LALI TSIPI MICHAELI

Lali was born in Georgia in 1964 and moved to Israel as a child. She studied Comparative World Literature, Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University, and Television and Radio Narration. She taught Hebrew in Bar-Ilan and Tel-Aviv Universities.
She is the author of five poetry collections. Lali’s poems have been published in Literary Journals and in the press, and in a video art project. Her works are published in the most popular periodicals in Israel and she has participated in many international literary fes- tivals. Her poems are translated into 12 languages. Famous Israeli critic Gabriel Moked called her the face of Tel Aviv erotic-city poetry. Lali refers to herself as a follower and successor of resistential poetry. 

 

PAINT ME ABLAZE

 

paint me ablaze

like Rome

start from the head eyeballs mouth nose 

castle

hills via neck

 

harnessed

dusty roads

long hands fingers of 

books

 

waist stomach 

kingdom of sorrow

all the king’s seats

streams of the fields

and valleys of love

 

my thighs and knees will slowly burn

 

for a sign of my future shame

paint

a birth mark

my calves that are trained to go stright 

ahead til the ankles

convents

feet

toes

the king’s army 

 

like an air my name will burn

my meaning will be strewn from my ashes

any sense from my tendons will be free 

 

Translated from Hebrew by Michael Simkin