Carole Birkan

From PORTABLE FOLIA

7.

The Phone is my Notebook
I shall not want
You want thegodhonesttruth?
a self/imposed ban is my secondbest thought
Add Cantus
kvell or quell
the swelling sensation
in your heart
& keep it kosher
call up the small Mosaic pieces
how to read the dead
LANGUAGE
can you get a pulse?
Can we get
to the National Library and Back
look out for the Q&A
&yesterdays minutia
Nation does Right
by us sometimes
Message Me
Left-mentsch
my Phone just died

8.

outdated outmoded Fantasies -
Vanities – all fates being equal
emotional goods are still a first
world affair
i walk the cactus path with my boy and hit
upon words like
take me – you can no more –
take me to an Arab café
Cross a Line and
           SMOKE ME OUT
yes      i was bluffing
my way through
how to tongue-kiss a lingua franca
and i betrayed yours truly
so make this otherness your own
now your words are
my crib and my cradle
or if not
                        your words
then your sentences like
reaching for a god
                          any god

From OMER

35.

                some are strong and choose
                                                              raise up new temples all in vain
                       transfiguring all hand-held
                                                             gods
            the idiot seeks not to understand
                                                           but to express
                                    literacy not only
                                                             functional
                                           hold yr pax
                                                             i speak to and with the people

38.

                                                             public reaping of the omer
                                     in ancient days
                                                             a big business
                            the masters repeating
                                                             the same conversation
                                                    thrice
                                                             expostulate
                              translate trans-iterate
                                                             crossing enemy
                                    lines of argument

Carole Birkan lives in Paris, and teaches and researches language, poetry and translation. Her work has appeared in Mima'amakim and The Forward (USA) as well as Tears in the Fence (UK) and is forthcoming from Upstairs at Duroc (FR) and Zone (UK).