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Poetry || SubmissionsTHE SURVIVOR COMING HOME By Philip Hyams But the numbers indicatedOnly a victim, One whose eyes burned Like hot coals: The speculum of fire. The human mirror dancing and Eastern jig, One whose destiny sung Like a Spring robin: One later being consumed. The bones rattle in the closet. White flakes all on scorched earth. The khamsin combs the cool air, Its electric heat drying it. Summer is dead and Winter's near. Bodies are buried only to reappear. The survivors will be coming home. MEA SHEARIM Who are you who prolong This agony? With your black flying-saucer hat You skim our people's history. Daubed on a wall of Jerusalem stone: "Zionism is diametrically opposed to Judaism." So what are you doing here? You are the three percent suffering. You are the conscience of the obsolete. You are the victim of dogma and The slave of belief. May the ghetto burn like A dry bale of hay And may its fumes blow forever, Forever, faraway. The shadow Jews of Mea Shearim only used to pray. Now they dictate. TRANSPARENT CUTS REWARDED Lesions painted by ideologies Upon our lovers and their Ghosts. Bloodless incisions by intangibles Write our biographies then propose Their toasts! FRATRICIDE My Arab brother I now fast your Ramadan Because it was I Who fed that big gun Which took your life And your blood mixed with Our earth Your woman tore her hair While mine clutched me to her In the night I was your life My woman your wife Your children chose darkness To become tour conscience Our people commit fratricide And our fathers sow the seeds Of future Shivas How do we cut that tie When we terminate a life? The palms wear rings Rings for each war Rings for each body Each boy we lose becomes Some sort of unlucky Issac And Ishmael we are given No choice We have no voice We are only actors in History's Nightmare My Arab brother We who both know Abraham Let us throw down our knives In exchange for the plow's blade The spilled blood from the past Can only fertilize FALLEN POETS Not all of us, Not all of us Like untenable kittens In last death throes, Shall select the blade To bleed our way to fame. Not all of us, Not all of us Like nodding prophets In smug "I told you so's" Shall sever the thread To change our name to Pain. PILGRIMAGE The Sachnah oasis where we swam And lay: Sol burned us from our noses To our soles. Crushed olives under feet. Dates falling from the sky. The next day: Back to that octopus Tel-Aviv. Return to the ghetto! SITTING FOR ISSAC We sit Shiva like cowardly Buddha's. The room is bare...not even a picture. But Oh! In the corner a machine-gun. Sirens wail like succubi in the night. We sit Shiva while bombs fall all around. The children are below. The war lasted only six days. It took the old one eight to die. We sit Shiva with tired souls. MONGREL Mongrel, they shot you with Pellets that pulped your heart And tufts of your fur flew up Into the early morning light. Our kibbutz had too many hounds That year and not enough cats to Catch the mice. THOUGHTS OF A MAN IN A CORNER That man, sitting in the corner over there, Capture his thoughts: I believe I am mulling over an idea Of sun and sea...a land where I may flee To in order to give myself a chance to Think...an island covered in twisted wired Palms and impressionable sand...a refuge For a misfit. That man, sitting in the corner over there, Capture his thoughts: It's a cold country infected with quaint Houses and stiff-lipped people afraid of Nonexistent ghosts. The waters are grey And the leaves from the trees fall like Brittle slips of paper from burnt diaries, Cracking onto the red brick roads. That man, sitting in the corner over there, Capture his thoughts: I don't think I'll go. No, it would be a Mistake. Besides...I can't take the heat. Look at that snow falling now! Everything Is innocent again. The people are sliding by one another at a slower pace. I'll take Another drink, a cigarette, then go home. SETTLING FOR STONE Settling for stone For stone to hold us safe and warm When the elements are unfriendly For stone to weight us beneath the ground While our physical bodies shrivel away For stone to let our aggression out with When words and eyes cannot persuade Our enemies to go off in peace (But those enemies are ourselves Just as they are our friends) Stone Stone Stone Settling for stone To build our hearts in granite coffins While we pave