Liberated for 20 minutes Dancing with the feet of my awareness Leaving footprints for the next time Liberated for twenty minutes Just like that on Thursday afternoon I face the front And she turns backwards We’re taking a trip into my life Travels in troubling times Does she go slow or is she speeding As she moves through the bars of time A light comes across all that has happened All that was experienced up till now Instantly knowing all the truth Witnessing all the memories She swears I am utterly free Time roads are made from air Memories cut like hair Leaving me open and different Leaving me open and free

Strange Hope Strange strange hope Don’t ever leave the building Strange strange hope You know how they say Don’t ever lay a healthy head in sick bed But some of us do try for themselves To see if it’s true, if it’s dangerous There I was in troubles and extremes Thankfully sister fate came for me Taking me to safety very far And still I feel focused and bizzare

There’s a Storm in my Hand Dressed at our best we are ready for the dance of the battle for the self Love that we’re devoted love that we are total still believing still breathing You and I two petals the last ones on the flower The love and love not ones Now the plug was pulled out Here we are still fighting still believing still believing

B D A and E I’ve never been so uncomfortable Somehow I do not care at all I left it near the disco’s door Disarrayed and alone and going to fall As if Jesus has just passed by And I am drunk or way too high Can’t believe it after all this time Suddenly all I can say is goodbye Your wits’ end is cuddling mine Upsidedown at sixes and sevens So many songs did I write for you This one I’m writing for myself B D A and E Simple enough to satisfy me I’ve never been so vulnerable Somehow I do not mind it all I’m not mourning anything No regret and I know I would do it again

I Heard a Guru Talk Today on YouTube I heard a guru talk today on YouTube He said that Karma keeps us to our bodies, like glue But more intensive structures may go wrong Unnatural deaths and accidents and all kinds of tragedies How can you be so alive and gone How can you be so gone and alive What were you thinking Why wasn’t I there to catch you in the air

Washing the Devil (Off) These dark eyes no longer hold my soul These sharp teeth no longer bite my heart These long fingers no more touch my body my stomach my neck my hair I’m not there I’m not there Don’t ask me how I know I just know I just know This was your very last blow I just know All the people you hide inside Are free again from side to side I just know I just know This was your Very last blow

You Want to Talk You want to talk to someone and say Everything you don’t tell no one, even yourself Behind the dam of silence parts of you stayed a toughy mute survivor, a mono-play You’ve been like this for ages but these days An itch started evolving in your head A new desire for a little break To help you free yourself from these deep aches Say that you don’t know…

A Song for Filip Two women came from earth to find you They went through many men and looked to recognize you They recognized you by your speed They recognised you by your voice They came to bring you back to earth Drag you down A woman on each wing of yours Drag you down Oh no! Its no way to go. You said I will follow you I will follow you down

A Brave Slave I never saw it possible to kill people inside me, But a wish to do it lingered, unpaid, Until this summer, when I came true. Apparently, I’ve massacred for the last six months; From the top of the pyramid, spreading down, all wiped out. They say the first is the hardest, it was not, And it did not get easier with time. They say every beginning is hard— it was hard all the way. It got easier only when I was cracked, Clarity befell when I was done. In winter, Kismet opened her arms, adopting me to her spirit. It was doomed, she’d come for my heart— The rest of me united in her bosom, shifting into an army. The soldiers of Kismet arrived in droves Floating towards the moment they waited for since I was two becoming a mighty tough militia training to kill the kidnappers training to free my hostage heart. But first, the walls had to fall. By spring, Kismet commanded to circle the walls for six days, once in each day And seven rounds on the seventh day. On the seventh day, The ram’s horns were blowing And the soldiers were roaring a great roar, The walls fell down and the massacre began. Each month when the Moon God Weds his bride I remember what was done to me, Only for a little while. I raise a glass to Kismet And eyes to the sky. The astonishing magic life imparts, when the wish is solid and strong. True change embarks like a spark, diminishing dirty old wrongs. “Don’t make the same mistake twice” might work for some, We others, life enjoys us in zigzagging styles. Nevertheless, even in these wild roads, a chance to do the right thing is given.

