"Ideology as a Way of Life" Women like me, yes have been added over the years to overshadow what preceded us that is mostly not in line with our agenda. The accepted wording is not what will satisfy our desires – Desires? Ours? Well then, I write in the female first person plural so as not to sound as one who sins with pretension as an individual woman, however I do not have many female friends for this journey and those who have already passed through a station or two according to the fixed rules of society A woman like me tries to stay free from society and at the same time to be in it with boycotts in double-digit ages until the arrival of the adolescence age and beyond I bear this bitter insult so far So! Spare judging me that “Cohen Shabtai has rules of her own…” as Amos Levitan wrote about me I came with the goal of satiating inspirations based on my theories Therefore I collect poems of the margins of humankind since they have a greater potential to waver from the conventions – just like me With 50 cents in my wallet I live my own actions lest my inarticulate mouth will be passed over and my eyes? My eyes are blinded. Women like me, particularly at the beginning of the fifteenth century were persecuted and burned for being independent and strong at the Catholic church’s instruction Nowadays? You can petition the High Court of Justice. So it is for a woman like me. ** "Controversial" I love people who are controversial that their polemic is spiced with unambiguity in doses that they eat throughout the day. And that taboo is not only for purposes of research for them in the night hours when the darkness encourages humankind to communicate hormone with hormone in the intercourse of two at the most! There are other women who fertilize a number of men in a day, and wear a necklace around their necks with ‘phallic’ stones by the light of day they are the polyandrous. I love controversial people like Yeshayahu Leibowitz who forces us to see with brutal clarity the sharp-tonged intonation that for various reasons was comfortable for us to evade he earned Israeli society’s nickname “prophet of the apocalypse.” He conceived concepts of philosophical questions and found in them contradictions even though many claimed otherwise – for that I have solidarity with him moreover, he did it so differently from the accepted definition that stimulates and challenges my intellect his sharply-phrased wording and use of the paradoxical could instigate in me an orgasm of the sensual type in the hours when I read his book “Five Books of Faith.” I like being me I don’t flow continuously in the water that you are sipping now I shock your digestion until the body cries out to vomit like this poem that is not understood ** "Sunset Before Sunrise" ‘The sunset is preparation for the strengthening sunrise the next day’ This sounds to me sloganistic if nice to write, yet not patently accurate and can even be interpreted as lowering the value of the intelligence that knows a thing or two about ‘rising.’ By the way, I checked this statement at twighlight the sunset was even observed in “Cogan Marina” in Oslo. And the sunrise the following morning amounted to an incline that I trod and rose from a flat, slightly elevated footpath that can be climbed by foot and reach a level slightly higher by a few centimeters between each stair. Secondly, there is no necessity for the sunset I feel it covering itself every evening between my breasts beyond the western horizon watching from within the earth while I am in the east. So it is true some phenomena occur with the rising of the sun such as we rise higher, the atmosphere is thinner at a height of a few hundred meters and then it dissipates into space and there are also those who believe that the sun’s red color at sunset is explained by the sun passing in the evening over hell and in the morning at sunrise over the roses of paradise and this is indeed a nice allegory. – but – In order to remain sane immediately after sunset I adopt the time between the suns – time between day and night that ends with the stars’ coming out When I rise for the shacharit morning prayer and recite the blessing “I thank you in front of you,” opposite a hazy mirror Observing every wheel of the sun under the line of view is a creation that many have knowledge of It is known that in the Jewish halacha (ritual law) that the time of the sunset determines the timeline for various commandments, such as the mincha afternoon prayer, or when the Sabbath commences For me? It’s just sunset. ** "Leaving" I have been around enough And its Okay The total Is Okay Even better than Okay Is much more than okay "Now you will be I I will be you" It's possible to close the Door now ** "By the Force of My Doom" By the force of my doom The outcast The blood of disgrace Is in menstruation. And not upon (A foreign) foreskin In humility And not as A wife to bear it In humility For this I give No guarantee. ** "Positive Psychology" Giving thanks is the understanding we Won something not necessary we Deserve it And a grace is the theological term - To thanks giving, it’s a free gift I have failed in this subject and confessed That he hasn’t rested me of Empty words And of Another exploded admonishment.
***
Tali Cohen Shabtai was born in Jerusalem, Israel, and is an international poet of high esteem with works translated into many languages.
She is the author of three bilingual volumes of poetry, “Purple Diluted in a Black’s Thick”(2007), “Protest” (2012) and “Nine Years From You”(2018).
A fourth volume is forthcoming in 2021. She has lived many years in Oslo, Norway, and in the U.S.A.
Tali is known in her country as a very prominent poet with a special lyric, “she doesn’t give herself easily, but subject to her own rules”.
Tali is living in Chicago.
I love it. Thanks!