| | MOSHE BENARROCH
Moshe Benarroch has published two collections of poetry in English "Horses and other doubts" (http://iuniverse.com, 114 pages, 9.95$) and "You walk on the land until one day the land walks on you" (http://xlibris.com, 248 pages, 16$), both available from Amazon, Borders and Barnes And Noble.
He was born in Morocco and lives in Israel. He writes in three languages, Hebrew, Spanish and English and his poetry has been published in hundreds of magazines and anthologies worldwide. He was featured poet in the international Austin poetry festival, 1999, in poetrymagazine.com (july 2000) and has read his poetry in Israel, Spain and the US. He has published ten books, of poetry prose and one novel in Hebrew, Spanish and English.
For more information and more poems:
http://www.authorsden.com/moshebenarroch
Can Do Better
~~~~~~~~~~~
Always torturing myself for things I didn't do
why didn't I write a long novel
my novels are too short
why not the long poem,
why so many languages
am I really good at any of them
why my books don't sell maybe
I am such a bad writer and poet
why when I am not writing
I feel like the village idiot
or maybe I am I should
leave all this and make some money
for my family I should divorce
and face my fate and write all day long
I should and I could and I should
and I know it's my mother behind all this
and all these teachers always saying
I could do better, all my friends
always saying I could do better
that's my image the man that could do better
but if I could do better or write better
I would have done it,
wouldn't you, you lazy bastard!
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Many Tongues
~~~~~~~~ (this poem comemorates the fact that I have only
written 2 poems in Hebrew in the last two years).
I left the Hebrew language
as others leave a loved woman
they have been trying to fuck
for ten or fifteen years, saying
woman I am a man, hear all the
other women that want me and
now I have to go and get what
I need from them, I am a poet
woman, and you can't be my
fantasy forever, I am poet in search
of a a language and many tongues
have loved me and your door has
been closed for so long, I had to
open other knobs with other hands
I can't behave like an amputee forever
and now that so many doors have
opened, now you open yours to see
if I'm still there, I am not and when
you see me near it's because I took
a walk, a walk through my old habits
I don't need your tongue, many tongues
have loved me now and I don't miss
your never existing carress anymore.
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Witches
~~~~~~
The witches look lovely tonight
they are all dressed for the wedding
of Lilith and Prince Charles
Their noses are perfect
and they walk to applaud
the love they always had
The witches they have names
that burn the water that tighten
their belly to the next oven
and we all know the witches love you
they love kings and princes
they love poets and slaves
they love everything
for they are witches
and their loves are ashes.
######################################
Slopes
~~~~~
I am wearing this uniform but I don't care for wars
I am wearing this uniform to beat you and prostitute you
to unchain your heart out of your flooded hat
to destroy all that we built with our own horse
I am going now to Bethlehem to build me a boat
I will then fly through caves of death and fire
and when I see you again I reckon you won't
even think about looking at my shining face
My face will become gold and fire out
of my nose will arose the words you say
and just when you think you understand
What I am saying your tongue will be dryer
than the desert, and your words will invade
your ears, do you hear my slopes now?
######################################
Finally I thank my parents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everything I ever learned
came from my parents' mistakes
the solutions of one generation
are the problems of the next
Whatever they did to help me
was against my nature
Swimming against the waves
I learned where my future was
I shouted and cried until I silenced
and there I could see my angels
helping me to get through
It happened in dreams where
funny films were screened before me
waking me up, my laughs from nowhere.
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Ready
~~~~~~~~~~
Used to say I am ready to die
but I was a coward
I was not ready to live
second hand lives
lives of few seconds
Used to say I was ready to die
now I am willing to live
to die anyday now
ready to live ready to leave.
Moshe Benarroch
email: moben@barak-online.net
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