The following readings are from my book "Sonatina":
CANTATA FOR BUS AND CELL PHONE
Ten a.m., Haifa Bay bus station
green buses lined up like panting athletes
at the starting line, dirt, diesel fumes
and oil slicks greet passengers sipping coffee
smoking, talking into cell phones
soldiers lean on railings, rifles
and submachine guns slung carelessly
between their legs
Everyone here has cell phones, each with
its own musical overture, the air is so thick
with conversation, you could slice it
with a metronome into scintillating fragments.
‘Where are you, you said you would be here at nine?’
‘She said to me, I said to her, she said to me, the bitch!’
‘Did you give the children to eat? And don’t forget your keys again’.
and soldiers’ slang repeated everywhere
in acronymic anagrams of military shorthand
that only parents of conscripted children
can attempt to decipher
Here we all commingle, zealots and hobos,
gum-chewing youths with pierced tongues and nostrils,
mothers with bottle-fed babies, all rubbing shoulders
in the rush to go home, back to the base, visit friends
in hospitals; three dozen and more assorted life stories
thrown together for two brief hours into a green, caged
tiger on wheels
The morning paper tells the news that might have been:
a terrorist was captured on his way to explode his body bomb
at the central bus station in Tel-Aviv
DAZZLING SILENCE
bless the deaf
who need to hear
the echo of a world
through others’ signs
remembering reverberations
of snapped consonants
substituting thumbs and fingers
for eardrums, vibration
for the ring of mobile phones
for them the foaming mists
of waterfalls abandon roars
to flying birds
and herds of elephants
rush by on silent
dust cloud feet
bless the deaf remembering
somewhere inside
how each instrument describes
itself upon the page
until turned around to see
the audience explode
into a sea of
gloves and faces
waving programs
but most of all
bless those born
innocent of sound
what poetry of eyes
and fingertips, they write
in seagull throats
what unborn melodies
they taste
between the stars
ears for them
are soundless planets
revolving around a brilliant sun
INTIMACY WITH STRANGERS
It’s best to do this with your eyes closed,
imagine they are opening into other familiarities
or look away, look up, look anywhere
Or lose yourself altogether
wander along paths next to willow banked streams
watch how the willow fronds touch the water
kissing my hand like a trout’s wet nose
It’s best to go to ball games dressed like an Inuit
keep the cold on the outside of the bear skin
watch the striker warming up for the home run
muscles bulging under his red and white insignia
share a hot dog with an old friend
Come watch a movie with me
you dressed in your pink dressing gown, I in my blue one
then you’ll go and take a shower
we’ll turn up the electric radiator
arrange the pillows just so
Smelling of mint toothpaste and Old Spice
we’ll hold hands, imagine old intimacies,
walk by rivers, watch the willow fronds kiss the water
go to a ball game, unwrap a hot dog together
Sitting in the back row
we’ll allow our hands to slide into each other,
eye’s open in the dark, barely breathing
imagining we’re strangers for the very first time
MOMENT OF BEAUTY
From high above the planet
The piccolo of solar wind
Blows through the shimmering
Sheaves of thin-air, warming
Past nimbus, down to
Dark rain clouds
Their full udders far below
Heavy in the warming.
Weaned of protection the ice weakens
At the joints, drops of water
Tremble into hairlines, brow drenched
With sweat the glacier finally
Gives way, tumble-slides into foam
Of waves and flashing gulls.
The roar subsides and then another
From beyond the curve.
Without a complaint the giant settles
Lumbering into floes, gulls screech
Splinters of sunlight
Scratch into the ice.
Up beyond the coastal villages
Noah herds his zoo towards the clouds;
Make haste, make haste, the shoreline rises
Time is short.
High in their slender castles
In their counting houses the war kings
Wait, deliberating, calculating,
Trade balances, stock markets, interest rates
And budgets stacked high to shut out
The splintering light. Thick windows
Double glazed deafen the piccolo notes,
The giants’ roars.
MULTIMEDIA UNDERSCORE ONE
The orchestra tunes up
cellos scrape, marimbas writhe
oil-drum cauldrons clang out
like a Jamaican fruit stall
fonts wriggle themselves into shape
quickly go on diet to fit neatly
underneath rows of dancing notes
It’s experimental music
pitched off-key and zany
yet reminiscent of Vivaldi
flavored with mustard
from an Andy Warhol hot dog
it flashes in the night
lightning before drum roll thunder
while blue neon holograms
shiver over perspiring rhythms
and five inverted versions
of mystery flats and sharps
counterpoint each other in cool intervals
Then comes a sudden hush
a breath held in anticipation
as a single wind chime sounds
again and again, like a bird on a steeple
like cold rainwater trembling from brown eaves
dripping like hot chocolate sauce
on to an ice cream ball of pristine snow
freezing instantly into flaky nuggets of sound
and all melts in the wonder of it… melts,
and hushes back into a silent white world
OBOE D'AMORE
There’s a melody plaintive and true
an oboe air that winds
between the young woman and Cimarosa
now that she is undressed and alone
Touch me! it cries and I stretch out
but she is not there and I touch another
standing at the window looking out
as she hears the melody played on
the wings of a blackbird
pecking at a plum
The plum falls to the ground
the melody flows into the earth
touches the thoughts of a young man
boarding a train and she,
standing on the platform,
tiptoes to his lips waving goodbye
as he sees a boy on a piano stool
holding a ball
gazing into nowhere
Once again the old photograph of the boy
trembles in its leather case
hears the melody
fingers the piano keys
as they remember a young girl
boarding a train on tiptoe
her dress stretching upwards
to her thighs
No, says the melody
I am an oboe, touch me!
