TWO POEMS by RONNY SOMECK

Biting into Her Beauty

In memory of Noah Orbach

And then came this tall guy and said he had been
Ordering large meals at Burger King where she was working
Just to bite into her beauty.
Her death milkeed his teeth. He no longer rips
Little packets in order to squirt
Ketchup on meat, now orphaned
In the belly of a bun.
Outside, a dry June wind heated the pot of the street,
A spoon of sun was stirring in his head as in a bowl of soup,
And memory of her was like oil boiling and turning
A cocoon potato into butterfly-fries
To be salted by a tear.

Guillotine

(Or: In regards to a Young Poet)

If one of these days you meet the Frenchman, Englishman, and German,
All brought to the guillotine, remember!
The Frenchman asked they put him facing
Upward to look death in the eye;
The Englishman wanted to bury his gaze into the ground.
With both the blade got stuck
An inch before their head sang
A farewell song to their body.
When they asked the German in what direction to put him,
He answered: "First of all, fix the guillotine."
And you,
Don't forget to stare straight into his eyes
And tell him, it's not worth fixing her who wanted
To behead your thoughts,
But you should let her dream about
The fireworks of the word blood,
Even if she decides to stop an inch before
This "impolite encounter" with
The nape or
Throat.
Remember!
The guillotine can be as small as clippers
You use to clip off fingernails
That in your love poems scratched
A page's neck.

RONNY SOMECK was born in Baghdad in 1951 and came to Israel as a young child. He studied Hebrew literature and philosophy at Tel Aviv University and drawing at the Avni Academy of Art. He has worked with street gangs, and currently he teaches literature and leads creative writing workshops.

He has published 9 volumes of poetry, the last of which is The Milk Underground, as well as a book for children with his daughter Shirly (The Laughter Button).

He has been translated into 39 languages. Selections of his poems have appeared in Arabic translation, French (with the exile Iraqi poet- A.K. El-Janabi), Catalan, Albanian , Italian, Macedonian and English.

He is recipient of the Prime Minister's Award, Yehuda Amichai Award for Hebrew poetry, The "Wine Poem Award" in Struga Poetry Evenings (Macedonia, 2005) and the Hans Berghuis Prize for poetry in the Maastricht International Poetry Nights 2006.

TRANSLATORS

Robert Manaster has published poetry in various journals including Many Mountains Moving, Judaism, International Poetry Review, Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, Kerem, European Judaism and The Literary Review. Recently, he was chosen as the recipient of the Dorothy Norton Clay Poetry Fellowship for the Mary Anderson Center.

Hana Inbar is a native Israeli and the daughter of Yossl Birstein, a noted Israeli writer.

Images: MacMoses and Four Passengers on a Local Bus by Mike Leaf.