APW NOTE: It is with special pleasure that we welcome back to our pages Eli Tomer, one of the original contributors to these pages when we began publishing online in June, 1995. Eli was a regular participant in the class at Albany for several years, and has since moved to Israel, where he continues to study poetry writing in Bet-Ariela in Tel-Aviv. Here are two of his recent poems. Good to hear from you again Eli.
CALIFORNIA PIECES
Two loquat trees and between them
a squat green recycle bin
in its space of no-time and no-sound
the same silence which breaks
when the Bay Area Rapid Transit train
rushes in with a quiet velocity
and with a mist I smell
after the rain this morning
dissolved into the soft sun
in the afternoon.
Having a cup of Colombian blend coffee
I go to Cody's Bookstore
where I pick a book
from the new release pile
browse it, or listen to a poetry reading,
sipping from a red wine glass.
In April I would watch the Cherry Blossom Festival
with the drummers sweating on the moving platform
the women in kimonos
stepping a very precise distance
like military men.
Last year I found a man there
standing at the barbecue
raising money for his church --
I had a sausage and paid a two dollars donation,
and went on to the sushi booth.
Cool and white
the fog rises over the Golden Gate
early this morning
just as I board the train to San Francisco
the same way that I always do,
but tomorrow
I'm going back to a place
where the heat of the sun
shatters
every piece of California.
TRANSATLANTIC
Those who escaped gravity
and could watch from the outside
say that the atmosphere
is only a thin shell
We only manage to fly above the clouds
now we are past Greenland
above the snow fields of Goose Bay
It is noon time
but the clouds are illuminated
with sunset purple
Does the light reflected from earth
paint them this way?
I'm looking up into the endless dome
I can't understand this
how it could be as thin as a fine shell
Perhaps sometime
we will depart our gravity
and realize
that we too
are finite
and brief
like air.
© Eli Tomer, 1997
Eli's Questions:
My questions (for each of the poems):
- Is the poem overloaded with technical details?
- Do you feel the poem "touches" you?
Correspond with Eli Tomer at
tomereli@compuserve.com
with your ideas about these poems.
The Albany Poetry Workshop