Spellbound

Gone, high and low, I lie on my face ,
Would not return to the time and place
Where together we trembled, thighs ablaze
In the shallow waters, in the blizard of
Of the sun, like pebbles on the shore
Imortal we've become - encrusted in froth
In the zenith of the night, our faces
Crack, to the touch of tiny crabs
Dancing to the moon's silent song and
Ritual - gone, darkness floods my vains;
Will we be here when the tide's come, -
Will you by then still remember my name



Nomi Ben-David

Julie

I wanted to ask her if she'd come back and
Stand by my window like she did that summer -
Her breakable body held together by longing
Alone, in her eyes the black flame of
So very many candles

I wished we could dance side by side, like
Sisters of one soul, - carry the silence of
The long road to the place where everything
Has once began - but the wind erased
Her footprints in the dunes, sand has covered
The Caravan Routes, the lost trails to
The Promised Land -

Now, an Angel follows her every step, and
The sound of rustling silk, when she hurries
Down the darkening hall - sometimes, at
Night, she softly calles my name




Nomi Ben-David

Sign

I still remember the days of hazy heat
Can't forget the sweetness of the nights
Mellow landscapes of forever child,

The touch of the sea at night, dark,
Gently swaying - the seaweed that gets
Entangled round my unsuspecting hand;

The old ancient language keeps coming
Back - its words like flowers of stone
Bloom in the meadows of my mind -

And an old children's rhym keeps chanting
Keeps repeating in my head - is like
Maybe a sign, of a new turn in time.



Nomi Ben-David

woman

The moon stoops low above her desert,
Saltflowers bloom in her lagoon, she's
Waiting, - tanning in transparent ice,
Flooded with blue, soft looming light -

She's the moonbather in her crystal cage
Who grows sweet wild grapes, on the
Quicksands by the maze - to lure the
Odd voyager to her glistening cave -

Do not try to move the heavy rock,
For under it a scorpion sheds a tear -
Its sting pointing upwards, it doesn't
Need a ring of fire to become a hero,
And where would she be, without you



Nomi Ben-David

Summer

I am weary my love, summer is so
Bright this year - the shutters
Keep hitting against the Patio wall
And molten sunlight-gold trickles
down the low, shaded windows
Dry, breathless is the wind, and
Trees are trees, are green, are
Swaying, dark and fragrant they
Race through the room, stamping
Like a herd of wild horses, and
Behind them, in a cloud of dust,
Indians, feathers and all, follow -
Swept away, sinking, down i go,
Free-falling, spinning towards
A final, bottomless meltdown...
The phone rings, - someone at the
Other end wants to know how i am
I am weary my love, - and summer
summer is too bright to bear.



Nomi Ben-David.

poem

At the top of the naked tree
I'm a bird -
Evening sharpening its claws,
Darkness falls With icy grace -

Hear,lizards lounge under the
Crispy leaves, mushrooms pop
Their poisonous tops, whisper,
Sigh and wondrous foggy sounds

Slide off the big Sax in the sky,
Flutter their blood-red wings
In a void of weightless things
Bounce on a sea of purest pink...

At the top of the naked tree
I'm a bird -
Feathers ruffled in the wind
A silent captain of the night.




Nomi Ben-David

the doing so

It is the test they set that will not go,
the failing of the doing so,
ungainly legacy that they bestow.

i know the tricks and yet i cannot show
why you and i in all our afterglow
just fail the test of doing so.
it is the legacy that they bestow,
and they remorselessly will have it so.

it is the test of those who cannot row
upon a burning sea where charred winds blow
the ghastly empires of the dead and tow
them to their ghastly deaths to show
them dead and ghastly,smiling,slow.
it is the test they set that will not go.

and all our dead and all their dead friends know
we have no gift for lying low,
no gift at all for doing so.
the test they set you will not go.
it is the legacy that they bestow,
the failing of the doing so.



Harold Pinter 1977

back, and in good company

in the long months we were absent we heard of Harold Pinter's death, - except for his unusuall, and very succesfull theater plays there is his poetry, which we love for its dry humor and sensetivity.
we wonder if you would like it as well as we do.


Nomi Ben-David