Men are cautious
they rather spurn their chances

than to rely on their noses, but
they can be seduced to take a little bite

if you insist and
have not gotten sick from it yourself

Indeed, it started
with the famous apple, a fig

After the first one he too wanted more
We learned

to look through the foliage
to remember where the trees are

and how to get there, to smell
where the fruit is ripe

We got up earlier than the others
and left in the moonlight

to be the first just a little further away
and get the prize

We grew in our head
and became human

It's a false story
of man, wif and wiff-or
that the world draws

the widespread story
that wif is a hole
in man's chest
costing him a rib time and again

(poor man, first drawn out
of the clay by God
and then by seven horses)

the male fantasy of of wo-man
the dream image she must play
to be watched, not seen
a man-nequin

(a bit fairy, a bit whore
sometimes a muse to his soul
and the mother of his children)

Lilith was just like him -
from the clay, not as docile
as me; she left him

She prefers to roam
the world, seducing
men in the evening and robbing

families of their babies
so say the malicious tongues
that blacken everyone

who does not fit in their rules
It's true that she lives in trees
like a snake, I saw her once

at least, I think it was she
who praised me for my brain
and showed me the ripe fruits

With Adam I got two children
rib from his ribs, blood of my blood
The third was later made up

by the false tongues
that whitewash everything
that does not fit in their rules

Adam mapped it out
in the sand: the river
flows to the middle

of the day, opposite
are the mountains, steady
in place

although they seem to float
like clouds on which the wind
has no hold

We followed the river
Life became harder
with worries about the children

and the grandchildren
I wouldn't have wanted to miss it
Only Abel, oh Abel

who was so prideful
to believe thoughtlessly
that he knew better

Good boy Abel
didn't sleep at home
considering himself better

He preferred to stay alone
with the animals in the field
and the dogs as guards

because everything had to be like then
in Paradise, that region
of the stories

he always asked for again

He wanted to know everything about our lives
the wandering about, the berries
nuts, goats and cows

And he had a trick
to make white smoke
With that he mocked his brother

He blamed also Adam and me
for Cain's need for comfort
He taunted him, provoked him

He is a dreamer, Dad
He is your younger self

Both of you want to move around
Both of you always want

new valleys
new views

Why do you want to look further
Why isn't it here

your Promised Land
your green pastures?

He is a dreamer, Dad
He is a phantom himself

     I followed him into the field
     I wrestled with him

     to talk about the promise
     to understand its meaning

     It was his intention, Dad
     It wasn't really an accident

     Why don't you believe that?
     Why are you packing up now?

Abel is made of cardboard, a décor
piece for the firstborn
He says nothing

He is murdered
and Cain toils on
as was commanded

at the expulsion from paradise:
man was created to
till the earth

and thus to nourish himself
She is our first mother
Do not let her bleed

for if we rape her
we will perish
very real

not like characters
in someone else's story
There will be no one else

Changing one's name
after a scandal, it works
with time

Cain could do everything
he made tools
grew beans and grasses
with edible seeds and
built a house of loam

He created what he invented
but who still wants to know now?
His name has been black-washed

so the grandchildren just
had to deny him, no
their grandfather was Seth
the only real
son of Adam and Eve

who dug little canals
and made bedsteads
who created what he invented

The oldest sons count
as patriarchs from Adam
Seth and Enos to Methuselah

Cain is a different story
from a time when there were more people
more women to get married

It is the story of the sacrifice
that was rejected
as if God did not exist

so that Cain lost his faith
and mourned for that
and God was sorry

so He forbade to kill him
and other unbelievers
you shall not kill a human being

Moses chiselled in two stones
which he smashed immediately
to teach the people a lesson

with the seething murder
of 3000 men, the blood sticks
to the priests forever

but they had every right
because God wanted
to do it Himself

Up to our waist, we sit on the top
of the mountain in the middle of the sea

in which our houses bubbling
and the livestock bleating
have disappeared, the birds
have landed tired and
have sunk soaked

My daughter holds her baby
out in front of her, his feet wet
She submerges him
It won't be long before we'll drown
We don't want to

swim around in despair
for a while longer

Noah has holed up himself
in his boat, he can't bear
to watch and he cannot
and will not save us, only
the memory of our fate
is on board, drifting with him

People are abusing and disputing
and this was not foreseen -
an unwanted consequence
of their autonomy

Of course God can change his mind

Away with creation!
Away with the parting of the waters
in heaven and on earth!

