“An Alley in Baka” and other poems

by Atar J. Hadari

An Alley in Baka

In an alley off Rachel Our Mother

in a puddle of spill round a drain

I saw a pigeon pecking her beakful

again and again –

She was stained red with clay dust

so it took time to recognize

but when I saw past her camouflage,

the asphalt, grey head, scared eyes –

I realized she was a landsman

trying to drink from a small stream:

a dove masquerading as an eagle

can only ever dream.

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Night Time Jerusalem

At a certain time of night

all the buses are going to the Kotel,

the way rivers run

or sand falls from a dustpan.

There isn't even one

woman on the streets of Jerusalem

showing a collar bone

except the girls on the game

in the bathroom 

of the Central Bus Station.

Nowhere to go on the bus

but to pray

and the train to the airport

leaves every half hour.

Boys in white shirts

and confused men in woolen hats

and the sound of silence

where there used to be thousands

swarming the citadels.

Now only the sound of the wall

standing resplendent

that has waited two thousand years

for someone to topple it.

Endnote:

Kotel (n.): wall, often used to refer in one word to the Western wall.

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Black Crow, King of Bins

With my hooked nose

and splayed feet

my feathers matted as the oil

that coats the street –

I own this town

and don’t forget whose mouth

will kiss your things

after you’ve thrown them

through the round

eye at the bottom of your world.

I have my friends

we know the value of a thing

and when we sing

no one can criticize

the high or low

only know this –

the grey-throated King of beasts

with wings wide as the fields

is coming

and he knows no tongue

that is not his for the taking

and no oven that isn’t open

for his burrowing.

Come, give me your hand

I only want the crust

not what you baked

for your daughter’s wedding,

or the diamond that you'd gladly lend

to have her home again.

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Atar Hadari trained as an actor before studying play-writing with Derek Walcott at Boston University. His plays have won awards from the BBC, Arts Council of England, National Foundation of Jewish Culture (New York), European Association of Jewish Culture (Brussels) and the RSC, where he was Young Writer in Residence. His plays have been staged at Finborough Theatre, Wimbledon Studio Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and West Yorkshire Playhouse. His sitcom script “Strictly Kosher” won an Alfred Bradley award from the BBC. His Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of H. N. Bialik (Syracuse University Press) was a finalist for the American Literary Translators’ Association Award., His first poetry collection Rembrandt’s Bible was published by Indigo Dreams. The Pen Translates award-winning Lives of the Dead: Collected Poems of Hanoch Levin is out now from Arc Publications.

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