Moshe Benarroch

Buchiki Buchiki
while i was making love
i thought about you
about my wife who said
it happens

you could have died
in a car accident or in a thousand other ways
Buchiki Buchiki
but no
a whole country went out to kill you
by mistake
Buchiki Buchiki
my compatriot
from a country that vomits her citizens
you went to be a waiter
in norway
the same year
i immigrated to israel
Buchiki Buchiki
and a whole country went out to kill you
by mistake
while you were thinking
about your big norwegian love
your dreams of europe
a new country
full of money and hope
and i was thinking about my maid fatima
whom i loved so much
who went with her husband to belgium
and a month before
i immigrated
she came for a visit
and brought chocolates
and i loved her very much
but didn't know how to act
and stayed stacked to my chair.
Buchiki Buchiki
your dream was murdered
by mistake
by the same country
in which my dream was broken
in which i was left to poetise
your dream.
Ahmed Buchiki, a Morrocan waiter, was killed by mistake by the Mossad in
Norway in 1973. The Mossad thought that he was a palestinian terrorist

translated from the hebrew by the author

Bukowsky again

it happens more and more
often
I start reading a book
and after a page or two
I go back to buckowsky
read primo levi
and back
to bukowsky
try to read
toni morrison
and back
to bukowsky
I stopped reading
the israeli writers long ago
it seems they never left
the boy scouts
and I think about the fact
that this game is
about reaching
ten people
who need my poems
to survive this world
as much as i needed
ginsberg
jabes
burroughs
and now
bukowsky
and i don't know who
they are
and probably they don't either
but one day they will.
i am not sure i will.

translated from the hebrew by the author

FRIDAY

Before the six days war
my father came home with a
new car
Renault 4
awfully
green
that changed the old
Simca
and told us that he bought it from a priest
and that the car is very well kept
because priests
know how to take care of their cars
and it was the car in which we drove
until we emigrated.

And two days before the war
an arab friend met my father
and told him
that the end of the state of Israel is near
only a few days away
and that the arabs will destroy Israel.
During a week we didn't leave the house
and went to the vacation site
near the spanish border
in case we'd have to run away
and two weeks later
my father met the arab
who was afraid even to say hello
or stare at
his eyes.


translated from the hebrew by the author

Poetry