and I long for the one who sees me through touching, and I don’t remember a thing. Only this.

Press for slides

R A S S O U L I

Presentation designing by MirrorsSarit Shatz

AMIR OR, b. 1956, is the author of eight volumes of poetry and a fictional epic in metered prose. His latest book The Museum of Time was written in Both Hebrew and English. Or's poems have been published in more than

30 languages, including four books in English translation.For his poetry he has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize ,

the Bernstein Prize and the Fulbright Award; as well as Fellowships at theUniversity of Iowa the Jewish-Hebrew Centre of the University of Oxford, and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Achill Island, among others.Amir Or is also a teacher, translator, and editor. He studied philosophyand Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where helater lectured on Ancient Greek Religion. He has published articles on poetry,classic studies and religious studies, and has taught poetry and creativeWriting In universities in Israel, the UK, and Japan. Or has published several books of translations into Hebrew, including The Gospel of Thomas (1992) ,Limb-Loosening Desire - An Anthology of Erotic Greek Poetry (1993),and Stories From The Mahabharata (1998). For his translations of poetry fromAncient Greek he received the Honorary Prize of the Israeli Minister of Culture .

In 1990 Or founded “Helicon”, the Society for the Advancement of Poetry, and hasbeen its Editor-in-Chief since then. In 1993 he set up the Arabic-Hebrew HeliconPoetry School. He initiated and edited the “Helicon journal” and its series of poetrybooks. He has founded and directed the Sha’ar International Poetry Festival.Or is a founding member of the European Network of Creative Writing Programsand the National Coordinator of the U.N.-sponsored Poets for Peace.

I'm fixing what I can. Yes, it's going to hurt.Don't look, don't touch the stitches; walk on in between the lines. There you'll find the right poem

Language says: before languagestands a language. Language is tracesstained by over there.Language says: listen now.You listen: here wasecho.

Take silence and try to be silent.Take the words and try to speak:beyond language, language is a woundfrom which the world flows and flows.Language says: is, is not, is ,is not. Language says: I.Language says: come on, let’s speak you,let’s handle you; come on, say

you’ve said –

From: LANGUAGE SAYSLANGUAGE SAYS 2001Translated by Fiona Sampson and the author

LANGUAGE SAYS

Paul Wilkins

Mary Titus

Some say life is continuing in the face of the alternative ;some say - conquest; some stretch an equals sign

between life and its absence; and some say that lifewas given us to serve those whose lives are not a life. I say: you.And this is easily explained: once again night envelops

what can be seen. At home lamps are lit. And in the light there’s no glance except the one from the mirror, nothing except what sees me

seeing it; and it brings not release but longing, not death but life. And I take from this gaze the warm and the cold –

night envelops everything-

SOME SAY

and I long for the one who sees me through touching ,and I don’t remember a thing. Only this.

From POEM 2004Translated by Helena Berg

How to say this? You’re too close to bear,you are fruit bursting in the heart,you are the name the dumb mouth bearslike sea in the earth’s palm.I touch, and envy my touching hand;touching, I yearn to touch.

Terror of this motionless moment:you are here inside here inside here.Here the soul-fire burns, burns.The heart unconsumed.

From DAY 2006Translated by Fiona Sampson and the author

El Amor Brujo

Timoty Lantz

Dryad

She starts at dusk in the treessunk deep into the essence of shadowtheir edges still half material as green as the heart.She's nesting within herself deep in its waterher branches shadow arms taking roots in the dark.

Twilight's already grey and so are the eyes .She sinks slowlyher thighs water and cold black earth humus

just a flickering glitter passing through leaves– eyes. Hunger.

Your feet are sinking and opening your navel moist and coldyour face rustling .Roots are branches groping for a face–

From THE MUSEUM OF TIME 2007

This was the eighth day of creation:clouds absorbed burning brush-strokesacross the bluish-grey width of the sky.

Our souls struggled towards the firelike beautiful insectsbut the plane – was all forwards, drawing out its line.Indifferent to the heavenly cataclysmit passed far above.

At dawn under lampshades of cloudsthe being-artist dipped his brush in thin lightand peaceful autumn was silently drawn into the tops of the plane treesgradually matching them with patches of roof among waterfalls of Russian vine

The air’s clean of thoughts;what can be seen - nameless, packed with dreams.Between patches of wandering worlds, the world’sslowly risinghere and there, in my eyes.

ART

From DAY 2006

The perfect murder has no reasons, he said ,the perfect murder needs only a perfect object,as it was in Auschwitz.Not the crematoria, of course, but as it wasafterwards, outside working hours.And he fell silentlooking at the froth on the beerand taking a sip.

The perfect murder is love, he said.The perfect murder doesn’t require anything perfectexcept givingas much as you can.Even the memory of gripping the throatis eternal. Even the howls that rocked my hand,even the piss that fell like grace on cold flesh,even the heel of the boot awakens another eternity,even the silence,he said,looking at the froth .

True, a decent arbeit macht frei ,but a perfect murder doesn’t spilla drop,like the lips of a child, he explained,like sand and froth,like you ,listening,sipping and listening

From MIRACLE 1995Translated by Theo Dorgan, Tony Curtis, McDara Woods

A GLASS OF BEER

Touch this with your eye. Do you see it?

Only a lonely crow is piercing the morning with his uncanny urgency.

The trees are still deep with nightenfolding dimensions in their foliage caves.

