all titles on screen:

​

1. Fear and Might

 2. To anonymous woman, a victim of persecution 1938

     To Isaac Babel 1940

     To Ahed Tamimi 2018

3. Tamar Getter 2018

​

4.   1. LION

5. The paws - each claw, a truncated turret

6. The skin

7. Its wrinkles

8. The muscles and the bones are seen through

9. The fat, the hair

10.  He squats, plainly, every part of his body - full - in sight

11.  A formidable cat               

12. Yet, not this causes my pupils to contract  

13.   It is panic, apart, of his presence        

14. growing the pupils smaller and smaller

15. He – he is all watch and ambush

16. But that too is not the thing

17. It is the loom: my pupils so hard by his

18. That's the thing

19. When his black twin rhombi transfix my black balls

20. His eyelids fixed up on _ _ my own - drop-off

21. me, along with--

22. ... into the blackout behind

23.   where bodiless and boundless, he expanses in me

24.  My eyes are lion-loaded

 

25.    2. HARE AND ACORN

26. I saw her

27.  from the end of my days

28.  Her two front teeth were very brown

29.  Her claws too were brown

30.  The brown acorn, rotten-brown inside too,

31. was pinched between her teeth and claws

 32. The teeth, claws, and acorn were hardly distinct

 33. They all shined as if polished, and shivered in terrible speed

 34. The fluffy fur shivered with it. It was brown, all of it

 

 35.    August Sander  3.

 36.   Victim of Persecution, ca, 1938

Gelatin silver Print

25 x 17 cm.

Edition of 12

 37. Like most women, even if never schooled or skilled facing the cameras

 38. she can, during the idle shooting time, fully stop her brain-work

 39.  like a cobra facing fakir, or like a fakir facing a cobra

 40. In these happy moments free of thought

 41.  she shocks the entire worn-out machinery

 42.  A mighty heart rises _ _ bitter

 43.  It knows its fleeting might

 44. She would not scold a soul, never slander, never denounce, never curse

 45. If she were to ride, her seat was a horse

 46.  A beautiful horse

 47. an English-Arabic Horse, once a Circus-Horse, perhaps…

 48. and she, as chief-jockey, was red-skinned

 49. …her glorious mustache – white

 

  50.      4. THE EAGLE AND THE SNAKE

  51.   Soaring to heights with his prey, he got bitten

  52.  Tail-spinning, he crashed hitting the ground with a bang

 

  53.   5. AURORA

  54.  While the serpent was plotting to swallow the eagle

  55.  The doe screeched as she was crouching in labor

  56.   Her womb was too narrow and blocked

  57.  The vulva too was locked

  58.  A passing dragon-snake bit her

  59.  Once the vulva relaxed – she delivered!

  60.   A moment too early, or one too late

  61.  The vulva would have shut, the fawn would have been dead, and the doe too, dead

  62.  She is Aurora

 

  63.     6. ISAAC AND THE COSSACKS

  64.  Great joy tonight

  65.  From the end of my days

  66.  Had there been no hares infesting my drawers

  67.  Had the eagle heart not been exalted

  68. Had the heart of Sander's girl been not downcast forever

  69.  Had the fawn been not bitten into life

  70.  how'd I… what now, do I remember?

  71.  No, the Babel story I cannot recall

  72.  But the feel… the effort… what's it to win the Cossacks' heart

  73.  and the price

  74.  to murder for sport

  75.   to slaughter a goose with bare hands

  76.   to seem just like one of the guys

  77.   sport was the small part of it, the short…

  78.   slaughtering, that is…

  79.   horrendous as much as it was

  80.   but what's to spare with sports?

  81.   the effort to be sportive - - -

  82.   before and after

  83.   this was nasty

  84.   It implied that Cossacks were not murdering sportily

  85.  They murder

  86.   and then, sing and dance

  87.   Fat chance for Isaac to have succeeded

  88.  "Blind Cow" was THE favorite game

  89.   of Isaac's jailers

  90.   to ease off the real tortures

  91.    But his eyes remained clear

  92.    and his mouth corners -

  93.   - a kiss

  94.    When asked for his last request before being executed

  95.    he said: Let me finish my work

  96.    Over rivers of blood

  97.    and mountains of corpses

  98.    Commander Semyon Budyonny raised up - up - up

  99.    and became a star

 

  100.      7. GRANDPA

  101.     Yoram Gozansky sings the first two stanzas of the  Bank"i version

  102.    At the foot of my grandpa's hanged body,

  103.    I leaf through my urine-stained Babel book

  104.    …the fields, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the clouds, and the atrocities

  105.   "My First Goose" - - soiled… how very much did Babel want...

  106.  ...wanted - - with the good guys - - who all failed

  107.      - - and massacred many - -

  108.    My grandpa too - - - wanted -

  109.    Had we not drown already in the erotics of destruction – ‎ we shall have been   ​

  110.   If there had been no lion to have loaded my eyes with

  111.   If there had been no hares to have dominated my desk

  112.   Had sander's girl not been silent

  113.   Had the eagle not lifted his dinner to the heights – and crashed

  114.   Had the dragon not delivered a fawn

  115.  Had the dawn not raised always

  116.   Could I see the vast view?

  117.   "Such as the one cast at the floors of my eyes,

             like a gorgeous pile of waste - - -"