hold me firmly, gently
press here, and here,
feel how the melody wanders out
touch me, touch me
And she stretches upwards
standing at the window
looking out as the platform drifts away
the brown case closes,
folding the twin reeds of the oboe
back into maroon baroque velvet
until all that remains
is a blackbird
picking at a plum
PRINCE OF THE NIGHT
She stole the sun
from its golden orbit
and placed it under her tongue
She stalked the tracks
of the mountain snowman
rubbed stinging ice off blazing peaks
to rouge the pallor of her cheeks
She swam with whales and dolphins,
learned their sonar clicking language
she dressed in bark and moss,
asked questions of rain forests
searched distant skies for a jeweled clue
to light a beacon path to love
But no answer came
and with each passing millennium
she came to understand
that her shining prince was just a legend
a fairy tale in a bottle from another world
bobbing the seas of the universe
lost in the eternal cold of blackest space
I am alone, she decided after countless eons,
alone forever in the whiteness of an ice splinter,
the roaring silence of a shoreless sea
What am I to do?
Do not despair, sang the sun in her throat
keep searching, echoed the glacier
swim deeper, urged the whale’s mind
pass through us, whispered galactic clouds
And so she searches for her prince
through sea and sky and stars
she searches, searches, sifting time
like sand grains seen through glass
And if you too would seek your prince
and you are brave of heart
go out into the desert vast
and raise your eyes towards the sky
a billion burning candles will fill your night
and as this blazing wonder thrills your mind
you will see her riding there
from gleam to gleam with wand outstretched
And when you see a falling star
you and she will find your prince
SEA SONG
I long to write a song about the sea
Where gloom and gleam merge in a fishes eye
But find myself aquariumed instead
My notes restrained behind thick glass
Not free, not open to the screech of gulls
And sky, imprisoned still I long to sing the sea
I long to romp with dolphins and with whales
To leap in figure eights round sailboats’ hulls
Aquariumed I swim with mournful tail
Come put your ear up to this glass with me
Come listen how the fishes gleam in gloom
And as our noses bump, my eyes you’ll see
You’ll hear the songs the conch shell sings of sails
Of wind and spray of dolphins and of gulls
You’ll hear the lobsters tell their crusty tales
So when you feel aquariumed in gloom
Come put your ear up to this glass with me
Together we will sing about the sea
Unhinge partitions, set the lobsters free
SHOWER IN A FOREST GLADE
For Mary Oliver
Silver sounds
like a river
no punctuation marks
running across
and down the dell
each syllable
a song
of love
of life
sunlight
filtering through
mottled shadow
lighting pools
where fish
and tadpoles
play gleaming games
between the drifting leaves
only the owl
and the coyote
sing their coda
as butterscotch moonlight
is heard
lapping vanilla
through
the undergrowth
and then
the maestro
from a podium of cloud
lifts his baton
and a glissando
of soft wet notes
streams from the sky
filling the trees
with chandeliers
of almost
soundless
drops
THE SECRET OF THE ROSE
Computers work faster
than brains which design them
which work faster than poets
who need to ponder everything,
taste, sniff, inhale,
weigh up, choose, write,
scratch out, rewrite, ponder,
weigh up, rearrange, squint,
shake heads, purse lips, frown,
rewrite and finally, nod and smile
Poets work faster
than changing seasons,
faster than buds which open imperceptibly
drinking in days, weeks and months
Sometimes there are mornings,
wonderful mornings
when poets come across
flowers and fruit
full of nectar and juice
that only yesterday were buds
and rush delighted
to inscribe them on pages
Then, smiling with satisfaction,
they feed them to computer brains
to spell-check, save and print
Yet, brainy or talented
as they may be
neither computers nor poets
can really understand
The secret life of a rose
the memories of an apple
UNNOTICED ON A BUS
she still glosses her lips
that moon girl
wears long sleeved sweaters
up to her nostrils
dark slits for eyes
moonbeam catching eyes
vigilant and bright
layers of halos
she spins out of limbo
while dressing
coffee she sips through
a kaleidoscope
between her glossed lips
he still uses his prayer book
lest memory err, that moon man
praising the Lord he winds and unwinds
strips of leather, cramped text
recites solemn syllables thrice daily
at bus stops, in bomb shelters, again
and again, and again again
a comforting ritual, like stirring tea
waiting for mercy, limp as a rag doll
to drop from heaven; one spoon,
two spoons, no moons, all moons
squeezed beside themselves
in a bus
moon girl, moon man
avert eyes into a fashion magazine,
a pocket sized bible,
under the sweater
a full-breasted moon
slit eyes deciphering
ink blot hieroglyphics,
bracketed eclipse, moon meets moon
on a bus
between limbo and heaven