Moshe Benarroch: Ethnic Minority
To Be An Ethnic Minority
©1998 Moshe Benarroch
When you speak about your past they say you only speak about the past
when you speak about other things they don’t listen
when you shout they say you are a screamer
if you speak politely they are impressed
if you cry they say you are a weeper
if you object they say you are a liar
if you laugh they say you are a clown
If you criticize out of concern for the future they demand you mind your own business
whatever you do you both come out bald. and you balder.
good being alone
©1998 Moshe Benarroch
It’s so good being alone I write you poems I sing the trees it’s so good being alone on my way to London on my way to Paris on my way to you I sing the trees the snow and the wind I sing Europe I sing you a love song
It’s so good being alone such a wonderful loneliness of coming back to you.
Can a Poem Help?
©1998 Moshe Benarroch
You buy clothes and I buy records you cough and I have hemorrhoids
When discussions go well into the night and the feeling is that only the wall understands that all paths lead to a dead end road that everything is gray and gray and gray and nothing is white or black
You wear yellow clothes and I go to Fendelkraiss looking for a way to fly abroad for a month or trying by all means to avoid you
How can a poem help...
Suddenly she was more beautiful...
©1998 Moshe Benarroch
Suddenly she was more beautiful than ever her face shone and rejoiced but I didn’t love her anymore her beauty was strange to me her smile didn’t make me laugh I couldn’t listen to what she was saying her doubts didn’t interest me suddenly the woman most close to me was the strangest of all I felt closer to any woman in the street her beauty didn’t touch me I could almost ask excuse me, do I know you? Your face is familiar to me I really can’t remember I can’t remember I see you everyday.
antipoetry
©1998 Moshe Benarroch
Like Nicanor Parra I write antipoetry antipoems for antipeople in antibooks antipoems for anticritics for antireaders antipoetry for antiassholes in the antimatter antielectrons in the antiatoms for antideaf in my antiadaptation to the literary world in the antigroup of the antiliterature antipoetry for antieditors for antiprizes for antilectors for anticorrectors for antipublishers and it is not because I don’t like poetry or because I don’t like critics, it is because, like any other antipoet I only know how to write antipoetry.