My Two-Tree Forest On one side of the bed sleeps my husband, On the other side sleep I— In a fetal position facing a pile of books, which is burning on the bedside dresser. Attar and Zoroaster and Rumi, King Solomon and Khalil Gibran— All my teachers, my family, Hailing from Israel, or Lebanon, or Iran. I was feeling torn between them all, I was praying for a goddess to come and save me from my story. Uncomfortable with my non-Jewish tendencies, Ashamed of my not-necessarily-Israeli views. Although my life kept proving I was fine, My scorched tree was still burning. We sleep and my roots start weaving my extra-long rabbinic roots with the unbelievers’ Yekke ones from mom, Wrapping themselves with my husband’s Gentile roots, embracing, tightening. From the heart they go to Rumi, and from Solomon back to the heart. From the heart to my husband, and back again through to Attar. Until morning they plait, making a net to catch my attention one day. My neighbour the forest-fire expert says trees talk to each other through the roots. These night-talks might have prevented my total destruction by fire. I was raising two trees in my heart, the family tree and the other—the strange one. Two sides of life in this forest—one seen, one not. I was wondering if I am being intentionally bizarre while nurturing my unseen strange tree—as some sort of an answer to my lovely family one. And it is not exactly that closure came…but I was unexpectedly set free by Truth. Suddenly, in the middle of life, and there is no better way of saying it. Truth pushed me out of my story, and I just ... let go. What real love and its children couldn’t take care of, the long search for Karma did! Fate collapsed on me and exploded me into pieces of peace. ‘…The eternal silence never broken, the oppression supporting my breasts from within will remain my good friends…’ I wrote when I was sixteen… It has been a long way… Even great love can’t glue back missing parts, These parts must be found, and sometimes it takes many years. Nowadays, there is a two-tree forest here, Where these dominating scaffoldings were based when I was a teen. Two sides of life On the two sides of a bed, In a family of one and one other. And the distance between them—enormous, Though next to each other they stand. All I knew was that I am torn, I didn’t know the trees are not one— Until the lightning of Truth struck. Birds were flying in my forest from tree to tree all these years. They would nest and sing and call each other, trying to catch my ears. I confused it with the howl of my longing Soul. My husband shared me with poets under the roof of my mind, Secret masters and prophets lived with us on the side. My spirit was dancing in prayer, to understand, to see Through the love and the children, Through the love behind the love, behind me. I could not prove the burning tree is there, but I felt the fire. With each tree I was trying so hard to acknowledge the other, To recognise my-self. Swinging back and forth between two worlds, I have taken the swing down now, I am planting a rose in it. For living and leaving again and again— I just want to continue, but have no plans. For searching and loving, yet raising a family— All under the same name, yes! And oh, I have had another name for many years now, just to let you know.

We Slip Like Toy Dolls in a Claw Machine Cheating body! You Unfaithful companion! ‘Why’ is a monster with a thousand tails, And we are NOT doing that. I trusted you, you cursed traitor! The old lady on the plane once warned me, The Body’s betrayal is as sure as death. Turn a blind eye, No questions, Every Body runs away to cheat with Time. The (only) son of Madame life and Herr Death, Time was always a bit naughty when it comes to love. Undoubtedly because he was a rape-babe, Time partners with everyone living, But he especially likes the fully-bloomed. His clock-arms chopsticks grab his victims, But they all drop down in the last second, Like toy dolls in a claw machine. They slip away from time but they only have one place to run to. And his dad is just waiting there, all patience Under the pile.

The Battle for the Self (Folie à deux) That’s us; a flower with two petals resurrected across from each other, the last two. We’re the love and love-not ones – We don’t know which is who… and No one is picking us off., I walked towards you, double-sided mirror Bearing offerings and gemstones, I came bringing balance And you, well, you brought everything but. Sets of scales like these are rare and unpredictable A madness for two is no madness for one. Some share a love and some, a delusional disorder. Who am we? Me and you? Pardon, me and who? Who pretends to not be a you-and-a-me. Me me me and you you too Identities, animas, we’ve been them all. At night we do our lotus bend-fold surrendering into the moon’s reflection, of safety and of innocence. Together, To find ourselves on the other side Where the back door is never locked. The days and the nights went by connected Too connected; you knew from the first day, I found out on the last! “I know my persona” you trivially tricked me ‘On’ All I can say now as we say our goodbyes Is I know your persona too. Suddenly seeing, made me feel so ugly, but I couldn’t look away anymore! Disgusting and uncomforting as a chunk of puke My nastiest landed on your necklace A landing to mark a beginning to an end. Who gets the absolute worse out of me (unfortunately the best as well). Embarrassing, yet a bit funny, I don’t know what to feel or think and sadly, it’s not possible not to. It will never be explained, it will never be resolved, What was, was, and no one knows what it was, only that; it is No More. Just like the verses for two - merged into verses for one; I can sing for you, but I could use a song myself. The grand finale of our play, The End, over, so what. The last violent battle-for-the-Self, I don’t think I ever felt so quite absurd in my whole life So clumsy, so graceless. I want to say you made me, but I am not. For the dreadful last scene, I was abducted by a life force I can’t explain I was dropped on a magical castle’s porch straight to the combat stage. To this day I can not tell, which petal was I, but it matters no more, the flower is dry. No winners or losers in our fight - We wrestled as a way to separate. Unplugging 3 thousand years of love in a madness for two Bitter as hell yet sweet as the Desert Date