A flood, and over the bygones!
One more time! Different plan!
Come on, a new beginning
a salvation and the acceptance
that there just is evil

in man, but softened
by the new progenitor
who promises to behave well
towards the earth and the people
and to be careful of them

No one paid attention
till the water poured over
the mountain ridge into the lake
It was raining all summer
a dense gray aerial

sea shed
as a world ocean
over the earth, a thick skin
of beating wood came flooding
up, do not mind the animals

Do not look for people
you knów
the old world
still bubbles up a bit
from the drowned trees

The water stretches
and tautens a flat mirror
under the sky and the rainbow
My boat floats
until it gets stranded

The big boat, belly full of colour
bodies, floated up to the clouds
no longer moves around
the high mountain
which begins to grow down

Like a seed capsule, it snaps open
fertilises the slopes with blood
from the old world, with codes
of the secret of life
freshly written

going to travel over the earth
as little arks, swimming arks
crawling, walking, and flying arks
little blood trunks
full of prehistory

of the world
the real world
not the true one
that mankind
would create

Being silent was best
Ham is strong and he threatened me
with a fatal accident
Then there was a child

Oh, my dear husband
the tireless
naturalist of the fermented juice
of sweet grapes

His old age has been tarnished
by that made-up anecdote
which hid the rapes
under a moment of shamelessness

But the punishment betrays it
anyway, the eternal curse
from the first scream
of the baby, innocent

Canaan, my youngest son
His generations to generation
subjugated and squeezed to death
in the purple lowlands

Were the rain and the flood
a punishment for Eve
and our frank reason, that does
not always do the right thing?

Or are we using that reason
just too little, like when
my husband was lenient with our son
and got angry with the baby?

What had come over him? He is old
and worried about the world
since the disaster, where all eight of us
have been spared

Let us just forget his words
just lead a good life
and found a city of peace
as the centre of the whole world

With a seething hand, heaven shattered
the new city and the huge tower
The Hanging Gardens flew up

Chambers became airplanes
and carpets with set tables
landed far away in the long sea

A heavy rain
of rooms formed, with a splash
a sky-high mountain crest

The people from the Tower
spread out in fifty languages
fighting for borders

In reverse time, our world would
fly up in a nutshell, clot
together and land in Babel

Heaven would open
and the miracle would happen
that everyone understands the other

God's wisdom is above all
above the impossible, above time
and the sigh of the ages
in which man exists, it is
contained in everything as miracles

in day and night, stars and planets
in donkey, bull, ostrich and vulture
the hippopotamus and the mighty crocodile
the unimaginably many ways
the animals live

and in every drop of water, dew
hoarfrost, rain, hail, snow and ice
No man can comprehend that
nor his own presence
and the course of his life

so tiny in God's hand
who needs not direct anything
for his wisdom automatically
creates - also misfortune
and the evil of men

We know the story
of the great flood
as punishment from God

It was once only
He has promised, He gives
other punishments since then

and like Job and Franz K
believers believe
they are always guilty

and should be happy
that they're alive and
that God does not crush them

Yet God doesn't need servants
but people
do need each other

With faith, that is
the only thing
they can be guilty of

A wild goat lived in his heart
dreaming of paradise
so he decided to go there
and it was larger than imagined

For weeks, he looked
for the most beautiful place
to live, until one day
he approached the border, a wall

of mountains, and their weight filled
his legs, he could go no further
and stayed where he was
without answer

when his son asked if this
was it, the best, and they
of all people the happiest
here in paradise

There are no guest rooms
because the land is too full
for a paradise life

The villages arm themselves
against newcomers
there is no need for them

They have to move on, to the hard soil
of the mountains, on the edge
of the North Paradise

or in a bend back
to the south, nowhere
welcome, nowhere is there enough

milk and honey, enough space
even if fields fall vacant
because of drought, smallpox, or plague

The neighbours fight for it
because the land is too full
for a paradise life

I feel Grandpa's soul in me

contracting with desire
for land, not fields
but my own pastures
No longer being expelled
by the farmer's sons

with their dogs, mice
and bugs in the beds
for their sick and their sore backs
from ploughing and planting
weeding, harvesting and grinding the grain

