THE LIFT OPERATOR

The beds resembled some strange metal plants
rooted in the floor and lower, in the foundations
of the house, in the rocks and soil, even deeper,
in the center of the earth — strange plants, horrible
suckling plants: if you lie down, they suck your
blood out, your sleep and dream; they leave
behind only a diaphanous skin, a rind in the shape
of your body, yet emptiness remains in the rind
without your skeleton — a diaphanous shell that
is inflated by the breath of the following desire,
second and third time — how many times? Then
again emptiness, until, one night, the rind levitates,
takes the position of the ancient, hanged man or that
of the crystal chandelier, which in a flashlight all
its lights in the darkness, beyond exhaustion, regret,
forgiveness, emptiness, then, what was tiredness,
or failure? What is death when the chandelier shines
in the middle of the night, proving with all its
lights and with each one of them separately, the most
clear, the vaguest certainty, the most
indisputable and incomprehensible value?
Yet the beds remain empty and undone, and people
don’t have anywhere to lie down after work.
They hesitate to go out to the light again, to saunter
under the trees because light prefers washed shirts
and polished shoes, it prefers warm bread and kiss
and song and holiday. And these people
don’t have them.

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III
In the rough loneliness of salinity,
amid the muscly movement of the oceans
habituated only by silence,
life was getting itself ready
like colors get ready in a beam of light.
Life in the viscera of the granite and atmosphere
life in the wounded undergarments of sleep
life in the ash, under the snow
and Death,
there in the middle, erect, manly,
with his unshaven Byzantine face,
a pause that re-connects motion
a very well-made boot that exhausts
the limits of warmth
the garment that wraps the frozen shadow of the moon
the table that life prepares for its supper
the metal at the leaf’s edge at the edge of the forest.
The wave whooshes in springs and springs,
amid wild beasts, in gatherings and
in hugging, in graves and graves, in casseroles.
One wave cries, another searches, undresses you;
the wave undresses, digs up bones of petrified light,
inverts death, widens life, wounds it,
empowers it — but what it looks for?
Where’s the wave headed? Where are we headed?
Where are we headed?
We march on.
And, oh sky, you saw the world enlarging amid
the endless recycling of life and death
you saw man growing taller
you, that saw all the tortured
all the hunted
don’t forget:
Victory stands
beyond the moans.
And this little life of ours
can’t accept death.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562972

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L1TJNNF

Oestrus* for Death

They turned the fear of death
into the oestrus of their lives
~Andreas empiricos
I
The spastic woman lost control
and the carriage bridled in pain like an animal
that dashed out screeching wildly.
soon after
like sudden nausea
the memory of the real body
came back to her
and the unfortunate woman
restarted going on her small wheels
almost joyously.
opposite, wrapped in the rosy hues
of the gray time,
the house where Thrush was born.
Ah, but first I have to describe
the reef to which I swam:
its shape, its khaki colour
reminded me of a backpack
like those we filled with sandwiches
eons ago in our youth.
I kept on closing to the reef
helped by the waters
with their light-blue blouses
that had painted on them the cypresses
from the cemetery on the opposite shore.
The beautiful temptation had overtaken me:
to not ever return again
to close the underwater cycle
around my neck,
necklace of unimaginable value.
As I swam farther out
I slowly ripped the fabric of the sea
I kicked down loves that surfaced
I kicked them back to their weedy beds.
Then I questioned myself
if I had truly desired
those acceptable shapes
of the desirable, something
between the subjected body
and the empty talk.
eros is the only godly glance
that might fall on us
the unbelievers, I would say.
Yet, look, how the sea with the blue
eyelids arouses me now
I’m lasciviously scared
and I float on ditch water
not knowing where it takes me
because I walk on
the invisible side of lust:
death.

oestrus — strong desire (metaphorically)

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562965

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763521

Soccer Game
Six boys split into two groups
One goalie each
one defender
One on offence a half-inflated soccer ball
Two rocks on each side
signifying the goalposts
and the field among the ruins of homes
When the charge starts
Hakim makes sure to go around
The huge crater opened
by the misguided missile
defunct General Dynamics product
missed its target
by a couple of miles
It came uninvited
into Hakim’s playground
scarred deep into the earth’s face
Shares of GD soared
on unsuccessful success
of turning the boys’ soccer game
into an unexpectedly interesting affair

https://draft2digital.com/book/3745982#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763769

Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/

HOWEVER, since something unusual always occurred
around me I never asked for anything more since when
we opened the door at dusk we oen saw someone to pass
holding the unusual in such a simple way that when the
carriage men were drinking, it stood lightly behind them
(even if the Bible doesn’t refer to it) thus, next morning
at seven o’clock, as it was its habit, the dead man came
down and started working in the old carpentry shop
only that now we had to cry in a low tone voice
since he was so thin and sometimes we said to him
“you’re so beautiful” although he always kept
his promise: humble people, of whom nothing will
ever be said as this story continues.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4051627

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763564

Blood
Most people don’t understand
whether the fire rises
from behind the mountain or
is shot out of the pistol’s barrel
it always burns you.
For this, so many of our dreams
remained unrealized and
inexplicable happiness was laid
in the display window
of the department store as
loneliness was again eulogized
in churches,
but as the years went by
the man with the severed arm,
wrote on other people’s
discoloured walls,
one-word written
with fiery red letters:
blood, blood, blood.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763750

excerpt

and around her nipple; then quite unexpectedly he squeezed her
right nipple a bit, enough to make her squirm of pain and desire.
Suddenly his face darkened, he had the sensation of defeat;
he was losing something he had considered his and only his:
Mary’s body disturbed his mind; was he truly never to enjoy it
again? His eyebrows almost joined creating a deep concern on
the upper part of his face. He stopped arousing her with his hand
and turning he looked deep in Gladys’ eyes.
“What’s going on between them?” He asked.
Sister Gladys was taken aback, her face tightened, why the
image of Mary had to suddenly got between them, she wondered,
but after a thoughtful moment she replied.
“Nothing serious as far as I know.”
“They sure looked serious to me.”
“Just forget of them, ok? They are young and they deserve
to have an interest in one another,” Gladys said to him.
“Somehow I felt that Mary wouldn’t be a good fit in the
School. She is so” he hesitated to use any word, “so pure,” he
added.
“Pure? Ha, what purity did you find in her? Believe me
she can choke the rabbit as they saying goes,” Sister Gladys said
spitefully.
“You think they have slept together?” His insistence irritated
Sister Gladys.
“Stop talking about her, ok?”
Suddenly his face brightened again as if the half-moon
shone a special joyous glint on him taking away the paleness and
leaving behind a light gleam and a smile on his lips.
“Yes, let us play our game, come, come Gladys,” he said
and got up. He took a table napkin from her drawer, folded it,
made a blindfold and tightened it around her eyes.

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The Lift Operator

And he has a silent deceitfulness in his goodness; he
waits until the light gets tired in its width, to lean and
disclose his secret,
which he will make his, like he did with the secret
of the shadow and its root, of the water and the stone.
Then, embarrassed, he stops in front of the kiosk
of the crippled man to buy a newspaper and insists
to read it with such naturalness, trying to wedge
himself between the opposing titles or between
the fine printed letters that run like ants, poke holes in
and nest in the newspaper as if it is their earth homes.
However, a bird winks at him, and he responds,
a stray dog wags its tail in front of him,
a green leaf shows all its veins to him, and
he smiles

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763785