New Poems

Cyclamens and Swords Publishing April 2010 Newsletter

Mester utca 42*

My green house is in ruins. As such,

Remembered, never mind:

It won’t amount to  much.

Not a heavy loss:

You’ll find another:

A grave, still greener.

Moss grows on it, and grass.

*In Hungary, Budapest. We lived there, but left for a yellow-starred slum. My late grandmother's. Should have inherited it, but got instead 72 shekel as  recompensation  for its being appropriated by the state and before its undergoing demolition.  

On the bus
 
The motor, the loose windows in their frames
The noise of the street, the murmuring voices,
All the turbulent phenomenon of the noisy street
Contribute to create this spherical
music, music of no Place or Time.
The mind floats amid colorful rags of memories,
Amidst the waves, moved by the winds,
Catching some strolling-by ideas from the
Foam and froth,
Trying to rearrange them between unfixed
Points of time,
Trying to appoint them a point of departure
A point of destination.
An outcast from the warm inside
Of the mellifluous, soporific womb of the bus
You step down the stairs and meet the rushing
Solid good reality of the earth,
Rising towards you, (and, for a last and lost minute
– While stepping down, your head is still far above -)
The land springs towards your seven-mile-jumping-boot
And the people with their everyday faces
Come and go and you mingle in the crowd
Disappearing
Between them on the hard pavement of solid
nonbeing

Moshe Ganan

Moshe Ganan is now 78 years old and feels he is born every day anew. He was born in Budapest, came to Israel 1947 (through Germany, U.N.R.RA. camps, Cyprus). Fought in the Palmach. He studied for his B.A at the Hebrew University, English Department, for his M.A. in Hebrew Literature and German Literature (1996-2006). He has two children, a boy (30) and a girl, (25). He has written nine books and publishes poetry, short stories, critiques in many Hebrew Literary newspapers.