The Healing Trauma (Words unspoken turn back on you. Their letters uncurl, align, and group into darts. The arrowheads poke you inside and show the body how autoimmune is done…) Rubbing some thyme on the tomatoes I am about to roast I think of all the bad blood test results I could have prevented Had I only said all those wrong words Had all of us—ex-and-not-ex pill poppers, chemistry chewers, endocrine experts— Had we all spoken out, instead of hanging ourselves inside ourselves, chocking on these scarves of words. Where are they? (Words withdrawn hurt in a variety of pains; for each word unspoken you get a tear. The tears make rivers and their waters bow and fall…) A word unspoken stabs as she falls into the river, separating from what she could have been. This feels like inner acupuncture executed by a mad immature practitioner. You spasm in an arresting fear, again. Loud dead words are dropping bursting like seed bombs, sprinkling little sharp metals. Dead words, not ever said, not written, not once read. Between your ears the tears run an impressive deafening river Like the Niagara River flowing hard, preparing to fall. From sound to meaning! Born to sound, words find sense; sound is their oxygen. They voice their meanings within you, bumping into your decline. Leaking in your guts. Exhausting your being. Failing. The water falls down hard from the ears and the throat, hurting and torturing like an angry sea serpent spirit, Tsunami waves of unarticulated words break your torso front to back. Spindrift stinging the organs. Pressing in reverse to the walls of your body, it is absurd. Meanwhile I, washing the dishes in my lovely kitchen, fancy a big cough of all the wrong words draining into the old sink. I force a little throat clearing, but nothing happens. After all, it is the heart that is seeking attention… that old elephant in the room. (Awareness: You might find yourself waking up all bruised on the wild riverbank. Your body will shine under a diligent morning sun and you will instantly realize—it has happened again. You’ll slowly turn onto your back for a stretch, enjoying the earth, the moment, the only moment you got. You don’t need lots of experience to feel another buffalo herd approaching. Unmoving you’ll mumble: ‘go on then’...) When you get to be a child with this, then an adult like this, your tolerance level towards your offenders is just remarkable. Emerging new ripples of fear do not surprise you. You know what is coming and it is never good, but there’s always a moment of hope at the end of each sequence. Mentally, it is like washing dishes. You just deal with it. Emotionally, it is survival, you just endure until it is over. Bodily, well, she is often a victim of her own innocence. In the Spiritual zone, it does not exist. No impact whatsoever, the zone is not influenced and is not influencing. And finally, always way slower than the rest, in comes the brain, sluggishly crawling. Like a small-town sheriff facing a local murder for the very first time, Brainy is ‘taking control’ over the situation, ‘explaining’ and ‘advising’ to anyone who will listen. And no one does. The tomatoes are roasting and smelling so garlicky good, and a summer wind feels the graceful branches of my triple-trunk silver birch tree. ‘Perfect for a tree house’ we used to say. 8. A Song for Filip Two women came from earth to find you They went through many men and looked to recognize you They recognized you by your speed They recognised you by your voice They came to bring you back to earth Drag you down A woman on each wing of yours Drag you down Oh no! Its no way to go. You said I will follow you I will follow you down 9. A Brave Slave I never saw it possible to kill people inside me, But a wish to do it lingered, unpaid, Until this summer, when I came true. Apparently, I’ve massacred for the last six months; From the top of the pyramid, spreading down, all wiped out. They say the first is the hardest, it was not, And it did not get easier with time. They say every beginning is hard— it was hard all the way. It got easier only when I was cracked, Clarity befell when I was done. In winter, Kismet opened her arms, adopting me to her spirit. It was doomed, she’d come for my heart— The rest of me united in her bosom, shifting into an army. The soldiers of Kismet arrived in droves Floating towards the moment they waited for since I was two becoming a mighty tough militia training to kill the kidnappers training to free my hostage heart. But first, the walls had to fall. By spring, Kismet commanded to circle the walls for six days, once in each day And seven rounds on the seventh day. On the seventh day, The ram’s horns were blowing And the soldiers were roaring a great roar, The walls fell down and the massacre began. Each month when the Moon God Weds his bride I remember what was done to me, Only for a little while. I raise a glass to Kismet And eyes to the sky. The astonishing magic life imparts, when the wish is solid and strong. True change embarks like a spark, diminishing dirty old wrongs. “Don’t make the same mistake twice” might work for some, We others, life enjoys us in zigzagging styles. Nevertheless, even in these wild roads, a chance to do the right thing is given. 