A Short Piece on Recent Events in Israel

Tags

+972, attackers, Girls, gun, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jerusalem, Mahane Yehuda Market, Rhona Burns, scissors, shooting

See a short piece of mine in the magazine +972, concerning recent events which took place in Jerusalem, Israel.

The piece was originally published in Hebrew (in a shorter version and in a longer version).

 

The Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem

 

Three Poems from Jerusalem (Translated from Hebrew)

Tags

horrow, Jerusalem, Poetry, Rhona Burns

The following poems are the translations of three Hebrew poems, written in Jerusalem in the year 2014.

Two of them were published in Hebrew journals (Eyruvin and Iton 77), and one was published only as a sticker (as part of a broader sticker-project which includes other poems as well), which was and still is distributed all over Israel.

Rhona Burns

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The Horror Only Changes its Delights

In my garden, five daffodils grew tall.

I asked for more.

*

The children do not frighten me you know,

I told you daddy. That’s just how it is now.

*

Tomorrow will rain. Clouds, heavy winds.

But the crows are waiting for Grandpa’s rest to begin.

*

And the horror only changes its delights.

*

I keep forgetting.

*

Once in fifty years (or is it every year?)

We are taken by surprise.

*

Some declare their sorrow.

Some declare their shock.

*

That’s just how it is now.

*

Speech has also taken from us

The need to understand.

*

We cannot live with our convictions.

No. We cannot live with our convictions.

*

Someone is calling for help.

*

Nobody stands.

*

This is just how it is now.

*

The horror only changes its delights.

[Publishe in Hebrew in Iton 77, October 2015]

The Horror Only Changes its Delights, as a sticker in the city of Jerusalem, near the market (Mahne Yehuda, Nahlaot)

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Plea no. 2

*

Nothing else matters

Only the body–just leave the body alone

As a sticker

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*

Everything’s falling.  The sky and the mountain are too.

The temples of the gods aren’t enough for all dwellers of the land.

How many more songs can we offer, standing them like cards,

Calling them an altar, turning round until we hear no more – – –

Our days–Who imagines our days? And our temple, who knows.

We asked for heaven, mercy. And here we are–only dirt.

[Published in Hebrew in Eyruvin II,  2015]

The cover of the second volume of Eyruvin 

Nahum Tim Gidal, Night of Meron, 1935

©The Israel Museum, Jerusalem