My eyes take a morning walk, roam the half-light world where dream and wakefulness aren’t yet distinguished from shadows and leaves.

A lazy sun’s rising in my lazy eyes a cool blue emerges from the east.I’m leaning against the sea at the back of my heart :

Sand and Time

to enter and be entered is all we do .From THE MUSEUM OF TIME 2007

In the corner of the room – pleasure. A pink tongue lappingeach drop of milk from the cat's veins.

Fish swim the lower belly- it's painful for them

but they know nothing about it nothing at all. The body's quiet now. It's all leftovers.The spirit breathing gently above it

is left to its reflection. The mirror-birdis spreading, with difficulty ,

a single wing.

Love Bed

From THE MUSEUM OF TIME 2007

Charnine

DROWNING, HE BREATHES LIVING WATER

My Narcissus, in the end you got used to it. You sprouted gillson the sides of your neck and sliding down down

sprawled among stems and water. And the echo became a wave and the reflection a place and you looked and looked and looked

toward the skyline of water. And leapt out again to me.

And the thunder returned to silence, the water to being a screen ,the eye - to marble. You came back into me.

And the echo became a voice and the reflection a face and you were released.

Comesit down.

From POEM 2004Translated by Helena Berg

Leave the road here, wanderer,Sit down among mulberries and vines,Between water and shade, by this white stone,Here I lie, boy and Emperor.

My face cold marble, my hands, my feet,Clothed with ivy and fallen leaves,I, too, failed to get far,I, too, once walked the earth.

Leave the road here, wanderer,Crush these wild berries in my face

From MIRACLE 1995Translated by Theo Dorgan, Tony Curtis, McDara Woods

EPITAPH

A CORRECTION

for the sin of being spoiled with words and mistaking the call of Love ;for turning away from myself like shadow from body, face from heart; for the sin of ‘What will they say?’; for self denial; for pride;for the sin of having followed the spell of praise under the stage lights;for my ear that has abandoned listening ,for the utterance of the mouth which I have spoken, yet my soul has not; for sin I’ve committed against my own body with the rod and no kindness ,beating my breast; for calling Yours my own ;for having sinned before You by anxiety and vain fear ,for having fed the fire of doubt from the log of the tree of plenty;for having been dilatory in growing ;

for having shut my door and having neither heard nor seen nor let happiness enter mewhen beholding Your being .

From DAY 2006Translated from Hebrew by Fiona Sampson and the author

Poetry is a Criminal Girl Arabic, Faradis publishers, Paris 1995Miracle English/Hebrew, Poetry Ireland, Dublin 1998 Drowning, He Breathes Living Water Macedonian, the Pleiades Series of the SPE International Festival, 2000Language Says English, Poetry Miscellaneous, Chattanooga USA, 2001Poem English, Dedalus Press, Dublin 2004Day English, Dedalus Press, Dublin 2006Let's Speak You Romanian/Hebrew, Poem and selected, Vinea Press, Bucharest 2006Poem Polish, Portret Publishers, Olsztyn 2006

In translation

I Look Through The Monkeys’ Eyes Eqed Publishers, Tel Aviv 1987Faces Am Oved Publishers, Tel Aviv 1991Ransoming The Dead Bitan Publishers, Tel Aviv 1994So! Hakkibutz Hameuchad Publishing House, Tel Aviv 1995Poem Hakkibutz Hameuchad Publishing House, Tel Aviv 1996Day Hakkibutz Hameuchad / Tag publishers, Tel Aviv 1998The Song of Tahira Hargol Publishers, Tel Aviv 2001The Museum Of Time English / Hebrew Hakkibutz Hameuchad, Tel Aviv Arc, Manchester 2007

Englishhttp://israel.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/25662http://www.poetrylifeandtimes.com/poetnewsJan01.htmlhttp://www.poetrylifeandtimes.com/poetnewsFeb01.htmlhttp://www.eurozine.com/article/1999-11-02-anthology4-en.htmlhttp://www.eurozine.com/article/1999-11-02-or-en.htmlhttp://www.traktor.cz/trafika/amiror.htmlhttp://www.newropeans-magazine.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1522&Itemid=88http://www.poetrylifeandtimes.com/poetnewsFeb01.htmlhttp://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2003/5/Hebrew%20Poetry%20in%20the%20New%20Millenniumhttp://www.ithl.org.il/authors.htmlhttp://motherbird.com/AmirOr.htmlhttp://www.eurozine.com/article/1999-11-02-anthology4-en.htmlhttp://www.eurozine.com/partner/helicon/selfdescription.htmlhttp://www.artvilla.com/mair/ormenu.htmlhttp://www.e-mago.co.il/e-magazine/asotsosiiitlfy-eles.htmlhttp://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0810/p11s02-legn.html

Macedonianhttp://www.blesok.com.mk/tekst.asp?lang=mac&tekst=193&str=5

Russianhttp://www.plexus.org.il/texts/or_comp.htmhttp://www.il4u.org.il/ariel/ariel29/poems.htm

Slovakhttp://www.ssn.sk/ar/oramirtext.htm

Japanesehttp://www.geocities.co.jp/Bookend/2240/amirpoem.html http://www.geocities.co.jp/Bookend/2240/amir.home.html

Germanhttp://www.neuesirene.de/12or.htm

Greekhttp://www.enet.gr/online/online_text?c=113&id=32296632

Write to me:Amir Or