10. My Two-Tree Forest On one side of the bed sleeps my husband, On the other side sleep I— In a fetal position facing a pile of books, which is burning on the bedside dresser. Attar and Zoroaster and Rumi, King Solomon and Khalil Gibran— All my teachers, my family, Hailing from Israel, or Lebanon, or Iran. I was feeling torn between them all, I was praying for a goddess to come and save me from my story. Uncomfortable with my non-Jewish tendencies, Ashamed of my not-necessarily-Israeli views. Although my life kept proving I was fine, My scorched tree was still burning. We sleep and my roots start weaving my extra-long rabbinic roots with the unbelievers’ Yekke ones from mom, Wrapping themselves with my husband’s Gentile roots, embracing, tightening. From the heart they go to Rumi, and from Solomon back to the heart. From the heart to my husband, and back again through to Attar. Until morning they plait, making a net to catch my attention one day. My neighbour the forest-fire expert says trees talk to each other through the roots. These night-talks might have prevented my total destruction by fire. I was raising two trees in my heart, the family tree and the other—the strange one. Two sides of life in this forest—one seen, one not. I was wondering if I am being intentionally bizarre while nourishing my unseen strange tree—as some sort of an answer to my lovely family one. And it is not exactly that closure came…but I was unexpectedly set free by Truth. Suddenly, in the middle of life, and there is no better way of saying it. Truth pushed me out of my story, and I just ... let go. What real love and its children couldn’t take care of, the long search for Karma did! Fate collapsed on me and exploded me into pieces of peace. ‘…The eternal silence never broken, the oppression supporting my breasts from within will remain my good friends…’ I wrote when I was sixteen… It has been a long way… Even great love can’t glue back missing parts, These parts must be found, and sometimes it takes many years. Nowadays, there is a two-tree forest here, Where these dominating scaffoldings were based when I was a teen. Two sides of life On the two sides of a bed, In a family of one and one other. And the distance between them—enormous, Though next to each other they stand. All I knew was that I am torn, I didn’t know the trees are not one— Until the lightning of Truth struck. Birds were flying in my forest from tree to tree all these years. They would nest and sing and call each other, trying to catch my ears. I confused it with the howl of my longing Soul. My husband shared me with poets under the roof of my mind, Secret masters and prophets lived with us on the side. My spirit was dancing in prayer, to understand, to see Through the love and the children, Through the love behind the love, behind me. I could not prove the burning tree is there, but I felt the fire. With each tree I was trying so hard to acknowledge the other, To recognise my-self. Swinging back and forth between two worlds, I have taken the swing down now, I am planting a rose in it. For living and leaving again and again— I just want to continue, but have no plans. For searching and loving, yet raising a family— All under the same name, yes! And oh, I have had another name for many years now, just to let you know. 11. We Slip Like Toy Dolls in a Claw Machine Cheating body! You Unfaithful companion! ‘Why’ is a monster with a thousand tails, And we are NOT doing that. I trusted you, you cursed traitor! The old lady on the plane once warned me, The Body’s betrayal is as sure as death. Turn a blind eye, No questions, Every Body runs away to cheat with Time. The (only) son of Madame life and Herr Death, Time was always a bit naughty when it comes to love. Undoubtedly because he was a rape-babe, Time partners with everyone living, But he especially likes the fully-bloomed. His clock-arms chopsticks grab his victims, But they all drop down in the last second, Like toy dolls in a claw machine. They slip away from time but they only have one place to run to. And his dad is just waiting there, all patience Under the pile. 12. The Battle for the Self (Folie à deux) That’s us; a flower with two petals resurrected across from each other, the last two. We’re the love and love-not ones – We don’t know which is who… and No one is picking us off., I walked towards you, double-sided mirror Bearing offerings and gemstones, I came bringing balance And you, well, you brought everything but. Sets of scales like these are rare and unpredictable A madness for two is no madness for one. Some share a love and some, a delusional disorder. Who am we? Me and you? Pardon, me and who? Who pretends to not be a you-and-a-me. Me me me and you you too