Coming back from the dead

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.

––––––––

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.

––––––––

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

––––––––

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

––––––––

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.

––––––––

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.

––––––––

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

––––––––

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.

––––––––

CHOLERA

––––––––

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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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.

––––––––

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.