false truths over our souls Settling for stone THE MEETING Like the old/this dented city with its Bald cracked byways. A picture window partially misted over by The cold/a child's face all rosy and Puffy gazes out at me. I am old/I am eaten I am convinced/I am bought I sold out with maturity! It rains and the grey flows down the cold Asphalt road. A picture window partially misted over by The warmth/a grownup's face all stiff and Lined look out at me. I am young/I am innocent I am resilient/I am strong Will I become funny like him? Like the story/this dreaming man with his Large hemorrhaging soul. Like those two/this rusted lion will never Know one truth. Like the old/this dented city with its Dying dead youth. A picture window completely clouded over by The weather/no one's face to meet and No one's eyes to penetrate. It is snowing/it is blowing It is black/it is freezing. Their Springs shall never come back. Like the demise of the painted season/they have Never learned. JERUSALEM PYTHON You, Python from Jerusalem, In the sweet blackness squeeze My meager suffering out While I perish ligatured in your Muscular rippling wire body. Like an electric current you surge Through me through me through me. I frizzle at the ends. I am one then. You are me. Jerusalem's brown experienced body Twists and contorts in the night. Before tomorrow's shining The old city's walls shall crash in On my head. The donkey's wails shatters Evening's pensive mood. And you slinky supple serpent? You are gone before I awake, Your teardrops frozen upon my pillow, Shimmering jewels in the cracks Of early morning's smile. AT WIT'S END At wit's end. The second-hand twitches then Snaps off into the washbasin. History: two thrashing bodies A shot in the thick jungle Of passion, later regret. A diaper-pin gleaming Blood on the tip A crayoned children's book A bib A highchair A thunderstorm. At wit's end. The minute-hand races then Slowly comes to a halt. History: one serious scholar A pawn on the chessboard Of youth, later cynic. A rolled-up magazine Ink on the cover A pack of prophylactics A comic book A suit A snowfall. At wit's end. The cover-glass cracks then Drops onto the maple-wood floor. History: a diaper-pin gleaming Blood on the tip A crayoned children's book A bib A highchair A digital clock. At wit's end. The hour-hand bends then Lies prostrate on the faceplate. History: one grey cadaver A body for the massive graveyard beyond Future soul? A box of pills Dosage written quite clearly An electric call switch A magnifying glass A urine bottle A thunderstorm. THE TERRORIST The bomb was fabricated from Steel pipe and placed on a bus filled with schoolchildren. He watched from an alley. It didn't go off. The following day he was run over By a tractor from the kibbutz while sleeping in a field. His kefiah blew down into a wadi. Red
WE ARE ALL REFUGEES The washed shutters in pearl blues Stand half-open revealing eyes of Darkened rooms. Its holder: a house built from stone Sitting high on four pillars upon The edge of an ageless Semitic hill. Empty, empty, they are all gone. Everything was found intact, Even the dishes left in the rack. Did they really hope to come back? What prophecies did they believe? Oh those poor children, how they were Deceived! Their intended victims were not. Their conscience only now begins to bleed In hate against those dreams which were Promised but never came True, true. What is truth? Only a different lie for you Than it is for me. What is an Arab? What is a Jew? Only brothers who have been torn in two. Their father was Abraham, Not the Muslim, not the Jew! And now empty houses with window shutters Painted for Allah's eyes alone, await patiently, Wait, wait. Wait to the wars are over And the final judgments have been made. Magog and Gog are knocking upon their Doors. We are all refugees. My name is Philip Hyams and I am an Israeli/Canadian poet and novelist - who has published one novel (Canaan Barred - 1995 - Tell Books - Toronto, New York - rights sold in France & Holland - to appear in 1998), and a variety of poems (First Choice Magazine - England -1996). I have lived in Britain, Holland (Performed works with One World Poetry in Amsterdam), Canada & Israel. I currently live in Holon with my wife and child. You can write to Philp c/o philis@netvision.net.il To some more poems by Philip Hyams Today's Situation
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