Once A Great Love by Yehuda Amichai
Once a great love cut my life in two. The first part goes on twisting at some other place like a snake cut in two. The passing years have calmed me and brought healing to my heart and rest to my eyes. And I’m like someone standing in the Judean desert, looking at a sign: […]
On Rabbi Kook’s Street by Yehuda Amichai
On Rabbi Kook’s Street I walk without this good man– A streiml he wore for prayer A silk top hat he wore to govern, fly in the wind of the dead above me, float on the water of my dreams. I come to the Street of Prophets–there are none. And the Street of Ethiopians–there are […]
Of Three Or Four In The Room by Yehuda Amichai
Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at the window. Forced to see the injustice amongst the thorns, The fires on the hills. And people who left whole Are brought home in the evening, like small change. Out of three or four in the room One is always standing at […]
Near The Wall Of A House by Yehuda Amichai
Near the wall of a house painted to look like stone, I saw visions of God. A sleepless night that gives others a headache gave me flowers opening beautifully inside my brain. And he who was lost like a dog will be found like a human being and brought back home again. Love is not […]
My Father by Yehuda Amichai
The memory of my father is wrapped up in white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day at work. Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits out of his hat, he drew love from his small body, and the rivers of his hands overflowed with good deeds. ————— The End And that’s the End […]
My Child Wafts Peace by Yehuda Amichai
My child wafts peace. When I lean over him, It is not just the smell of soap. All the people were children wafting peace. (And in the whole land, not even one Millstone remained that still turned). Oh, the land torn like clothes That can’t be mended. Hard, lonely fathers even in the cave of […]
Memorial Day For The War Dead by Yehuda Amichai
Memorial day for the war dead. Add now the grief of all your losses to their grief, even of a woman that has left you. Mix sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history, which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning on one day for easy, convenient memory. Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread, in sweet milk […]
Love Of Jerusalem by Yehuda Amichai
There is a street where they sell only red meat And there is a street where they sell only clothes and perfumes. And there is a day when I see only cripples and the blind And those covered with leprosy, and spastics and those with twisted lips. Here they build a house and there they […]
Jerusalem by Yehuda Amichai
On a roof in the Old City Laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight: The white sheet of a woman who is my enemy, The towel of a man who is my enemy, To wipe off the sweat of his brow. In the sky of the Old City A kite. At the other end of […]
If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem by Yehuda Amichai
If I forget thee, Jerusalem, Then let my right be forgotten. Let my right be forgotten, and my left remember. Let my left remember, and your right close And your mouth open near the gate. I shall remember Jerusalem And forget the forest — my love will remember, Will open her hair, will close my […]
I Want To Die In My Own Bed by Yehuda Amichai
All night the army came up from Gilgal To get to the killing field, and that’s all. In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead. I want to die in My own bed. Like slits in a tank, their eyes were uncanny, I’m always the few and they are the many. I must answer. […]
I Know A Man by Yehuda Amichai
I know a man who photographed the view he saw from the window of the room where he made love and not the face of the woman he loved there. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of […]
I Have Become Very Hairy by Yehuda Amichai
I have become very hairy all over my body. I’m afraid they’ll start hunting me because of my fur. My multicolored shirt has no meaning of love — it looks like an air photo of a railway station. At night my body is open and awake under the blanket, like eyes under the blindfold of […]
I Don’t Know If History Repeats Itself by Yehuda Amichai
I don’t Know if history repeats itself But I do know that you don’t. I remember that city was didvided Not only between Jews and Arabs, But Between me and you, When we were there together. We made ourselves a womb of dangers We built ourselves a house of deadening wars Like men of far […]
Half The People In The World by Yehuda Amichai
Half the people in the world love the other half, half the people hate the other half. Must I because of this half and that half go wandering and changing ceaselessly like rain in its cycle, must I sleep among rocks, and grow rugged like the trunks of olive trees, and hear the moon barking […]
God Has Pity On Kindergarten Children by Yehuda Amichai
God has pity on kindergarten children, He pities school children — less. But adults he pities not at all. He abandons them, And sometimes they have to crawl on all fours In the scorching sand To reach the dressing station, Streaming with blood. But perhaps He will have pity on those who love truly And […]
God Full Of Mercy by Yehuda Amichai
God-Full-of-Mercy, the prayer for the dead. If God was not full of mercy, Mercy would have been in the world, Not just in Him. I, who plucked flowers in the hills And looked down into all the valleys, I, who brought corpses down from the hills, Can tell you that the world is empty of […]
Forgetting Someone by Yehuda Amichai
Forgetting someone is like forgetting to turn off the light in the backyard so it stays lit all the next day But then it is the light that makes you remember. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository […]
Ein Yahav by Yehuda Amichai
A night drive to Ein Yahav in the Arava Desert, a drive in the rain. Yes, in the rain. There I met people who grow date palms, there I saw tamarisk trees and risk trees, there I saw hope barbed as barbed wire. And I said to myself: That’s true, hope needs to be like […]
Do Not Accept by Yehuda Amichai
Do not accept these rains that come too late. Better to linger. Make your pain An image of the desert. Say it’s said And do not look to the west. Refuse To surrender. Try this year too To live alone in the long summer, Eat your drying bread, refrain From tears. And do not learn […]
Before by Yehuda Amichai