I have gone further
than my father, with my herd
on the way to uninhabited pastures
but I did not find them, nowhere
was the land of my dreams

Only the desert is free

He lived in prosperity
and wished to make a contract
with his god to keep it that way

because he still made sacrifices
without certainty what he would get in return
knowing that happiness is a bird

that chooses itself where to rest
and which babies to feed
He was afraid

that it would fly away
and decided to make an extra sacrifice
of his entire household

All men and boys had to
conform to his will and
the rainbow sealed it

O sweet promise! I am eternally
blessed, and threatened with the
extermination of my descendants
if they become disobedient
and retain their foreskin

In the darkest nights
of my doubts, I lie down
on a warm stone under the stars
to see how innumerable many
people will be born

I dream of a great family
a multitude of nations
even though my son is a wild ass
fighting against all
And all fight against him

Along the road stands an angel
with wild hair and a mouth full
of astonishment, an angel of stone:

mother, you stayed behind
you've seen too much
of the carbon black sky

The ground shook at night, the door
rattled with angry neighbours. Go away!
father cried. What do you want?

My daughters? Shall I send them?
They are still virgins. He called us
but quickly quickly we left the city

that was stoned then
We no longer have friends
Next year we would get married

Cheers to
paradise
my dad
his dream

Cheers to
the hills
and the asylum
during the famine

Cheers to
my beautiful wife
our children and
the distant future

Your blessings
are mine
forever
amen

Dead my heart is still bleeding
there in the burning sun
the knife, the shiny knife

in my hand and then
the gloss of his blood
for God's sake, what did I do

there on that mountain

I sold my soul to the devil
for prosperity, my nations numerous
as the stars, but not blessed

through my fault, through my grievous fault
my wife died of sorrow
I buried her in a cave

near our tents and the city
that is named after the covenant
of my madness

Forgive me God
Forgive me Sara
Forgive me my son

It should have ended otherwise
With a supplement, a happy end
Now I can only imagine
that there is more than sacrifices
and smoke for God
for us the meat
because it's a holiday
and then we eat meat

Here I am
we said, God first
and then I
to my son
I made the sacrifice
I performed the deed
with my word
Here I am

No angel to be seen

Dad is crazy, little brother too, to some extend
but the oldest and I are just normal
itinerants like grandpa Terach
from the stories, men

no paupers
like other ibrim

We don't need gods
we are not farmers, no musers
who want to become that
dreaming of land of their own

believing in the Force
of their desire

El Shaddai, Almighty God
dad calls it, little brother fought with it
and they made a deal: total respect
for the Force, land for them

Instead of using their brains
they believe, blindly

He was indeed fertile, together
with his second wife, but
Sarah, the first, was more important

As if going mad, he wrestled
with God and His promise
of a large posterity

And when Isaac finally arrived
the little one was pampered so much
that he was a disappointment, a softy

a little Abel, so different
from his big brother
He could not be suitable

for God's unfathomable plan
he knew God that well
So he contrived a sacrifice

But a man appeared
He had to be an angel
as God's disguise

and they fought over the knife
Abraham won, Isaac died, and Sarah
never spoke another word

It was an exciting secret
People alluded to it
especially outside the family

Guests sometimes did too
Yes, if that hadn't happened back then
there on that mountain...

But I couldn't
tell my children
I wanted to be a good father

and say
that their grandfather regretted
his plan and untied his son again

because because
an angel appeared
an angel of God

but I found that too complicated
so I just left out the regret
Only the angel remained

The deed was too horrible
no father would do such a thing
no god would ask such a thing

and if he should ask it
he wouldn't allow it
if he is the true god

The boy had to stay alive
happily ever after, the oldest
patriarch of all

With his half-brother Ishmael
he was given a place
between the great names

of his father and the twins
Esau and Jacob, the youngest half-brothers
who could pass for his sons

Furthermore, we don't know
anything about him, his short life
he was still a child

there on that mountain

Better a thrilling story
that holds attention
than sad facts

Better an imaginary son
and a string of doubles
than a murderer

Better a drunken father
than a son who fathers a child
with his mother and is proud of it

Better a phantom father
with an empty life
than a mad one

Better a glorious past
told in a Grand Narrative
rosy from beginning to end

Better a lied future
than the complicated truth
and personal responsibility

No blood needs to flow
we may as well separate
and combat only in stories
who we are, brothers and sisters

with the common need
for a place of their own and with virtues
that are sometimes vices -
knowing better, thinking to

be better, willing
to sacrifice lives
in the absence of an angel
who stops us

and reading the discord
in the stories, concealing
that we are brothers and sisters
as if we are not

They recorded four hundred
shekels of silver
Our grave was precious
even before we were buried

Because we are important
in the stories of our nations
But what do they know about it?

