Poems by Lali Tsipi Michael, Israel

Lali Tsipi Michaeli is an Israeli poet. She immigrated from Georgia to Israel at the age of 7. She has published six poetry books so far. Attended
international poetry festivals. She was part of a residency program for talented writers in New York in 2018.
Her books have been translated into foreign languages in New York,
India, France, Italy, Georgia, Ukraina, Russןa, Romania, Turkish, China, among other countries. Michaeli was defined by Prof. Gabriel Moked as “Urban-Erotic Poet” in his book ” In real-time” and considered innovative by critics. In the Rabindranath Tagore International Poetry Competition, she won the Poiesis International Award for Excellence In Poetry (2020). And in the international poetry festival in Romania she won the European Grand Prix for Poetry (2021).

Two books by Lali THE MAD HOUSE and PAPA were published in New York and launched at the KGB bar in NYC

 

 

A place

 

The transition from earth to heaven and again to earth

Is the field that immigrants like me enter.

A place without a place.

My dad who remained an immigrant in an accent

and tie on a short shirt on a hot Mediterranean day

Raised us with a box of secrets from the past

That we left at home.

To my beautiful mother

who left her voice in another space

He left to raise us  –

Children of the New World.

Her voice went with us like a hidden shadow.

She reborn us with a crying handkerchief

Which was tucked in the pocket of the floral dress that

Highlighted her Nevo body that preserved mountain air

Busy hands and ambitions for me.

I could not be different.

In a place without a place.

 

Home

 

When you don’t have and don’t have and don’t have
and you are not and you have and you are not

And then from your point of view everything which exists in the world is just
Home
And this home is unstable
And this home doesn’t contain
And this home is bleeding
And this home is condemning
And you have to decide when
To stop standing in the entrance

 

The postwoman won’t be confused any more
Will not put the letters aside
Here I have an address now
And here is happiness now
And I’m coming and going and coming and going
And in all my days
Dance

 

 

Train

 

At the age of 7 I left Georgia as an immigrant to Israel with my parents and two brothers.

We arrived at the train-station with the feeling of a one-way ticket. We travelled until Moscow

and before passing one whole day and night in a magnificent hotel we took another train to

Vienna from there we took a plane to Israel. We landed on another planet. It was mid-

January 1972. Since then from my point of view trains have been symbols of departure. Of

self-analysis. Of new life. Of loss. Not to mention the Jewish DNA that runs on the collective

memory of the train-tracks or vice-versa. There is nothing for me that symbolizes so

strongly the wandering the displacement and human sadness like the train. Even if it’s a new

train racing along tracks raised on columns to allow the world’s other creatures non-stop

transport. When I want to bring these things to light in my memory everything changes to a

collage of the trains I’ve seen in my life, in reality as well as in films, documentaries or art-

house. The train has turned into trainness and

I don’t know

to whom

I

belong.

 

My secret lover, you

 

An anarchist who corrects me

His language into my language

The one who will not see me on his land

The one that I will not see on my land

But our voices are floating

Like bombardments in the world

Your history is written

In ink that was produced

In the factory of my love.