The Poetry of Doug Tanoury

The Poetry of

Karen Alkalay-Gut

A POEM

a poem is a prayer

and some where

some one

is listening

SPAM

They have stopped sending messages

about enlarging my penis

and now invite me

to buy

wholesale painkillers

as if my unresponsiveness

to the possibility of augmented sex.

must mean

I am too much in agony

to enjoy it at all.

FELD HURE*

on Paul Goldman's photograph Nahalal 1945

You don't see her face:

the camera focuses on her upper chest

where the tattoo is exposed.

But you do see

her straight shoulders,

her strong fingers

holding back the black jersey

to facilitate

the documentary gaze.

If she's still alive

she's an old lady now

maybe 80 with

great grand children

if they didn't

sterilize her

to facilitate

performance

Feld hure

I had never heard

that term before

and now its meaning

has been seared

into my flesh.

*Field Whore

FOUND POEM

Could it really have been me

Only two three weeks ago

Who wrote these words

I find now by sheer accident

In some notebook meant

For other accounts? What

An ordeal I was going through

What a night of sheer torture

Unlike anything I can remember.

JUST OUTSIDE

Just outside the university I saw my lover

from over thirty years ago, waiting

in his car. He didn't see me

because he was eagerly searching

the crowd pushing through the gate

And I remembered how

once I saw him waiting for me

in a mob of people, and how his face

lit up when he spotted mine, and

my heart too

skipped, and now

how he

seems to be

in the same place

waiting

For Hwang Zu

Even if I am silent

I am thinking

Even if I do not utter a word

Do not take me for a wall

Even if I am playing computer solitaire

I am thinking

Even if I sit there

Red-eyed

Motionless

Except for the fingers of one hand

On the keys

Even when I keep losing

Do not take me for a wall

INVENTING DEATH

'Nor hope nor dread attend the dying animals./ Man has invented death'.

--Yeats

My old dog was never afraid of dying:

he looked into our eyes and trusted

even the injection we gave him

with all the love in the world.

But this one, this little terrier,

is always afeared, always seems to see

death holding his scythe high above her head.

I think she is more intelligent.

He lived his life and was ignorant.

POTATOES ON THE BEACH

The waitress seems surprised

that we order food-

Beer

should be just right

for afternoon on the beach.

But I've been hankering for fried potatoes

soft in the middle, crisp at the edge -

salt of the sea

and the smell of

deep

potatoes

a whole plate

just for the two of us

and our beer.

What was it

we wanted to talk about?

UNDER ROUSSEAU

I sleep beneath

the portrait of a peaceful lion

Between us lies

a smiling gypsy.

At night I hear them

whispering

about how I

could easily

change my life

with peace

a smile

and a moon

illuminating it all

intensive care

For days she lay, her face marking the pain

though her eyes remained shut. We'd tug

at the sleeve of the nurse to ask for more morphine

who would nod and look away absently

at the other patients in Intensive Care,

as if to say there are others who may be cured,

return to life and remember their pain, but

she was soon beyond all care.

You paced outside the room,

obedient little child waiting for permission

to interrupt the adults, keeping busy

by diverting the littler ones,

almost sixty and just about

to become a true orphan.

Then someone dragged you in,

pushed you to the bed,

And then you said, "Hello Mommy,"

Her eyes opened wide, and suddenly, like a sun,

She smiled.

Mirrors

In the flat where she rented a room

the hall was long and dark

and the landlord slept

at the other end

in the darkest corner

In the flat where she rented a room

her window looked on the street

and the bums of Broadway

looked up from the betting office

just across.

In the flat where she rented a room

the bathroom

was full

of mirrors

leaning on the floor,

tacked to the walls

And the landlord

disappeared

into a closet next door

whenever she

walked down the hall

to take a shower

INHERITANCE

The sign you have lived a good life

is that your children forgive you -

Not because your sins are small

but that you have raised them

to forgive

About Karen

Karen Alkalay-Gut has published in very different media, including on walls and clothing. Two CDs of very different nature, "The Paranormal in our Daily Lives," (http://www.alsopreview.com)and "Thin Lips"

(http://www.thinlips.com) are available online.

Her twentieth book of poetry, So Far, So Good has been co-published in October, 2004 by Boulevard (Oxford) and Sivan (Tel Aviv).

Her website is http://www.karenalkalay-gut.com.

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