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Contests : Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2007 : High Distinction
PATTERNS OF BREATH
It is evening and chilly and I am walking home
standing now at the intersection of Agron and King George
I wait for the traffic lights to change
engaged in nothing more intellectual
than observing the patterns my breath makes on the night air
An ambulance streaks, its sirens hysterical
an over-hormoned motorcycle blasts,
a moving van huffs loudly with the strain of its weight
and the reluctant-to-change traffic light permits me
to take in this vehicular confusion
I am about to cross over to Paris Square
where the women in black stand every Friday,
demanding peace from Jerusalem's stone ears,
when my eyes are drawn to the left, the east
down Agron Street, past the taxi stand, past the Italian convent,
the American consulate, the Isaiah House monastery,
the bicycle repair shop, the Moslem cemetery
towards the silhouette of the Old City
And there emerging from the rooftops is a full, pale orange moon
so huge my perspective is skewed
I mistake it at first for a street lamp or spotlight gone dim;
it is special, exquisite, gossamer
as though hiding its shyness behind a veil
The traffic light has not yet changed—
I want to tap the man next to me, to phone a loved-one, to share my awe
I will the sirens to be silent, the vehicles to disappear;
it is a sacrilege to view this moon amidst the heavy noisy traffic as I now do
I need to be alone with this orange moon,
perhaps on a mountain top, with blackness and serenity surrounding me
perhaps on the seashore, to see it reflected in the water
or in the forest, tucked into trees, snug in Nature,
I need to breathe this moon into my being,
to hold onto this beauty forever
The traffic light has now realized it is time to change;
I cross the street and tuck the moon inside my special file
of marvelous memories
and wonder if any other person in haste to get someplace
has paused for a moment to behold this moon
mystical, graceful, rising magnificent over Jerusalem
This poem won a High Distinction award in the 2007 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books. Author Helen Bar-Lev received a $100 award. Winning Writers assists this contest. Copyright is reserved to the author.
FROM THIS DESK
From the desk at which I sit
and bring beauty
through these hands,
this brush,
onto the paper
into the world,
the corner of my eye
observes the wind
flipflop a tablecloth
on the other side of my heart,
a friend whose son is dying,
a poet who had a breakdown
during army reserve duty,
another who has just had
a difficult diagnosis
in my painting, human-free,
the North abloom,
mountains regal in the background,
pine trees and peace,
sky blue with optimism,
ground green with eternity
on the radio
a six-year-old Mozart
is wooing my heart
whom do I fool?
a world in pain
paradise so close to a hostile border
that, if you listen, you will surely hear
the mortar shells falling
am I permitted the peace
which creativity gives
yet compassion prevents?
I sign the painting
a month in the making
and hurt for the world
This poem won a Highly Commended award in the 2007 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books. Author Helen Bar-Lev received a $70 award. Winning Writers assists this contest. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Helen Bar-Lev
Helen Bar-Lev was born in New York City in 1942. She has lived in Israel for 36 years. She holds a degree in Anthropology from California State University, Northridge, 1972. Since 1976 Helen has devoted herself to art: painting, teaching and writing poetry. From 1989 until 2001 she was a member of the Safad Artists' Colony in the Upper Galilee where she had her own gallery. In January 2007 she and Johnmichael Simon moved to Metulla, the northernmost town in Israel.
To date Bar-Lev has participated in 80 exhibitions, including 30 one-person shows. She was the curator of the widely acclaimed Homage to Yosef Hirsch exhibitions (appearing in 3 venues) in 2002 and 2003 in which 53 of Hirsch's former students participated. Her poems and paintings have appeared in many online journals such as The Other Voices International Project; The Coffee Press Journal; Boheme Magazine; The Poetry Bridge; Sketchbook; River Bones Press; The Hypertexts; Palabras-Press; Poetry Super Highway, etc., and also print publications including Meeting of the Minds Journal;, Voices Israel Anthologies; Manifold Magazine of New Poetry (U.K.); Lucidity Poetry Journal; Across The Long Bridge and Sailing in the Mist of Time, both anthologies of award-winning poetry from the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest and the Margaret Reid Poetry Contest; Harvest International; Poesy first international issue; For Loving Precious Beast, An Anthology of Poetry edited by Yolanda Coulaz; Ibbetson Street 21; The Rogue Scholars, June 2007.
A book entitled Cyclamens and Swords with poems of Israel by Helen and Johnmichael Simon has been published by Ibbetson Press of Boston, Mass. and may be ordered from the authors at hbarlev@netvision.net.il. It is also available via Lulu.com. Her watercolour paintings and sketches are featured throughout the book.
Helen is a member of Voices Israel English Poetry Society and The Israel Artists' and Sculptors' Association, of the Canadian Federation of Poets and Canadian Poetry Association. She is the global correspondent in Israel for the Poetry Bridge and Editor-in-Chief of the Voices Israel annual Anthology.
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