The Immigrant's Lament was first published in hebrew in 1994. Benarroch's poetry has been published in a dozen languages, including Urdu and Chinese. Julia Uceda considers that Benarroch holds the memory of the world in his poetry, while Jose Luis Garcia Martin thinks that his poems are more than poetry, they are a document. "If I had a nomination vote for the nobel prize he'd be in the running." Klaus Gerken, Ygdrasil editor. His reputation has been steadily growing and his books have been published in Spain, Israel and the U.S.A. Benarroch was awarded the prime minister literary prize in 2008 and the Yehuda Amichai poetry prize in 2012.
THE IMMIGRANT’S LAMENT
*
In Morocco I was the center
of all the parties
a social phenomenon
always surrounded by friends
until I came to Israel
and ended up in a corner
the corner of all the parties
I stopped going
always on the outside
the outsiderwhen
I came
I became a poet.
*
I can see you
Moshe
I can see you my friend Moshe
a twelve and a half year old boy
sensitive and lazy
I love you Moshe
I see you after the Bar Mitzvah
your mother announcing that
tonight we are leaving
I see you with the suitcases
always looking for something secure
suddenly nothing is secure
I see you in Ceuta
waiting for your father to sell the buildings
for peanuts
the Arab took out a knife
before he finally paid in Spain
I see you on the ship
on the way to Algeciras
I see you dreaming
dreaming of the land of Israel
dreaming a dream
a wonderful dream
with a temple
a dream full of light
I see you full of joy
traveling through Spain
in Valencia, in Barcelona
see you full of happiness and full of hope
that the land of Israel will heal
your brother Ari who is dying
see you in a hired taxi
you are wonderful Moshe
trying to be loved by everybody
tired and lazy
but always nice
I see you arriving at Marseille
entering the bus there
your father is angry
at the manager of the transit hotel
the sewer is plugged
shit is flowing everywhere
everything is wonderful
but there is shit everywhere
you cannot know what is awaiting you
I see you Moshe
landing in the land of Israel
half-drunk in the airport
you don't understand what is happening
but you don’t kiss the land
or more precisely the asphalt
I see you
a week in the boarding school
of Aliyat Hanoar
a week you cried without stopping
I see the nice tutor
coming from the boy scouts
saying you, you are too big to cry
and you cry even more
that it’s going to pass
and you cry even more
I see you Moshe
and my heart goes out to you
I love you Moshe
and suffer with you there
in Zichron-Yaacov
when will you forget Moshe
when will forgive
a week later your mother came to save you
took you to the secondary school
in Pardes-Hanna
they didn’t want you in 9th grade
in spite of skipping a class
because of your age
and your mother
“why should he lose a year?”
Insisting and insisting
till you finished the final exams
at sixteen and a half
and then waited a year
studying physics and mathematics
at the Hebrew University
she pushed you to this too
always pushing
you wanted to walk slowly
It took you so long to learn to go slow
my heart goes out to you Moshe
Moshe the immigrant
Moshe looking for redemption
Moshe disappointed
Moshe crying
Moshe becoming religious
Moshe a half-year atheist
Moshe who doesn’t get along with girls
Moshe believing in reincarnation
Moshe studying mathematics
Moshe studying literature
Moshe wanting to be a poet
Moshe running after literary editors
Moshe editing a literary review
Moshe writing a novel in 3 weeks
Moshe writing thousands of poems
Moshe writing ten novels
nobody publishes
Moshe always trying to be loved
by people
Moshe after people who don’t understand
his sensitivity
Moshe who wants to be loved for his poems
Moshe my heart goes out to you truly
Moshe I love you
in all your searching
in all your impossible searching
Moshe who knows everything will have
an explanation one day.
Two things always
writing and listening to music
music
especially after you visited your cousin
in Madrid
arrived religious and returned a heretic
there you bought
your first Van Morrison record
since then you bought them all
and thousands more
always music and writing
to save yourself
from going insane
in this crazy world
my heart goes out to you
Moshe the poet
Moshe the true poet
I love you at last
with all your travels
with all your suffering
I would caress you
in every step of your life
caress and kiss you
me who hated you so much
who suffered so much from you
now I love you
all the yous
you ever were.
