Saturday, January 31, 2009



LOUISE LANDES
LEVI




Word on the street

Is that Israel created HAMAS,

A good excuse for war /Word on the street

Is that Israel created Hamas, a good way to split

The Palestinians/ every man on his own,

Word on the street is that the

Plan was already drawn up in 2002,

It took 7 years to realize,

What’s so special abt.

Chanukah, are you playing

Maccabee all over again, funny I never

Read abt. Genocide in Jewish Studies 101,

Why didn’t they mention a nuclear arsenal, no. 6/ Top military,

You are going to prevent another Genocide

By doing one, You are

Poor psychological victims,

You are breaking

my

heart,

My Jewish heart, my heart that bore stars & insults,

But these stars & these mandates are

No excuse for murder-

At 8 yrs. of age

I recognized the fucked-up notion of the nation state

I knew you cld. not have a commandment like

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

& A STATE at the same time,

Every time I read the word

Israel in my little book on Hillel,

the elder, I knew that Israel was another

‘name’ for the heart, so Next

Year in Jerusalem meant

one day I wld. Arrive

to my own heart

& no one wld. be able to

take it away because it

didn’t exist in space time, tho I didn’t

know those words then, when I got

to the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory & I was

only 9 & I knew the machine was going to

go off even tho it wasn’t suppose to,

when the kids put

their hands in it, every one pretended

NOT TO NOTICE & when Israel got

Weird & wanted to kill everyone, & it was true

At Sabra & Shatila ---& it’s true yesterday & the day

Before & it’s all over the media but

The media is for sleeping

Not for waking, so it’s a way of

Not noticing, somehow & I think it’s wrong

& it’s only going to cause major pain & disturbance & loss

& I don’t understand except that a psychic friend

says that over there in Israel

she saw some

reborn Nazis & also

the sad rule: the priest who was

fucked in the ass as an altar boy is going to

do that same kind of ritual, he is going to come down

on anyone he can & that’s the

sorryful way things go down,

& really guns are so

OUTDATED.

NYC 2009

‘if I am only for myself who is for me’

In a long tradition of troubadour poets, Louise Landes Levi carries on as itinerant seeker, poet, musician and translator. See her versions of Sanskrit, Henri Michaux, Rene Daumal, plus her many books of poems. In this poem, available from Longhouse as one of our series of foldout booklets, Louise gives a cry out from the street to Israel and Hamas and ourselves.



© 2009 by Louise Landes Levi & Longhouse Publishers