writing workshops
Twenty Girls to Envy Me, Poalim Publishing House
"Powerful poems, standing on the threshold of what cannot be said and persistently trying to say it, despite everything. A poet for whom the language of poetry is a natural key to open the doors of the world. What is revealed to her is both bewildering and threatening. In sensual yet sober poems. Some are tender love poems and some are difficult childhood poems. Consisting of bold and surprising images in their beginnings ("Like a man imagining the taste of a lemon," "Kissing my outstretched hand like the joining of eyelashes to an eyelid"), a young woman tries to stand, in wonder, on the essence of her relationship with her lover, on her childhood memories and on her relationship with herself. The rare beauty of the Bible poems that transform the characters of the Bible into people who walk among us. Conversational and yet still wrapped in ancient majesty are unique in the book. Powerful poems. Standing on the threshold of what cannot be said and persistently trying to say it, despite everything." (Professor Uri Bernstein)
"מזכירה באכזריות העצמית שלה את לאה גולדברג"
מנחם בן, 'מעריב', יוני 2012
You packed alone.
translated by Marcela Sulak
Of all the questions
Ask: Did you pack alone?
Yes, only.
It was hard, I said.
But it remains difficult to fear that this
He will never come to the grave.
I am not beautiful, you understand,
And the heart is the size of a fist.
*
MY BELOVED
translated by Marcela Sulak
Filled were my days with suns.
Filled were my days with love.
When he comes to the door I will open to him
and I will be wet loam.
The balcony of my body is rosemary
and he, clusters of vines.
Sometimes in the darkness before he sleeps,
I hear a grape opening.
Behold, he arrives at the gate,
he removes the breastplate of his clothing
set with shards from the floor of our house.
He kisses me and permits me
to lay my ribs
in the space between his ribs
and I return to him.
*
He poeticizes our sated bodies
within earshot of his friends.
They listen and are burned
as by the imagined taste of lemon.
Then he waves good-bye.
The movement of his hand caresses from afar
all the organs of my body.
*
He kisses my hand,
my fingers extended like eyelashes.
He is a man holding an etrog,
bringing his nose close to smell it.
My beloved found a woman,
he sought and found her in himself.
She is beautiful. She is more beautiful than I.
*
My beloved is holding the sheet
as if it were the mold of my body.
If I wanted to explain it
I would have to twist my back.
(Even if I wrote about him for seven years,
the seven bad years wouldn't come.)
My beloved is spread before me,
his head within the frame of the pillow.
If I had money I would hire
twenty girls to envy me.
*
HARD MORNING
translated by Marcela Sulak
It was a difficult morning for us, the light wasn't kind,
all at once I looked fat, I preferred to shower alone,
you got ready in the bedroom, put on a white shirt,
the one, I think, in which you were married the first time,
and the night continued to clot into morning,
the tone of my voice when I pushed you: "I can't, not now,"
and you slowly circling, not saying a word, and how
is it that I remember my Hungarian uncle Earl shouting
"puszi, puszi, girl."
Be'er Sheva, I was small, his shirt had filled
with sweat when he ran after the car to ask me for a kiss,
in fact, he wore a tank top, but what would this precision
recover,
he shouted ''puszi, puszi, girl," that is what you should know, he shouted "pussy, pussy, girl."
*
Hila Mansion in Hila
My ears are playing to your glory, a hymn to the stars for silver, a hymn to the victors in the fire, in the way, in the line for the cups,
The power switches are as straight as a pole, don't dream, don't dream, I'm pushing you away from the moment I prepared for you to take
To work, you are a baby-sucking-for-efficiency murmuring gratitude, shine upon you there on the avenue seen from the office window,
Its branches were planted on purpose, they did not grow beyond their capacity, beware of the noise that rises to attack you without good measure.
Do not go to the burning of the altar.
I have made sure that from this day forward we will be made of iron and refuse to use it, whom am I deceiving, arise, arise, work
The world is full of poverty and heat, if you return with a suitcase full of love, we will embrace, holding each other tightly,
If we don't fully embrace, two people will hold each other in contempt, holding each other in a panic.
*
SAMSON AND ABSALOM
translated by Marcela Sulak
Samson and Absalom
are comparing hair,
whose is more torn.
Absalom talks about pain,
Samson undresses
and shows him it is empty inside.
Absalom embraces him.
Not a single bird falls.
Not a single bird departs.
*
THAT GIRL
translated by Marcela Sulak
I am the girl who is more afraid of recess
than the lesson. It's not clear
what you need to do. Other children-
missed opportunities.
*
Sitting up straight and pointing a finger
at the ceiling's face-
adults, adults,
come and collect this tall hand,
draw it from childhood.
*
By the rungs of the years I seek to arise from her,
to try not to try too hard,
to try to put things carelessly,
to reinforce the foundation of the bedroom.
When her finger reaches my foot, I will be disillusioned,
the whole earth is filled with the weight of it.