Twenty years twenty
passed since those two weeks
that changed your life
the last week of August
and the first week of September
nineteen seventy two
everyday changed your life
making you a poet
writing in Hebrew
in your land
and not a writer
writing in a foreign language
in a foreign land
twenty years
in which you tried so hard to escape
not loving yourself
not wanting to be like the others
writing about suicide
angry at God
twenty
with asthma and without asthma
with allergies and skin sores
angina and digestive pain
crazy eating, women problems
trying to escape reality
trying to escape Israeli society
travelling abroad as much as possible
and coming back
to Paris, specially to Paris
dreaming about living there
marrying a French woman
emigrating to France, what else,
but she, what else,
just not to go back to France,
each one his own escape
always weak in front of women
and difficult to make changes
you are still here
with all the oxymoron and all the morons
possible inside your head
feeling the most here
and most there that is possible
so close to the land of Israel
and so far away from the State of Israel.
I love you Moshe
and I enjoy writing it
at last I love you
with all that you did
and all that you failed
and all that you fucked up
and all that you are ridiculous
and with all your running
away from here and escaping again
and again escaping
and still, staying here
I love you
Moroccan, Spanish, Sephardi,
European, looks Ashkenazi,
Western, Eastern, Mediterranean,
Middle-eastern, Palestinian,
African, French
with all the things you are and aren’t
I love you crazy and insane
and most logical
but then it is you
it is all the you that made me
and I love you.
*
I embrace you
go to the world
love it
give it all you have to give
even what it can’t accept
give the world all your love
all you have learned
and your experience
in all your previous lives
it won’t accept
but it needs you
the world needs you
it needs your love
give it
but don’t expect any reward
go to the world
go to God
go
don’t be afraid anymore
I caress you good-bye
go your way
I kiss you good-bye
go.
*
This land in which I was not born
said the immigrant
this land in which my children were born
now I leave it
like a man leaves his lover
who cheated on him
like a man leaves the mother
of his children
in pain in joy in suffocation in liberation
that’s the way I leave this land
in which I did not plant a tree
in which I did not seek revenge
and if you say this is a descent
I will tell you, said that same immigrant,
it is a descent meant to go up
and if this is your face
I am an ass
and if these are your legs
I am a wheelchair
everyday in my land is suffocation
and everyday abroad is oxygen
I travel twice a year abroad
to have enough oxygen to breath here
and not suffocate
in this ghetto, in this mellahh,
this land in which I was not born
my children were born here
this land
didn’t rejoice toward me
and didn’t give me joy
nor did I rejoice toward her
in spite of not having another land
beside her
not having
but, said the man angry
with tears in his eyes,
it is impossible for things
to be done infinitely
just for lack
of alternatives.
Genre: POETRY / General
often TOP 10 in middle eastern poetry, and TOP 20 in poetry in amazon.com. It is considered and Israeli modern classic.
In Morocco I was the center
of all the parties
a social phenomenon
always surrounded by friends
until I came to Israel
and ended up in a corner
the corner of all the parties
I stopped going
always on the outside
the outsiderwhen
I came
I became a poet.
*
I can see you
Moshe
I can see you my friend Moshe
a twelve and a half year old boy
sensitive and lazy
I love you Moshe
I see you after the Bar Mitzvah
your mother announcing that
tonight we are leaving
I see you with the suitcases
always looking for something secure
suddenly nothing is secure
I see you in Ceuta
waiting for your father to sell the buildings
for peanuts
the Arab took out a knife
before he finally paid in Spain
I see you on the ship
on the way to Algeciras
I see you dreaming
dreaming of the land of Israel
dreaming a dream
a wonderful dream
with a temple
a dream full of light
I see you full of joy
traveling through Spain
in Valencia, in Barcelona
see you full of happiness and full of hope
that the land of Israel will heal
your brother Ari who is dying
see you in a hired taxi
you are wonderful Moshe
trying to be loved by everybody
tired and lazy
but always nice
I see you arriving at Marseille
