translated, from the Hebrew, by Tsipi Keller
Solo
In my alcohol-stream, blood flows as well.
My hands are weak
and tonight across my face squats the sorrow of predators.
In coffee houses people lose their skin, lose color,
pavements generate currents
and the trees have names which remained in nature class.
In my alcohol-stream, blood flows as well.
He who loves is more loving than loving,
he who strikes a match challenges the wind,
and a soldier who came back from a base in northern Sinai
left the oxygen of her lungs in the oxygen of mine.
In my alcohol-stream, blood flows as well.
Words are devoured in the sorrow of predators,
brandy's diluted with ice and tap water,
and longings are a light burning in the bedroom,
an Elvis record,
the clasp of a bra.
Johnny
The news of Johnny Weissmuller's death was broadcast in the military jeep
on the way to Beit-Lid.
The head that was turned to the jungles found the orchards of the Sharon.
In January '84 even an orchard is an attraction,
even a sprinkler or
a pitchfork.
Nothing to be done, the land of Israel doesn't live here anymore.
From the fisted heart of rabbi Yehudah Halevy remains the body
and in a basement in a street bearing his name I can
tell a girl: You turn me on.
And she: If you're turned on let me see your engine.
What a great world
where death leaps from branch to branch
and wintry birds hide in the horizon
as if in women's lingerie.
Jasmine. A Poem on Sandpaper
Fairuz lifts her lips
to the sky.
Let it shower jasmine
on those who once met
and didn't know they were in love.
I listen to her sing in the Fiat of Muhammad,
in the noon street of Ibn Gabirol:
A Lebanese singer singing in an Italian car,
driven by an Arab poet from Baqa-al-Garbiyye,
in a street named after a Hebrew poet in medieval Spain.
And the jasmine?
If it drops from the skies of Armageddon
it will turn
for a moment
into a green
light
at the next intersection.
Tear* Comptroller Report
In the school of weeping
they teach the tear to sing a lullaby in the eyes of the toddlers.
With a wet foot, the tear glides into the sandbox
and hitches reins on the hollow horses.
It is already quite clever to scribble on the walls,
to hide at the scary moments
in a fairy tale. The teeth of lions scar its throat
and the good fairies place a stamp of love
on the envelope of its body.
For a moment it is a target, stuck like a scarecrow in a shooting gallery.
A bird of fire pokes holes in the cardboard of its heart
and drips from its beak virgin blood.
*in the Hebrew, "tear" and "state" rhyme.
Thirty Seconds to Charge the Nipple
We had thirty seconds to charge the nipple.
It was a mound
jutting at the edge of the obstacle course in basic training.
Above it, the sky's collar was ironed with the starch of clouds
and the khaki of its dunes could be, in a different landscape, a line in a nature poem.
But where is a line and where is nature,
when two canteens bounce on your waist,
a Uzi in your hand,
and a shovel along your spine.
All you could do was to feast in fantasy on the nipples
of the squadron's clerk who always lounged
in the commander's jeep,
and to recall the painter Gauguin debating whether to eat the chicken
he had, or to paint it.
There, facing the hill, we were very hungry.
Ronny Someck was born in Baghdad in 1951 and emigrated to Israel as a child. He studied Hebrew Literature and Jewish Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He has published seven volumes of poetry and his work has appeared in anthologies and magazines internationally, including two selections in Arabic. He has participated in many poetry festivals worldwide. Artwork inspired by his poems has been exhibited in Israel and Europe, and his work has been set to music by Elliot Sharp. He has received Akum's 50th Anniversary Prize for Special Achievement and the Prime Minister Award. Someck teaches literature and lives in Ramat Gan. The poems appearing here are from his 1996 collection: Rice Paradise — Selected Poems 1976-1996.
Tsipi Keller's short fiction and poetry translations have appeared in various journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, of an Armand G. Erpf award from the Translation Center at Columbia University, and of CAPS and NYFA awards in fiction. In addition to Someck’s work, she has translated Dan Pagis's posthumous collection, Last Poems, and Irit Katzir's posthumous collection, And I Wrote Poems. Keller’s novels, The Prophet of Tenth Street and Leverage, have been translated into Hebrew and published in Israel. Her novel, Jackpot, will be published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2004.
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