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OUTDATED.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
