RAFI WEICHERT
TO THE MEMORY OF A TEL AVIV POET
You died on a hot day (Few days aren’t around here).
The busses kept on dragging their greyness
through Dizengoff, right on King George, to Allenby
and the sea. On the beach youth continued
to present its beauty, its eternal advantage,
showing interest only in the sex firm in skin
And in the shining sand searing between toes
A hot day, one that conjures a trace of bliss,
and you are no more.
You are still receding to a place where with a thousand eyes
you will look at all this silently and smile,
seeing the real and troublesome as a hoax.
Maybe only now, after you have earned with great strain
wisdom that is transient, it will be revealed to you
that poetry is a solid tombstone.
THE RIGHT
Evening. And once again we find ourselves
at the end of the street leading to the sea.
The promenade is almost empty. White plastic chairs
are covered with dust. Here and there in the water, float
dead things.
Evening. And the ability to overlook is enviable
or alternatively to refine beauty from surroundings
like a pearl.
DRAGON
In the middle of town they put up a dragon.
Like a Trojan horse they pushed it into town
Believing in the greatness of its colors.
Now it spits jets of fire
before a sky that does not succeed, even for a minute,
to camouflage its indifference.
In the nights that it passes
in the deserted square
where rises from curves of its ribs
loud music
distracting us from enemies
threatening our walls and from cold winds
rushing through the streets, pursuing the leaves
to their death at the end of the sidewalk.
SUMMER
Summer doesn’t change anything on the street
And yet in the clear light the face
of things move as in a mirage.
The house comes to know the plunging shadow
longing on the sidewalk below it.
Over the hurrying heads, balcony rails
try in vain to cover their shame,
the rust unfolding like scab.
The heat in Tel Aviv is a red-cheeked boy
dragged heavily through the streets and pointing to the sun
which on its rounds ties to our heads a crown of summers.
THOSE WHO SING TO THE CITY
The city doesn’t need its residents.
Indifferent it views the inhabitants
Passing through it to their desired places.
Its streets do not widen as the pupils widen
at the sight of deceptive happiness.
The changing buildings do not take into consideration
memory fighting to maintain maps
to seek new sites.
It is not willing to contribute one thing
or to return warmth to those who sing of it
on their way to somewhere else.
TRANSLATED BY
KAREN ALKALAY-GUT