Before the gate has been closed, before the last quetion is posed, before I am transposed. Before the weeds fill the gardens, before there are no pardons, before the concrete hardens. Before all the flute-holes are covered, beore things are locked in then cupboard, before the rules are discovered. Before the conclusion is planned, before […]
And We Shall Not Get Excited by Yehuda Amichai
And we shall not get excited. Because a translator May not get excited. Calmly, we shall pass on Words from man to son, from one tongue To others’ lips, un- Knowingly, like a father who passes on The features of his dead father’s face To his son, and he himself is like neither of them. […]
An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion by Yehuda Amichai
An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy. An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father Both in their temporary failure. Our two voices met above The Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us. Neither of us wants the boy or […]
A Precise Woman by Yehuda Amichai
A precise woman with a short haircut brings order to my thoughts and my dresser drawers, moves feelings around like furniture into a new arrangement. A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided into upper and lower, with weather-forecast eyes of shatterproof glass. Even her cries of passion follow a certain […]
A Pity, We Were Such A Good Invention by Yehuda Amichai
They amputated Your thighs off my hips. As far as I’m concerned They are all surgeons. All of them. They dismantled us Each from the other. As far as I’m concerned They are all engineers. All of them. A pity. We were such a good And loving invention. An aeroplane made from a man and […]
A Jewish Cemetery In Germany by Yehuda Amichai
On a little hill amid fertile fields lies a small cemetery, a Jewish cemetery behind a rusty gate, hidden by shrubs, abandoned and forgotten. Neither the sound of prayer nor the voice of lamentation is heard there for the dead praise not the Lord. Only the voices of our children ring out, seeking graves and […]
A Dog After Love by Yehuda Amichai
After you left me I let a dog smell at My chest and my belly. It will fill its nose And set out to find you. I hope it will tear the Testicles of your lover and bite off his penis Or at least Will bring me your stockings between his teeth. ————— The End […]
Untitled XXVII by Yunus Emre
Our laws are different from other laws. Our religion is like no other. It is different from the seventy-two sects. We are guided by different signs, In this world an hereafter. Without cleansing of visible waters, without any movement of hands, feet, or head- we worship Whether at the Kaaba, in the mosque, or in […]
Untitled XXVI by Yunus Emre
The mature ones are a sea. A lover is needed to take the plunge, a diver to bring up a pearl. When you have brought the pearl to the surface, a jeweler is needed to know its worth. Stay on the road until you arrive. Be speechless. Don’t become a salesman. Find an ‘Ali to […]
Untitled XXV by Yunus Emre
Let’s say the name of Allah all the time. Let’s see what my Lord does. Let’s travel the Way always. Let’s see what my Lord does. Just when you least expect it, suddenly the veil is lifted. The remedy arrives in time. Let’s see what my Lord does. What did Yunus do? What did he […]
Untitled XXIX by Yunus Emre
I haven’t come here to settle down. I’ve come here to depart. I am a merchant with lots of goods, selling to whoever will buy. I didn’t come to create any problems, I’m only here to love. A Heart makes a good home for the Friend. I’ve come to build some hearts. I’m a little […]
Untitled XXIV by Yunus Emre
The drink sent down from Truth, we drank it, glory be to God. And we sailed over the Ocean of Power, glory be to God. Beyond those hills and oak woods, beyond those vineyards and gardens, we passed in health and joy, glory be to God. We were dry, but we moistened. We grew wings […]
Untitled XXIII by Yunus Emre
We entered the house of realization, we witnessed the body. The whirling skies, the many-layered earth, the seventy-thousand veils, we found in the body. The night and the day, the planets, the words inscribed on the Holy Tablets, the hill that Moses climbed, the Temple, and Israfil’s trumpet, we observed in the body. Torah, Psalms, […]
Untitled XXII by Yunus Emre
Ask those who know, what’s this soul within the flesh? Reality’s own power. What blood fills these veins? Thought is an errand boy, fear a mine of worries. These sighs are love’s clothing. Who is the Khan on the throne? Give thanks for His unity. He created when nothing existed. And since we are actually […]
Untitled XXI by Yunus Emre
If I told you about a land of love, friend, would you follow me and come? In that land are vineyards that yield a deadly wine- no glass can hold it. Would you swallow it as a remedy? The people there must suffer. Would you serve the sweetest drink to others and take the bitter […]
Untitled XX by Yunus Emre
Whoever is given the dervish path may his posturing cease and may he shine. May his breath become musk and amber. May whole cities and homelands gather fruit from his branches. May his leaves be healing herbs for the sick. May much good work be done in his shadow. May his tears become a clear […]
Untitled XVIII by Yunus Emre
If you break a true believer’s heart once, It’s no prayer to God-this obeisance, All of the world’s seventy-two nations Cannot wash the dirt off your hands and face. There are the sages-they have come and gone. Leaving their world behind them, they moved on. They flapped their wings and flew to the True One, […]
Untitled XVII by Yunus Emre
I wonder-is anyone here A stranger as forlorn as I? His heart wounded, his eyes tearful A stranger as forlorn as I? Let no one be lonesome like me Or writhe in exile’s agony. Teacher, I hope no one will be A stranger as forlorn as I. They’ll say, “He’s dead. that sad stranger” Hearing […]
Untitled XIX by Yunus Emre
Go and let it be known to all lovers: I am the man who gave his heart to love. I turn into a wild duck of passion, I am the one who takes the swiftest dive. From the waves of the sea I take water And offer it all the way to the skies. In […]
Untitled XIV by Yunus Emre
All men in the whole wide world adore Him whom we adore; How could we deny entry, it’s a road or open door? Whatever, whomever we love, our Loved One also loves; Can the friend of our Friend have something to doubt or abhor? If you are a true lover, befriend the friend of the […]