- 1. A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention
They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
...
- 2. Seven Laments For The War-dead
1
Mr. Beringer, whose son
fell at the Canal that strangers dug
so ships could cross the desert,
...
- 3. My Father
The memory of my father is wrapped up in
white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day at work.
Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits
...
- 4. Try To Remember Some Details
Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing
of the one you love
so that on the day of loss you'll be able to say: last seen
wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat.
...
- 5. Pity, We Were A Good Invention
They amputated
Your thighs from my waist.
For me they are always
Surgeons. All of them.
...
- 6. What Kind Of A Person
"What kind of a person are you," I heard them say to me.
I'm a person with a complex plumbing of the soul,
Sophisticated instruments of feeling and a system
Of controlled memory at the end of the twentieth century,
...
- 7. A Pity. We Were Such A Good Invention
They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.
...
- 8. On Rabbi Kook's Street
On Rabbi Kook's Street
I walk without this good man--
A streiml he wore for prayer
A silk top hat he wore to govern,
...
- 9. The School Where I Studied
I passed by the school where I studied as a boy
and said in my heart: here I learned certain things
and didn't learn others. All my life I have loved in vain
the things I didn't learn. I am filled with knowledge,
...
