a pat on the back
and paints a smile on the leader’s face.
The war works with unparalleled diligence!
Yet no one gives it
a word of praise.
The Game
He is a poor pawn.
He always jumps to the next square.
He doesn’t turn left or right
and doesn’t look back.
He is moved by a foolish queen
who cuts across the board
lengthwise and diagonally.
She doesn’t tire of carrying the medals
and cursing the bishops.
She is a poor queen
moved by a reckless king
who counts the squares every day
and claims that they are diminishing.
He arranges the knights and rooks
and dreams of a stubborn opponent.
He is a poor king
moved by an experienced player
who rubs his head
and loses his time in an endless game.
He is a poor player
moved by an empty life
without black or white.
It is a poor life
moved by a bewildered god
who once tried to play with clay.
He is a poor god.
He doesn’t know how
to escape
from his dilemma.
The Prisoner
She doesn’t understand
what it means to be “guilty.”
She waits at the prison entrance
until she sees him, to say,
“Take care of yourself,”
as she always used to remind him
when he went off to school,
when he left for work,
when he returned while on vacation.
She doesn’t understand
what they are saying now
at the back of the podium
in their official uniforms.
They report that he should be kept there
with lonely strangers.
It never occurred to her,
as she sang lullabies on his bed
in those distant days,
someday, he would end up in this cold place
without windows or moons.
She doesn’t understand,
the prisoner’s mother doesn’t understand
why she should leave him
just because
“the visit is over.”
A Drop of Water
for Mazin
The snowboy was thinking of the snowgirl
when desire burned his heart,
the fire spreading
until he gradually melted
and disappeared…
The snowgirl is frozen in a drop of a water.
Perhaps this is a token of the snowboy?
She thinks this and melts,
shrinking as she thinks
and the drop grows.
Inanna
I am Inanna.
And this is my city.
And this is our meeting
round, red and full.
Here, sometime ago,
someone was asking for help
shortly before his death.
Houses were still here
with their roofs,
people,
and noise.
Palm trees
were about to whisper something to me
before they were beheaded
like some foreigners in my country.
I see my old neighbors
on the TV
running
from bombs,
sirens
and Abu Al-Tubar.
I see my new neighbors
on the sidewalks
running
for their morning exercises.
I am here
thinking of the relationship
between the mouse and the computer.
I search you on the Internet.
I distinguish you
grave by grave,
skull by skull,
bone by bone.
I see you
in my dreams.
I see the antiquities
scattered
and broken
in the museum.
My necklaces are among them.
I yell at you:
Behave, you sons of the dead!
Stop fighting
over my clothes and gold!
How you disturb my sleep
and frighten a flock of kisses
out of my nation!
You planted pomegranates and prisons
round, red and full.
These are your holes in my robe.
And this is our meeting…
An Urgent Call
This is an urgent call
for the American soldier Lynndie
to immediately return to her homeland.
She suffers from a dangerous virus
in her heart.
She is pregnant
and is sinking in deep mud.
She sinks deeper and deeper
as she hears: “Good job!”
Hurry up, Lynndie,
go back to America now.
Don’t worry,
you will not lose your job.
There are prisons everywhere,
prisons with big black holes,
and great shivering,
and consecutive flashes,
and tremblings that convey messages
with no language
in a blind galaxy.
Don’t worry,
nobody will force you
to feed the birds
when you carry a gun.
Nobody will force you
to work for the environment
when you wear combat boots.
Don’t worry,
we will send an email to God
to tell Him
that the barbarians
were the solution.
Don’t worry.
Take a sick leave
and release your baby
from your body,
but don’t forget
to hide those terrible pictures,
the pictures of you dancing in the mud.
Keep them away
from his or her eyes.
Hide them, please.
You don’t want your child to cry out:
The prisoners are naked…
Non-Military Statements
1
Yes, I did write in my letter
that I would wait for you forever.
I didn’t mean exactly “forever,”
I just included it for the rhythm.
2
No, he was not among them.
There were so many of them!
More than I’ve seen in my life
on any television screen.
And yet he was not among them.
3
It has no carvings
or arms.
It always remains there
in front of the television
this empty chair.
4
I dream of a magic wand
that changes my kisses to stars.
At night you can gaze at them
and know they are innumerable.
5
I thank everyone I don’t love.
They don’t cause me heartache;
they don’t make me write long letters;
they don’t disturb my dreams.
I don’t wait for them anxiously;
I don’t read their horoscopes in magazines;
I don’t dial their numbers;
I don’t think of them.
I thank them a lot.
They don’t turn my life upside down.
6
I drew a door
to sit behind, ready
to open the door
as soon as you arrive.
Between Two Wars
This is all that remains:
a handful of burnt papers,
photos, here and there
with rippled backs like maps.
One of us died,
another savors life
in his place.
One of us returned,
changed by magic into a small bird
who knows the news in another language.
One of us went crazy
and kept babbling nonsense
for hours under the sun.
One of us escaped
from the bugs and the officers
to who knows where.
Sidewalk vendors wrap falafel
in the pages of our books.
The entire assembly of gods
has come to help.
On the way to us, they pinch their noses
and watch a woman roll tobacco.
To her, the hand-rolled cigarette
is more wondrous
than the Seven Wonders of the World.
All her relatives have gone abroad.
The boy next door
returned one day,
a tin star on his chest.
He talked too much
about that star
until, one day, he changed
into a piece of metal
in the Martyrs’ Monument.
This is all that remains:
a handful of meaningless words
engraved on the walls.
