Congratulations to Nachoem Wijnberg!

State and market

If you’re the highest representative

of the state

you walk across the market.

Where too little’s being sold

you buy what’s still lying there

before the big deals

come with a low offer

when the day’s nearly over.

Or you offer loans,

at an interest rate that’s lower

than that asked for by the banks,

so the sellers will be able to wait one day longer,

which also makes money for the state.

You start to sell

what you’ve bought from them

when the prices begin to rise

as if people expect

them to rise even further.

And when they themselves still have

what they can sell for the higher prices

you let them pay off their loans.

Don’t forget, part of your job

is keeping anxiety and compassion

separate from each other.

From: Of great importance (2015)

Heavy, light

You can give hundreds of examples

of what weight is, but you only remember

just the one of them.

When you weigh a hundred and twenty

kilos because you

wanted to run into someone

who says to you: you can’t always

be that heavy.

And then one more; a child

with each of his hands

in the hand of one of his parents

who raise him up together and let him swing

while they walk on.

You make what’s light heavy

because you’re not good at it

and don’t want to learn from others.

After that you just will be asked

about what’s heavy

and you hope that in the meantime

– you can’t say how –

you’ll get better at what’s light.

From: For you, yours (2017)

Not like a bird

Inside women are

smaller women,

sometimes larger women

and even larger women in those women.

The men

reveal to those who are unable

by pretending they are almost unable:

sitting still among shadows.

They reveal to those able to fly,

not like a bird

but like a bird being taken out

of a bird and then put back again.

From: Birds (2001)