Identities, animas, we’ve been them all. At night we do our lotus bend-fold surrendering into the moon’s reflection, of safety and of innocence. Together, To find ourselves on the other side Where the back door is never locked. The days and the nights went by connected Too connected; you knew from the first day, I found out on the last! “I know my persona” you trivially tricked me ‘On’ All I can say now as we say our goodbyes Is I know your persona too. Suddenly seeing, made me feel so ugly, but I couldn’t look away anymore! Disgusting and uncomforting as a chunk of puke My nastiest landed on your necklace A landing to mark a beginning to an end. Who gets the absolute worse out of me (unfortunately the best as well). Embarrassing, yet a bit funny, I don’t know what to feel or think and sadly, it’s not possible not to. It will never be explained, it will never be resolved, What was, was, and no one knows what it was, only that; it is No More. Just like the verses for two - merged into verses for one; I can sing for you, but I could use a song myself. The grand finale of our play, The End, over, so what. The last violent battle-for-the-Self, I don’t think I ever felt so quite absurd in my whole life So clumsy, so graceless. I want to say you made me, but I am not. For the dreadful last scene, I was abducted by a life force I can’t explain I was dropped on a magical castle’s porch straight to the combat stage. To this day I can not tell, which petal was I, but it matters no more, the flower is dry. No winners or losers in our fight - We wrestled as a way to separate. Unplugging 3 thousand years of love in a madness for two Bitter as hell yet sweet as the Desert Date 13. The Healing Trauma (Words unspoken turn back on you. Their letters uncurl, align, and group into darts. The arrowheads poke you inside and show the body how autoimmune is done…) Rubbing some thyme on the tomatoes I am about to roast I think of all the bad blood test results I could have prevented Had I only said all those wrong words Had all of us—ex-and-not-ex pill poppers, chemistry chewers, endocrine experts— Had we all spoken out, instead of hanging ourselves inside ourselves, chocking on these scarves of words. Where are they? (Words withdrawn hurt in a variety of pains; for each word unspoken you get a tear. The tears make rivers and their waters bow and fall…) A word unspoken stabs as she falls into the river, separating from what she could have been. This feels like inner acupuncture executed by a mad immature practitioner. You spasm in an arresting fear, again. Loud dead words are dropping bursting like seed bombs, sprinkling little sharp metals. Dead words, not ever said, not written, not once read. Between your ears the tears run an impressive deafening river Like the Niagara River flowing hard, preparing to fall. From sound to meaning! Born to sound, words find sense; sound is their oxygen. They voice their meanings within you, bumping into your decline. Leaking in your guts. Exhausting your being. Failing. The water falls down hard from the ears and the throat, hurting and torturing like an angry sea serpent spirit, Tsunami waves of unarticulated words break your torso front to back. Spindrift stinging the organs. Pressing in reverse to the walls of your body, it is absurd. Meanwhile I, washing the dishes in my lovely kitchen, fancy a big cough of all the wrong words draining into the old sink. I force a little throat clearing, but nothing happens. After all, it is the heart that is seeking attention… that old elephant in the room. (Awareness: You might find yourself waking up all bruised on the wild riverbank. Your body will shine under a diligent morning sun and you will instantly realize—it has happened again. You’ll slowly turn onto your back for a stretch, enjoying the earth, the moment, the only moment you got. You don’t need lots of experience to feel another buffalo herd approaching. Unmoving you’ll mumble: ‘go on then’...) When you get to be a child with this, then an adult like this, your tolerance level towards your offenders is just remarkable. Emerging new ripples of fear do not surprise you. You know what is coming and it is never good, but there’s always a moment of hope at the end of each sequence. Mentally, it is like washing dishes. You just deal with it. Emotionally, it is survival, you just endure until it is over. Bodily, well, she is often a victim of her own innocence. In the Spiritual zone, it does not exist. No impact whatsoever, the zone is not influenced and is not influencing. And finally, always way slower than the rest, in comes the brain, sluggishly crawling. Like a small-town sheriff facing a local murder for the very first time, Brainy is ‘taking control’ over the situation, ‘explaining’ and ‘advising’ to anyone who will listen. And no one does. The tomatoes are roasting and smelling so garlicky good, and a summer wind feels the graceful branches of my triple-trunk silver birch tree. ‘Perfect for a tree house’ we used to say.