They conceal my daughters
call my sons by the name
of the countries around us

everything under the sky
they give a place
as if they were God

but their bones become brittle as well
dust like we in this cave
my wives and children

except the first one, my most loved
His ashes blew away
there on that mountain

Dreams tell a truth
that you don't want to know yet, but
on a divan, you can speak freely

to an outsider
who understands you
and explains your secrets

that everyone can see
and many whisper
shame upon it

Wealth is wasted, and
anyone who makes a comment about it will be hit
with doublespeak and disappear as penalty

for his brutal lies, his slander
and high treason; even the worst plagues
do not bring insight and humility

But sometimes, from the blue
the sense is common enough
and dreams come true

He was new here, young
no threat, he was allowed
to lend a hand

To survive, he had to be worth
himself and get to know
the people in this country

There was no path mapped out for him
Nobody expected something from him
Soon he started his own business

He became rich because of the stupidity
and the self-interest of the regents
He bought up surplus harvests

and built expensive barns
to safeguard the food
against rain and vermin

He was indispensable, an authority
strengthening the dynasty
His daughter became Queen

It is a silent arrival
under the yoke of acquiescence
and politeness to find work
a house and a future

You look for each other
the familiar sound of the words
binds you together in the new country

like siblings, grown up
with the same habits
and the same stories

Some want to stay forever
others as long as necessary, they wait
employed by others

Time passes slowly
but one of them has success
Joseph, the undeniable symbol

of a divine plan -
the eleventh son, in hindsight
of course, the darling of the patriarch
who may have dreamed of him

They have reached the South Paradise
the land of their dream
where life is good
But they are new ones

they don't know yet
of the gnats, the stable flies
and the high water over the fields
those long months

in which they'll be forced to drudge
cutting or baking stones
for the Great House
They know nothing

of the families in their huts
who died from measles and smallpox
nothing of the hunger
through hail and locusts

Everyone is welcome there
within the invisible walls
on the fast legs
of armed horsemen

The parents of the Great Leader
are always common people
or the offspring of a famous family

The storytellers know that
so they don't nag
about the facts

They took the story
of the greatest king
in history: Sargon

"the legitimate king"
even though he came floating by
anonymously, in an ark of bulrushes

That's a good beginning
especially if you add family
- not his grandfather Joseph

but Aaron and Miriam, the leaders
of the men and the women
longing for another land

Temple officials have the land
They made it great, but now they let it
fall, into pieces of their own; my friends
are way too expensive friends

Out of caution father gave me
away after my nursing years
to Egypt, the temple in the delta

and when the dynasty seemed lost
because the Ethiopians advanced
the priests thought they were smart
in appointing me as the army commander

But I took the sacred birds
with me in baskets, in the desert
they bit the vipers at our feet to death

We surprised the enemy in his sleep
hit him in its naked flanks
and we have won; the temple
cobras arose again

We are expats, migrant workers
men who are stuck and dream
of a free life

as shepherds and cattle lords, a land
of our own, grassy meadows
milk and honey - the old promise

Here in the delta, we work
under foreign authority, longing
for the beautiful girls of the north

Only in the stories do we feel at home:
of the ancient god who created the world
with thoughts from his heart, living
words from his mouth, the Potter
who moulded man

Stories
that knead our souls, giving light
when it is dark in our hearts
full of old ashes, in which the fire
of the Destroyer still glows

Goodbye little sister, you are the prettiest
No one will ever be more beautiful
You put on a brave face
You leave us the tears

Goodbye brother, I haven't been a high priest
since father abolished the gods
and now that he has been murdered
heaven rests

completely on you, as he wished
you'll be the king of the River
You'll make the Sun shine bright, like I
will make it shine on the coast

where I will bring back the people
of grandfather, goodbye dear Mum
You will lead the family
You are strong, you are the wisest

of us all, we children
of the Light that shines all over
the earth, and the darkness
has not understood

