Landmines

I want our words to be like a goldmine -
each raw nugget to reveal a treasure, only for us,
one we could keep in our memory box and polish
year after year until we shine
pure light in the dark corner of our secrets.
Instead we walk steadily into a point of no return
where only silence is golden
where we give each other wooden nickels
and pretend they are good currency.
every word we try is a mine to trip over
and we do, we lose a leg here, a heart there,
in fear this bubble of our minimal existence will explode
into fragments so small any wind could blow us away
turn us, this fractured intimacy, into dust.
When this big bang happen we will settle at last,
attached to old spider webs we spun ourselves
and our bodies will be wrapped in their strings
forgotten, mummified, until the final storm will tear the web,
strings flying torn where we were hanging once
and we will leave no trace for each other to hang on to.

Things I won't Think About

Rights.

Without emotions.
Inside a right is a condition of courage.
On the edges of right is a glimpse of care and surrender.
Forgetting how to make a right takes pride and audacity,
Doesn’t it?

Let’s forget about it.
Few of us, even simpletons, think of rights as boring useless physical possession.
When they keep silent about it they don’t say
There are many kinds of silences;
Familiar, unexpected, precise.

Familiar silence clarifies.
Unexpected silence hides what we don’t know.
Precise silence takes away the old and limp unknowns.
What makes the precise silence so potent?
Non-philosophers don’t know it prevents the body from forgetting everything,

Before taking a right
She hikes in a forest of strange muteness
And gradually
The forest disappears,
simplifying the submerged anticipations.

In the end it hides as ordinary, reliable, and right.
before it didn’t make sense.
On other occasions, according to idiots,
The body turns to others and silences:
“It’s a lie, and yet I believe!”
The myth of the literal can teach nothing.

Less than that: nothing is what it wants to be,
And we see what in truth they are,
Because what is proper is useless.
Let it go, idiots say,
Not a thing to ignore, better be numb there,
in those places that correctness erases in the body.

To dislike right
But not to forget
The union of nothing and something
As Western ingenuity will allow only one strike
And then

This is what bad discretion will do:
It will demonstrate
an entirely new way of lacking literary rights.
The poets know that sometimes
1+1=0.

The Blurr

I look at the blurred man
on a backdrop of a blurred sunset, a mountain
distant lights, also blurred.
naturally I think of you.
It reminds me we never watched a sunset
(not that it matters)
we wouldn’t climb a mountain together,
or sit on a rock to catch our breath or lose it.
these timed out luxuries are not what we’re allowed. 
when we walk, we hurry someplace
when we talk, we tread on tip toes 
careful not to stumble upon pointed words
we time travel back and forth in our narrow past,
bury the pictures of our bodies in our head.
What seems accidental blurring of memory to most
is a preferred method for us,
we who scorn the lacklustre clarity of everyday.

The Stranger

We lunched in my quiet kitchen 
I moved my chair closer to yours, 
at the corner by the back door 
a casual moment, almost normal 
I rubbed the fingers that touched my skin in earnest joy
moments before, I study the familiar shape, 
the cuts, with warmth they charm me – 
hold them, feel them while I still can
but the man who allows it is a kind of a blank. 
I watched you naked above me
your face on an inward bound course reveal: 
for all intents and purposes, but one, the man’s a stranger.
you curled around me, oh the joy,
I held on like you’re the only one, right here right now,
and when you go I wonder why you came, 
or why you stayed for lunch, why you will be back another time.
There is an answer, in the basement of my thoughts
where I don’t go to look, the smell is quite unpleasant there. 
not unlike in those L. Cohen songs I loved to hear 
when I was young they gave my heart strings a sweet tug, 
and you – you did that too when I was not yet old.
the curl in my soul is almost lost, 
like a healed muscle pulled in error
when I wanted to be graceful, 
I know where it is, you leave a trace,
though you aim to be that stranger.

The short walk down the lane to my house

Did you feel in the short moments 
you walked the lane that leads to my house
a potency, a beat thickening in your chest?
I sat perched, nothing to feel but my insides, 
like a cat stirring when the masters approach
long minutes before they are arrived.
you didn’t see me pacing, one ear to the garden
I listened to the quiet growing buds.
suddenly you were inside
still with my reading glasses on I startled, 
and you laughed at me, a happy laugh
and we embraced.

Naked Disappearances

How old are we inside our bodies?
how old were you the first time you hid yourself
from women the world over?
is it a happy place you go to
from where we are together
or a dark dungeon full of shame and bother.
I’ll never ask you this and I won’t ever know
but wondering is natural when someone naked 
disappears before your very eyes
when the closer you get the farther he goes.
And me, what about me, I wonder
I must be at least five or six or seven,
only a girl, with fast lightness and a heavy head,
already a book at every hand.
Or I could be nineteen, or twenty
or fifty, inside we can never be sure.

