To Amiri Baraka

 

First bring me back my history

And then my textbooks

And don't tell me my poem is a political manifesto

When you haven't got a clue ‘bout your wrongs. So here is a lead:

I want compensation from the National Bank of Israel 

For the Palestinians, the Mizrachim, the Women, the Gays and the Lesbians

For every comment, transit-camp, closed military zone

Disappearance, disfigurement.

I want you to open the poetry safe 

And give back the land to those you took from

And compensate for a horrible occupation

I will wait by the national bank of Israel, 

Outside the window of the National Insurance Institute,

Under the cars of the treasury Department

Until you aptly compensate for all the distilled racism 

And only then, when the children of children of the compensated ones

Will study in university, in an equal society

Only then will I be willing to write Israeli love songs.