindness
a winning kindness
all her bones and flesh
made
from the deep defeat of man.
The face of Diane Wakoski
" My face
I have hated for so many years
my face
I have made a contract to live with
thought no one could love it "
Diane Wakowski
"I HAVE HAD TO LEARN TO LIVE WITH MY FACE"
You cannot see your face
you can see the mirror
reflecting your face
the camera shooting your face
the reflection of your face
The face is not the lines
it's the evading look in the eyes
the muscles doing a unique dance
the face is all the things
a mirror cannot reflect
a picture cannot picture.
Sometimes my wife
in front of the mirror
I ask myself how did I love that face
then I look at her to know
how the mirror hasn't got it
poor mirror he thinks he's objective
and he got it all wrong.
I need your advice
Buk,
My books going nowhere
poems improving
and writing all the time
my wife
meeting here ex boyfriend
the one she almost married
before she married me
unemployed, business bad,
and the children asking for more money
they think I am a bank
I had a lover a year ago
and was crazy enough
to tell it to my lady
and now all this is scaring
the shit and the piss
out of me
I know
I know what your advice is
" Drink half bottle of scotch
fuck a whore
but
don't write poems."
A poem Buk could have written
"When men were men
and women were named after horses"
he said
with his southern accent
as if the accent
was more important
than the words
drank one beer
and one more
looking lonelier
that his boots
then a woman came
and asked
if he'd drink with her
he was so helpless
and
probably named
after a dog.
Defeat
They say that lovers meet in many lives
a message in a broken bottle
now that you are leaving me
my ship my anchor my desire
My broken hair my message unread
now that you are leaving me
not knowing the strength of the waves
I sing you a freedom song
I was the stone the builder discarded
the lighthouse the captain could not see
the twilight we consumed to tears
They say that lovers meet in the next life
and they know each other by the white in their eyes
I, for once, admit my defeat as a modern man.
20 years together
You look at her again and again
many things you liked have disappeared
thinks you disliked
become bigger.
she's older.
you're older too.
and you ask yourself
would you marry here again
and before you have the time to think
the answer comes out of you
yes, well, yes, of course
I would marry her again
If
she was not my wife.
The Odyssey
20 years I have traveled the world
and I have learned two things
wisdom is found everywhere
and water always comes back.
Kiss me my love
I am your river
and you are my sea.
Leaving another book
are we getting older
or
are the books getting worse
did we read too much
do we know every trick
do we smell every story
are we tired of words
of bad written novels
poems stories
where are the books
changing our lives
our ways of thinking
showing us new ways
of looking at the world
showing us new worlds
where are the writers the books
where are the trembling hands
holding
a new book we knew
would change us.