Translated by Natalie Feinstein
A Plea
I plead my immense fatigue to subdue
Me like the dragon beseeching Saint George
To grow from his fertilized, defeated body a kingdom on the banks
Of the Lethe River and graceful oblivion models will trot beside it
Adorning a wreath of witless smiles.
A Thought
When a thought plummets at my feet
Bruised
I bandage its wings
Which I clipped
Until it revisits me
In faltering
Flight.
I then shoot it again.
Gad Kaynar-Kissinger (70) is a retired Associate Professor from the Theater Department at Tel Aviv University. His poetry was published in major Israeli literary periodicals and supplements, and compiled in seven books, including a bi-lingual Hebrew-Spanish publication Lo que queda (What Remains). For ADHD he won “The General Israeli Writers’ Union” Award (2010). Kaynar is a stage, TV and film actor, and translator of 70 plays from English, German, Norwegian and Swedish. For his Ibsen translations he was designated in 2009 by the Norwegian King as “Knight First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit.”