As a baby, I was taken
to a friendly temple, and there
I safely followed the royal drama
for life and death

It was an act of desperation
by my father
to break the insatiable power
of the priests

with a twilight of the gods
which ended their worship service
and declared it invalid, super-ceded
by a higher concept

of the divine, and as a king
he could not be a puppet
of the priests, but the sun
was beyond his reach

The Creator was more earthy, older
and would have been a better choice
my choice
after they murdered my father

I saw how the conflict intensified
Akhenaten, my youngest brother
persevered, he couldn't help
but to be king or not to be

There was no room for me
anymore, in this country
I was a threat

to power, fought for
by the priests and the king
against the priests, I was there

I watched it and I knew
the foreign workers wanted to leave
and the slaves were discontented

They gladly came to my temple
they believed in the Creator-god
and sought their leader in me

Together we might have
a future, the freedom
to follow our belief, to convert

our hope into deeds
and then, just to see
what comes of it

Life is not too bad
compared to horror
In stories, it is fun
to get creeps, we storytellers know
it grubby well

Their oldest children died
There was famine, and they
got the most to eat
from the last stocks
with something fishy about them

of toxic fungi
That is not such an exciting story
as divine punishment or the revenge
of a bloody raid
in the night of the departure

Of course the leavers had
better things to do, in silence
not to run the risk
that someone would raise alarm
So hold your tongue and make no comments

In years of hunger
we workers on the land
long for a good sign

to return
to a free existence
and it has come

Thunder and darkness
The high lords mock
That is what happens!

They let us go
without cattle, we laugh
in their face and stay

supposedly
We secretly pack
go through the villages at night

kill a child in every house
and point with the blood knives
at the gold and silver

as our wages for years
After a quick meal, we leave
a long caravan of wagons and cattle

We make it to the Sea of Reeds
before the army comes and
it begins to hail real stones

Doubters start to moan

A liberation is hard work
and you must be lucky, like when
we left under the sign - the plume
of smoke, a pillar of fire in the night -
and got hopelessly stuck

between the army and the dividing sea
We became scared, didn't want to die
and walked on, the water was low
it almost fell dry - Ahead, forward
To the other side

At dawn the chariots came
after us, down the steep bank
with horsemen and lancers, elated
to have caught up with us and eager
to murder and rape

But to our amazement the water took
them by surprise, a tidal wave, fast
and higher than ever, engulfed them
Miriam took the drum
the women danced and sang

Ulu ulu ulu ulu
We live! we live!
We escaped!
After all these years
we did it!

Joseph's bones rattled for joy

We left at the right time
the future was open
relatives welcomed us

They shared the loot
and everyone knew for sure
who led them: the Destroyer
from their smarting past

So I go up the mountain
and I stay away for a long time
to make something tangible
as a gift from their god

I tell them
that He has shown Himself to me
as a light, brighter than the sun
blinding to anyone who would look

the Supreme Being
of which I am the high priest
with a half-name in the service
of the half-believers whom I lead

because better to endure
than an open wound
is a half-truth

We should have educated the immigrants
have taught them our language
and forbidden theirs

Since the new Queen
it was dangerous, her relatives
at the court were creative

They wrote
in the language they have always spoken
as a lesson to their children
that this is not their country

They wrote their language in new characters
as an alphabet of independence
and they recorded their own stories
their desire for freedom

They could not be trusted
but we feared an uprising
if we would arrest the leaders

Aaron and Miriam, and Moses the traitor
and then the violence of their words
overthrew the order

Miracles are a miraculous belief
in a higher power, fed by the leaders
for the good of the people

There are still eyewitnesses here
ignorant of the truth
of other witnesses

honest people who also
survived the disaster
of the volcanic eruption

that buried Knossos and
destroyed the fleet, but
their voices do not reach far

outside the harbour towns
not into the country
where shepherds roam

and peasants kneel
sacrificing to the gods
of their grandparents and believing

in their own grand stories, clever
combinations of old events
and precious memories

half-truths, healed
by omitting parts, accrediting some
and by diverting attention

It is the tradition, sanctified
by the master illusionist
who the leaders collectively are