In an Entire Ruined Village and at the Jaffa Expulsion

Listen my mother
A satisfied white rat
Convinced the contractor
To dine with the supervisor
To feed the politician
To sleep with the judge
And to flatten the history of the people.

A great rat, mom, I swear I saw
her chewing on the ruins
hungrily, and her excrement is the culture
that eats and can never be filled.

And why am I telling you this, O mother,
Maybe because I feel like it can’t go on this way
We have to stand together
In front of the rat and scream the pain of the bites

You’re right mom,
We aren’t rats
But the marks on the body
The ruin in the eyes
Have already passed to my daughter
Who asks how it is that we
Didn’t do anything.

Translated from the Hebrew by Chana Morgenstern
Translation published in Zeek magazine page 18 > LINK

Category:
Poetry

Tags:
Mati Shemoelof, Mein toter Vater, German Poetry, Deutsche Gedichte, Hebrew Poetry, Hebrew Literature, Mirko Bonné, VERSschmuggel, Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, Translation

This poem was first published on the book - Why Dont I write Israeli Love Pomes, 2010