Yes, loyal readers, it has been a long time since I blogged. I’ve been refreshing my vocation as a Christian writer at the Glen Workshop East, an experience I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who has wondered how the identities “Christian” and “writer” can coexist harmoniously.
While I sort out my thoughts from this high-intensity week, please enjoy the following excerpt from The Last Stanza, a new poetry anthology edited by Dan Savery Raz of Danscribe Books. The Last Stanza features work by the members of StanzAviv, a creative collective of writers associated with Bar Ilan University and Tel Aviv University. StanzAviv members come from Israel, USA, UK, France, Canada, Latvia and beyond. Poets include Dara Barnat from Tel Aviv University’s English Faculty, literary translator Sabine Huynh, and Israeli poet Michal Pirani. The book also features atmospheric shots of Tel Aviv taken by award-winning photographer Nitzan Hafner. All proceeds from the sale of this book go to the ARDC (African Refugee Development Center), an NGO in south Tel Aviv that provides shelter, education, counseling and advice to refugees and asylum seekers in Israel. The ARDC was founded by refugees for refugees.
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Finally
by Yedida Bernstein Goren
i am refugee, you were this too, yes? my friend
i ran, climbed, snaked to shaky part of your borderwall
oh israel holy-israel my mind breaking into pieces of glass
i hear jews are good people
months i journey hide every some hours
lost friends, brother, child back home
you also lose family shot at by crazed soldiers, yes?
we hear you did long long time ago 60 years
walking and walking and walking and walking
they aim bullets at me
they rape my woman
i stand there
my eyes stretch into my forehead, my pupils fall out my eyelids
i hold back the skyscream
trudge on with wife on back
over last sandkilometer
i reach you, finally, oh Israel
scarred, falling, hungry
you send me to holding station
like prison
you look down on me and wife
you so shy of kindtouch
so short on welcomewords
weeks months later
you tell us to leave on big plane
you pay
where, kind officer, do you think we should return to?
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easyBank.com
by Dan Savery Raz
To check the balance of your account, press one.
To transfer money from one account to another, press two.
For lost or stolen cards, press three.
If you would like to pay your outstanding balance, press four.
If you like the word ‘muesli’, press five.
If you get scared by thunder and lightning storms at night,
press six.
If you believe in a monotheistic God, press seven.
If you are an atheist or believe in many gods, such as the
sun god Helios, press eight.
For reincarnation, press nine.
To listen to some ancient Tibetan Buddhist chants, press
ten.
Trotskyites, press eleven.
Hermaphrodites, twelve.
For information on the displacement of the Aboriginal population
of Australia in the late 18th century, press thirteen.
If you just want to get stoned, press fourteen
followed by the hash key.
If you treat your pet dog better than most human beings,
press fifteen.
People that still carry some torch of hope for humanity, press
sixteen followed by star.
For sarcasm or wit, don’t press seventeen whatever you do.
To speak to a customer service representative, call the
premium number between 10 AM and 10.30 AM on Monday,
Tuesday and Thursday.
To return to the main menu please text the words ‘Egyptian
Mummification in the Predynastic Period’ to 666 or hold the
line while we drill holes in your ear.
Thank you for banking with easyBank.com, finance at your fingertips.
Exquisite poem by Yehuda Bernstein Goren.