We read so absent-mindedly,
eventually we forget
how, in the short lull
between two wars,
we became so old.
Tough Rose
I am a new rose.
My redness, wild hallucinations,
and my thorns, prison cells
with views of the moon.
Yesterday someone touched me,
but did not pick me.
I was tough.
I didn’t give him any of my petals.
Tomorrow when people pass by,
my leaves will remind them
of things that never were,
and they will leave my dry head bare
contemplating the new roses
which were not here yesterday.
The Jewel
It no longer stretches across the river.
It is not in the city,
not on the map.
The bridge that was…
The bridge that we were…
The Pontoon Bridge
we crossed every day…
Dropped by the war into the river
just like the blue jewel
that lady dropped
off the side of the Titanic.
A Voice
I want to return
return
return
return
repeated the parrot
in the room where
her owner had left her
alone
to repeat:
return
return
return…
Travel Agency
A pile of travelers is on the table.
Tomorrow their planes will take off
and dot the sky with silver
and descend like evening on the cities.
Mr. George says that his beloved
no longer smiles at him.
He wants to travel directly to Rome
to dig a grave there like her smile.
“But not all roads lead to Rome,” I remind him,
and hand him a ticket for one.
He wants to sit by the window
to be sure that the sky
is the same
everywhere.
O
Santa Claus
With his beard long like war
and his suit red like history,
Santa Claus paused with a smile
and asked me to pick something.
You’re a good girl, he said,
therefore you deserve a toy.
Then he gave me something like poetry,
and because I hesitated,
he assured me: Don’t be afraid, little one,
I am Santa Claus.
I distribute beautiful toys to children.
Haven’t you seen me before?
I replied: But the Santa Claus I know
wears a military uniform,
and each year he distributes
red swords,
dolls for orphans,
artificial limbs,
and photos of the missing
to be hung on the walls.
Buzz
As the airplane takes off
and puffs out a smoke of images,
I think about tossing one of my ears
from the window.
It has an annoying buzz that abrades me.
The buzz smells like gunpowder
and trips the pretty words
which bubble out accidentally
from my other ear
to the friendly sky
vanishing in clouds.
The stewardess doesn’t know
why I block my ear with my hand
and puff out images of smoke.
I don’t know why
the memories grow
while I shrink.
I don’t remember what I wanted to say.
I don’t want to say
what I remember
as the plane lands.
Crashed Acts
After an hour delay,
the plane took off with its busy passengers…
The stewardess will not smile.
The student will not read his letter.
The actress will not play the role of princess.
The business man will not attend the meeting.
The husband will not see his wife.
The teacher will not wear her glasses.
The university graduate will not start her new job.
The lover will not celebrate his beloved’s birthday.
The lawyer will not defend the client.
The retiree will not be there.
any more questions.
Snowstorm
for Lori
Oh, what sweet children!
They rush to awaken us.
We, the snow-women,
just now born
from nostalgia or boredom,
accumulate outside
making the pampered storm
wade through our flakes.
Sometimes the storm covers us
like an earnest god
with leaves from the trees of Paradise.
And we, the snow-women,
kneaded in the children’s sweet hands,
expand and smile,
and when they attach our eyes,
we gaze gratefully,
staring to make them hurry.
We can’t wait for them to attach our feet.
We want to move,
the celebration will start soon.
We will signal with our fingers
which they are now forming.
We will signal
to a balloon
that rises from our voices.
There it is!
Look!
We can’t wait
to get moving.
They are taking too long
to attach our feet
so that we—
how sad!
—depart on a sunny day.
To Any Other Place
With her unkempt hair
and her repugnant smell
and her fleeing children,
The Red Mother sat
face to face
with The Brown Mother
and a third, The Wordless Conversation:
The Red Mother said: How much I hate you!
Your beginning is my end.
The Brown Mother said: Your sons, the battles,
shatter the glass of our windows
and terrify my sleeping daughters.
The Red Mother: I want firewood… firewood…
I want to feed my sons,
I want them to grow up
and devour your daughters, the peace.
The Brown Mother: I raise my daughters for roses
and you raise your sons for ashes.
The fire breaks out
and the dancing will start around it.
The fire is not satisfied
and the dance does not end.
The Red Mother: Let us celebrate every year
the steps which have diminished
and the pairs of shoes that remained
there in the mud.
The Brown Mother: This rhythm
does not please me,
and these drums make the din
of emptiness.
I want to move my daughters
to another place,
to any other place…
I Was In A Hurry
Yesterday I lost a country.
I was in a hurry,
and didn’t notice when it fell from me
like a broken branch from a forgetful tree.
Please, if anyone passes by
and stumbles across it,
perhaps in a suitcase
open to the sky,
or engraved on a rock
like a gaping wound,
or wrapped
in the blankets of emigrants,
or canceled
like a losing lottery ticket,
or helplessly forgotten
in Purgatory,
or rushing forward without a goal
like the questions of children,
or rising with the smoke of war,
or rolling in a helmet on the sand,
or stolen in Ali Baba’s jar,
or disguised in the uniform of a policeman
who stirred up the prisoners
and fled,
or squatting in the mind of a woman
who tries to smile,
or scattered
like the dreams
of new immigrants in America.
If anyone stumbles across it,
return it to me, please.
Please return it, sir.
Please return it, madam.
It is my country…
I was in a hurry
when I lost it yesterday.
America
Please don’t ask me, America.
I don’t remember
on which street,
with whom,
or under which star.
Don’t ask me…
I don’t remember
the colors of the people
or their signatures.
I don’t remember if they had