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Amir Or:  Plates from The Museum of Time

Edited by John Kinsella

 

Amir Or was born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1956. Among other occupations he has worked as a shepherd, a builder and a restauranteur. He studied philosophy and Comparative Religion in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he later lectured on Ancient Greek Religion. He is the founder of Helicon Society for the Advancement of Poetry in Israel, and currently he is director and chief editor of Helicon poetry Journal.

Like the body in dream        it"s all too easy to forget.
It grows bigger         as your light sets;
first it"s just a cub of darkness  — pulled out of your heart
                  licking your calves with its warm tongue.
And when you think of it     it"s almost endearing  
the dead toss a white bone to it. 
But in an hour     it"s as large as your step,          
biting you with each step,      hungry to be.

The more it darkens     the more you apprehend,       
your footsteps slowing down on the bridge —

the night is a river       an elongating animal             
a maw of darkness        a hundred snake teeth.
The night is water and chill.

Now you"re scared        you appease it    
with a bone, a hand    or another love —
doesn"t matter.            
At any rate     before long
you"ll become        one. 

 

 

 

Artwork © Stephen Kinsella

This was the eighth day of creation:
clouds absorbed burning brush-strokes
across the bluish-grey width of the sky.

Our souls struggled towards the fire
like beautiful insects
but the plane — was all forwards, drawing out its line.
Indifferent to the heavenly cataclysm
it passed far above.

At dawn under lampshades of clouds
the being-artist dipped his brush in thin light
and peaceful autumn was silently drawn into the tops of the plane trees
gradually matching them with patches of roof
among waterfalls of Russian vine.

The air’s clean of thoughts;
what can be seen — nameless, packed with dreams.
Between patches of wandering worlds, the world’s
slowly rising
here and there, in my eyes.

Touch this with your eye.
Do you see it?

Only a lonely crow
is piercing the morning with his uncanny urgency.

The trees are still deep with night
enfolding dimensions in their foliage caves.

My eyes take a morning walk, roam the half-light world
where dream and wakefulness

aren’t yet distinguished
from shadows and leaves.

A lazy sun’s rising in my lazy eyes
a cool blue emerges from the east.

I’m leaning against the sea
at the back of my heart:

to enter and be entered
is all we do. 

Spirits are wailing over the lake      pleading with you to open for them
a heart, an eye, a body to feel once more through the animal of flesh
to bite, taste, take pleasure, smell.           
They remember the bodily sensations     
of an animal, a tree or an object,
                        rain heat movement weight.   
They"ve been here before      aeons before us
as the shepherds of  bodies      among creatures of dream;
haven"t left with the rest        to the lighter realms;
stayed behind         in forests and caves, 
in the margins of your eyes        and the desolation of night.
But they"re not immortal       they wither and fade  
to a voiceless howl          a transparent hunger.

Even the shudder they brush onto your skin
is merely the craving touch         of  nothingness against the real.