I came back. My father�s house makes no sense.
I could stay here. Or I could break his fence.
I have folded. Discarded the dice.
Nothing worse than stepping into the same river twice.

I returned because the earth is round. And small.
and if you walk to its edge, you would still not fall
off it anywhere - but to your very own self.
And there is nothing to do there. Only escape.

How dull! They�ve portrayed me kneeling
with repentant lips.
But that�s not it at all:
I am simply tired - and virtue reigns in tired limbs.
Since I couldn�t fall off from myself -
I fell to my knees.
It was the law of gravity -
not the desire to please. 

Out there - I found nothing -
    neither loss, nor gain.
And it makes no difference 
     that I found no pain:
That I found no one with whom
     I could hide.
That there no two halves 
     that coincide.

But there is an image I know of a prostrated field -
with heathen voices of birds overhead.
There - time condenses to sadness and loses to space.
In fear and fury I buried my face.

It was then that I knew: any movement is always away.
No matter where you come : you simply stray.
And in the endless void that with night turned black,
I never noticed how I turned back.

I am bereft of memory. I am bereft of words.
I am now a poet who feels the hordes
Of approaching signals, signs, sounds
Which melt into him like a thief into crowds.

Now I sit by my window with a bowed head.
And I drink the wine given me and I chew my bread.
In silence and humility I wait for the loss.
While the next-door hermit promises salvation as he picks his nose.
 
 
 
 
 
 

MARY MAGDALENE

Bits and pieces of phrases.
Their meaning unknown.
Where the heart erases,
what the mind had sown.

Scattered. Empty. Naked.
You will stand in the dark.
Open-mouthed.  Gaping
as they make you their mark.

As they mock you and pierce you,
you will wish for doom.
But the One who�ll caress you -
will grant you your gloom.

Tear a word from a sentence.-
A fish - from a fin.
What�s the worth of your penitence,
without your sin?

When they lead Him to traces,
upon which they will kneel, -
don�t remember their faces!
And try not to feel.

When you walk from Magdala
with your painted cheeks -
every idle stroller 
will pay for your tricks.

Every loyal husband
will squirm for your touch.
Offer golden thousand.
But you�ll spit on their crotch.

Every timid, dry maiden
will cast stones at your feet.
Though, their wombs are abandoned -
their hearts still beat.

And the old Abimelech * 
will help build the cross -
Of our shame and havoc.
As for you - your loss.

He has never forgiven
for your freedom to loose.
And he�s never believed in
your distrust to choose.

Mary, hush, hold your tear.
Pain makes us free.
Like a summer leave bear
that you�ll fall off the tree.

When you�ll sit there in mourning -
All in black, Magdalene.
He will come with no warning -
Your intended - Nazarene.

He�ll extend his hand -
the only one in our Time.
And the world will learn of love.
And the words - of rhyme.

Bits and pieces of phrases.
Their meaning revealed.
When your King of heresies
dropped His tear on your heel.

* Abimelech - Mary Magdalene�s father.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CRESCENDO

Mary Magdalene�s Cry For Jesus
 

Shorter, shorter! Make it shorter, still.
Make it short and sharp - like a seagull�s shrill.
Lose the meaning that staggers its ass uphill.
Be a contour without the weight of the fill.

Lose the goal that staggers its cross uphill.
In a senseless flight tread your calloused heel.
In your even plight learn to bow and kneel.
And with those who offer - never make a deal.

Let them judge and whisper, let them point and cry.
Better to be alone than to form a sty.
Better to be unknown than to squint from high
places that are build to crucify.

Better to be a man than a tragic lie.
And to admit the monotony than to flutter and die.
For Him who hisses one word - �MY�
And doesn�t know why a tear parts with an eye.

Should�ve been like your forefather - Abraham.
Who in practical fury took his son for a lamb.
And while he prayed to his God: �I�m Your greatest fan!�
The knife slithered out and Isaac ran.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CHRISTMAS NIGHT
 

On Christmas the outside world
Seems to be composed of polar opposites.
The underlying layers disappear,
Leaving a residue of either joy or pain.
The taste is either sweet or bitter.
The smell - either faraway or near.
People either laugh or cry through day and night.
Everyone - like dogs - is color-blind.

***

In a Mexican bar on the outskirts of town
No one sings Christmas carols.
Instead, they listen to the clanking sound of glasses,
reminisce, try not to frown.
They enclose the space within them through their gestures.
Everyone�s alone like sheep upon the pasture.
Each face suggests that it's engulfed in a happy trance,
Yet, no one starts and screams: "In vino veritas!"

***

This evening no one sees the changing pattern of their dreams.
Thoughts solidify.
The inside and outside merge in one loud scream.
Illusions vanish.
Reality emerges like a thin, greenless tree -
and erases all our memories.
This evening we understand that all of our beginnings are without ends.
This evening we must make amends with the uncertainty of fate.

***

In a house at the end of the street,
Through a window pulsating with the light of a Christmas tree.
I see a man sitting by the fire in a sweet reverie.
A woman has a drink that smells of cinnamon and clove.
They are obsequious. Alas, they do not love.
Tonight each of them has two pair of eyes.
One sees the truth. The other always lies.
And neither knows whether he's dead or alive.

***

The Christmas night came unexpectedly,
as once came life.
A star shone overhead unsteadily,
then died.
A narrow brook was running once
in between two rocky hills.
My child, what doesn't give birth,
kills.

***

There was no snow this Christmas night.
No whitness fell to sweep away the pain.
Nothing was there to veneer our shame.
I heard young Abel ask forgiveness for his brother Cain.
Or was it for revenge he cried
On this whiteless, snowless Christmas night?
When all that seems complex becomes vulgar and trite
Like windows pulsating with a neon light.

***

I heard a snow-white infant�s cry this Christmas night
Beneath black sky embroidered by a single star.
The twice-cursed gift of my second sight,
Awakened me to yawning pain that lies afar.
My senses and my thoughts were fortified.
She said that perfect darkness is the perfect light.
I cried: "Damn the truth, Maria, multiply, multiply!"
For, after all, what is the truth but an imagined lie?

***

That Christmas night I ran as far as my legs would go.
The sky was heavy, hanging low.
I ran, leaving behind the bar with a paper dove -
and the middle-aged woman that smelled of cinnamon and clove.
She couldn't see her husband's face as she caressed his arms,
But when he turned around - gone was her love.
I ran without direction, with no strength to fight
On that whiteless, snowless Christmas night.

***

A narrow brook was running once
in between two rocky hills.
My child, what doesn't give birth,
kills.
An old man by the hill misses his youth.
What is a lie but an imagined truth?
 
 
 
 
 
 

WHAT HAS HISTORY...

What has history to boast of? -
A blank succession of events,
Of proper names and dates,
Of fates - disrupted by the flow of time,
Of bare rhythm - disdainful of rhyme,
Of fatal rebellions and futile shields,
Of tears caged in between the lids,
Of confused Messiahs forgiving those,
Who never asked for forgiveness -
but just for the cross...