Genesis

In the beginning there was a face I saw
among the faceless crowd, and nothing more.
And there was fall and winter, summer spring
and life was good.
In time there were some simple words,
polite and socially correct, in falls and winters
springs and summers, as life was going good.
Then there was a party, and I wore those pants
revealing something that you liked, and it bore a stare,
a resonating comment, and I was pleased, and it was good.
Some months have passed and then there was a show,
an invitation, I drove in snow, quite far in fact,
still thinking nothing of it. And it was good.
I was late, and I sat down beside you
and you were emanating heat, I felt it
coming through our clothes. And it felt good.
I didn’t know you well, and you were doing something
you knew how, and it was good.
And I created alter-you in my imagination,
and I loved your alter-you more than I should, and you
were pleased, and it was good.
And we were blessed, we thought,
with all those things that passed between us,
yes, they were good, sometimes.
and I was pleased when you were pleased,
and many a day and night have come and gone,
winters springs summers falls, things born and died
or killed, and God only knows if they were good.

Silk

You came by that day

it must have been summer

I wore a silky thing that swished around

my legs, wrapped around me, waist to ankles,

cool and warm as only silk can be,

and the colours of India.

your hands came searching under it

they found what they found,

you were childishly excited

I thought what a man

I remember less clearly today

your smile, your warmth, the sounds you made,

the happiness I felt, my trust,

but not the touch, not the smell,

certainly no happiness remains.

I recall you said, as you always did

there was little time.

I think of it each time I wear

the skirt, the silk bears remnants

of you.

In orbit, Landing

How did I convince myself that life was you,

that you alone would save me from myself

when nothing could be farther than the truth

when you were farther from the truth, and me.

Why was I not able to deduce

from all my heartache and the pain

that it was bad for me to love you for so long

that it was futile to recount, to hope

that one day you will see me hover

and reach out for love, for life.

I hovered in your sphere and thought

I basked in light much brighter than my own.

It made me love myself again,

I can't deny you that, but then I hovered

like a starship in perpetual orbit 'round your head,

never landing, never getting in,

and oh, what a hopeless hopeful I had been.

The Wedding

Yes, of course I remember my wedding

who could forget the rabbi, lost in the field,

my groom searching for him while we set the tables

in my sister's garden.

My mother's absent eyes,

still mourning her mother's death,

and the dress I made from silk, and the shoes,

oh, those sandals from Rome. Where are they now?

I remember, though it was long ago

that he was barefoot, his shirt buttons undone

the summer heat upon us, heavy all night long

and how we danced, danced

and my sister sitting with her bad leg in a cast

I must have been confused and worried, but I smiled,

I danced, I ate the good food, I had a fun party.

the one thing I can't remember now: was I happy?

He loves the smell of heartbreak in the morning

He loves the smell of heartbreak in the morning

but heartbreak is hard to find in days of war

in days of roses heartbreaks bloom

sprouting everywhere, in cities and in forests

after the rain and before sunrise

you don't have to go hunting for them,

you stumble upon a heartbreak everywhere you go.

in days of war hearts are too tough to break

they harness steel to their bosom for protection

no word of woe can penetrate

in days of roses they are open, baby hearts,

they welcome every notion of neglect

as if there was intent, they drink it up

with coffee every morning.

Licence to Kill

we had a pact, if you recall

it was about this: a space for the intangible.

you agreed it was in need of nourishment,

of occupation, like other tangible places we possess.

You want this space to be open to you still,

at random intervals (random to me only)

despite neglect, despite impoverished beauty,

despite lacks.

I am there still, in that you are correct.

Your rights to it have been revoked,

your licence to kill no longer in effect.

The Idiot's Belt

A bond that's born with a kiss, is undone with words.

Simple as unbuckling your belt.

we are not married (well, to each other),

not bound, how you love that word, you harped on it

on more than one occasion, as if I cared.

you figured it gave you a right

to hurt, hide, return, repeat, repeat, repeat.

that's what husbands do, you know, they have that right, lovers don't.

There is more to a bond than a deed or a ring or a rope.

Promise is a promise broken

and you made some pretty big ones in your day

about nobility, about ropes and games of love.

I don't remember making any, except the secret which I keep.

I make what I could make happen

pretty special. A concept lost on you, I know.

I'd never marry an idiot.

Bad men are good for one thing only.

these days I wouldn't even kiss you.

There is nothing in it for me.

Drops of Gasoline

I read letters of old discontent

stories of wounds inflicted earnestly

I establish trends, minutes of want

before and after love return to haunt

me, then you, then us, then them.

I do it to remember lessons I forget

I live this hour, the next one might not come.

And if it will, I will be better for it,

I will retain again what needs to be forgotten for a while

I smile at nothing, out of the blue, out of me,

content to leave you be. Odd!

I do remember wanting you forever

now I can't remember why.

I got mail

only 3 words.

did not respond.

yet.

Not as sharp as I'd want

it will come back to bite me in the ass

If I soften to your reckless notions

if I let it work, as I had done before

if I slip back into that habit I just kicked

and love you again

you will turn things upside down, no doubt

before we touch or see or smell

before I get to say your name and smile,

you'll teach me one more lesson

you'll show me who's the boss

you'll cut me off without a sign

just as I'm about to think - oh, he's turned into a man.

Once I kissed the prince, he was a toad.

That's the story I'll tell some girl one day,

if we get to talk about Dickens or fairy tales.

I might tell her about you

that great affair I thought was the last chance.

Last chance to what, I should have asked myself

as I dove into that murky puddle called love.

You'd think I'd have said: I'll get a chance to break my heart again,

to feel the biggest let down of my life,

to get to know what lust is all about, just once and never more.

To let you slip back into memory,

To know I lost.

I think I'll stand my ground this time around,

and pay a tribute to the great silence, without any words.