|
|
About
Contact Archive Donations Subscribe to Today's Situation | ||
 News from Israel
|
 Peace: Educational Resources
|
 Pleasure:Poetry and other Arts |
 Ariga's Amazon Bookstore
|
Home
Poetry || SubmissionsThe kitchen sink drama By Ronny SomeckEveryone in the town was black. The last train was gonealready, and sideways glances stabbed at the whipped cream of my white skin. At the nearby station I bought shoe polish and covered myself enough that the receptionist in the motel didn’t change his Ebonic English accent when he showed me a room. ‘Wake me tomorrow at seven. My train leaves at seven thirty. He woke me at seven twenty and I barely made it to the station. Everyone looked at me and I remembered the polish. I tried, with soft fingers, to remove it. But even harder fingers did not move the skin and I realized the hotel receptionist woke up someone else. Good morning, poetry, Keep waking me up late, absorbing black shoe polish into my skin and running words into the drama of the kitchen sink. There, the splashing water will wash away the remains of pleasure my wife placed in the soup bowl And the spoons will momentarily forget the mouth’s tunnel gaping for them. Skin is skin, and the dish soap will brighten my daughter’s fingernails as if they were the headlights of the roller coaster in the amusement park of my childhood. Corks
The manufacturing year is written into the label of N.’s body:17 years she’s wasted in the world and suddenly her mother refuses to forgive. ‘A hole opened,’ she says, ‘and her brain closed.’ N.’s glassy eyes are shiny with tears, At nights on barstools she crosses legs broken from dancing, sees how the French cork flies from the champagne, how the Mexican wears the tequila like a sombrero for his head And the German with the sharp teeth chews on the neck of the beer bottle. Mom, come see, she wants to shout, and immediately imagines the answer: ‘it’s not just a cork, your virginity is, It’s your dowry.’ N. goes home and lays down her dancing shoes Beside the bed like two kisses on the cheeks of the floor. December 28
I was born the day the movies were invented. In an earlier incarnation I was Charlie Chaplin’s cane, Marilyn Monroe’s underwear, Gary Copper’s gun, a wheel on James Dean’s motorcycle. Ever since I have wandered, protecting holy places wanting to shoot those making a getaway and in love with the kiss of the asphalt. One day, perhaps, I’ll make a movie from it. All poems translated by Robert Rosenberg. Ronny Someck is one of Israel's leading poets -- and a high school teacher of both literature and basketball. He often appears at international poetry festivals. Today's Situation
Back to the top
If this page was useful, please consider making a donation or use Amazon links at Ariga to go to the biggest online store in the world and help keep Ariga going. Click over to the bookstore, check out Ariga's latest recommended book, or visit one of the subject areas that interest Ariga visitors: Yiddish || Middle East Affairs || Military Affairs || Religion || Hippotherapy (Horses and Feldenkrais) || Women's Issues || Pop Culture || Cooking || American Issues || Or click over to Amazon's Top 100 Best Sellers
|
Ariga Recommends:
|
