Caesura Vol. V: Healing by Caesura

Caesura Vol. 5: Healing Published June 2022 Tel Aviv University The Department of English and American Studies

Edited by Sharin Shlomit Berman, Maha Loulou, Maya Hollander, Ziv Gershon, Astar Cordoba, Maiss Bishara

www.caesuratau.com

EDITOR’S NOTE Choosing this year’s topic, Healing, we had these last trying years in mind and sought this issue’s theme to reply to last year’s theme – Crisis. We found the submissions we received profound and significant for everyone, capturing the healing experience. We recognize the struggles that each artist and author expressed in their works to contribute for this year’s volume. Caesura would like to thank Dr. Dara Barnat, Dr. Roi Tartakovsky, and Meital Galili for their help organizing this issue, and Dr. Nir Evron and the English and American Studies Department at Tel Aviv University for sponsoring this project. Most importantly, we are grateful for the submissions we received from various artists and authors, some of which are from other universities around the country and abroad. We want to thank each and every person who submitted their piece. Reading your works has been a privilege and a pleasure. Volume V would not have existed without you.

Table of Contents Nothing Exact Just Clicks ..................................................................................... 4 FAMILIAR FRIENDLY FEELING ..................................................................... 6 Master of the Sun .................................................................................................. 9 Time Traveler’s Tale ........................................................................................... 10 FREQUENT FUTURE ....................................................................................... 13 Healthy Distance ................................................................................................. 14 Session................................................................................................................. 16 UNTITLED ......................................................................................................... 18 UNTITLED ......................................................................................................... 19 Carnival Clown ................................................................................................... 20 Birth..................................................................................................................... 22 UNTITLED ......................................................................................................... 23 UNTITLED ......................................................................................................... 24 Buttercup Dance .................................................................................................. 25 AIRY FAIRY ...................................................................................................... 27 alone .................................................................................................................... 28 happy to be here .................................................................................................. 29

Nothing Exact Just Clicks Maya Sinai the Exact moment when every thing Clicks feeling it’s Just right Nothing can destroy it

drinking the most delicious milkshake in the world on the beach while the sun touches ever so lightly on your skin

That’s when Everything falls apart realizing you’ll never hug knowing how it can end never being right even when you’re right and it’s Not in your head the hell with life

and everything else

reaching boiling point all ready to Blow but holding Back on every carefully planned word

a wounded deer running alone in my thoughts I can’t win I can Never win good now apologize I’m sorry good girl

FAMILIAR FRIENDLY FEELING Yuval Loulay That smell! I know it… I think?

Here comes that familiar friendly feeling, That falls into my laps, To toy around with, Until it fades.

Each time I try to grasp onto it, I feel like I know what evoked it, But there is no clear word To pinpoint Its Origin –

I am five years old again Running around the sandbox in kindergarten, But then I am also eighteen.

I’m confused, excited, curious, terrified of: I don’t know what – Maybe not knowing what is what scares me.

Then it all comes full circle. I’m “me” again, For the time being.

That familiar friendly feeling, Just came to say hello From the past, or maybe the future.

When it comes around again, I’ll greet it, And thank it for reminding me Of my past lives that are all neatly wrapped Within this one life.

And now, I am four, Walking down the tree-lined streets In Holon, holding my mom’s hand. 7

But I am also twenty-three: Curious and content.

Master of the Sun Jonathan Billet Knockin’ on the house’s floors with several feet. Wandering around that endless street in an elevator door. Par is the golden golf ball. They were throwing the bean bag for a cupid’s doll. The amusement park is a mystery to me. An edifice not even a God continues to see. The full moon has a devilish smile. Enticing us to be as one. I am a player of all trades, master of the sun. The stones collect behind glass shacks. I smoke your stacks, outside the cellar bar’s railroad tracks. Back-to-back we smoked and clapped. On the piano notes to your voice, I tapped.

Time Traveler’s Tale Clinton Siegle Being a closed-time curved loop traveler was not my expected outcome of life. Let me be honest. In my world, Hillary Clinton’s statement that Abe Lincoln was a senator was real. That my world had 51 states in March 2016. Puerto Rico voted 52 percent to become the 51st of the United States, which means Obama visiting 57 out of 58 states of the United States, most probably truthful in some reality too. The sadness of being a time traveler, in this case, is that all the souls I knew when growing up have been dead for billions of years now. Meaning? You can find some of my journals online. Documenting my travels from Sagittarius, which Neal Tyson believed he was on Orion’s arm, Orion’s spur, and now on Orion Nebula. My journey has been absurd. Believe me. If I knew I was going to live 4.5 billion years to date, I would have been more adventurous. Meaning? Well, on Sagittarius, I documented the earth was 6.5 billion years old. The next galaxy was to hit there in 365,000 years. And here, on this mirror reality of earth, the next galaxy is to hit in 4.5 billion years. Means I am a bit old.

The reality of the question is, which is real or what reality is real? My latest discovery here? According to your very own scientist, you have traveled back in time, some 52 million years since 2019. How so? Speed, time, and distance meaning? Earth for several decades was 27,300 light years away from the center of the galaxy. And now? 25,000 light years away. Meaning? According to distance, time, and speed, you have moved a significant distance in time. Some people claim bull. It is just a new estimate of where the earth is located. I would concur. However, an estimate of 1 light year is 6,000,000,000,000, that is 6 trillion. 12 zeros. While 2300 light years is 15 zeros. The difference in location of earth is significant, yet no one seems to care. For more insight on an average, 66 years earth is supposedly moved 0.2 light years. What am I telling you? Well, you might be a time traveler too. Or not. There are many realities being played out these days. Thus

Thus, I welcome you to the time of tribulation per the bible. What I did not expect was to be involved in fighting Cylons or World War III. Being a time traveler does not have the perks I would have expected. No major income increases. In fact, those experiencing this experience have come up with the Mandela effect. To relive a dead person’s life in the past. In the past? 11

Yes, for if I lived where I said I lived. You were or died some billions of years ago. And I? I am just passing through a reanimated world for today. And your past? Someone has already seen and watched and written much like the bible and other works of writing on history about elsewhere. Some say the book of Enoch or something like that. The reality of the question? Can humanity stop the coming thermonuclear war? I somehow doubt it. However, as a time traveler, I will attempt to yell a bit. Maybe someone somewhere will stop the death of humanity. I doubt it. However, if they do. Congratulations on not killing yourselves. Fictional history or truth in a tale by a time traveler watching the death of humanity? Ask yourself before you walk through the doorway of eternity. Did you do everything you could to stop evil from winning? Or did you let corporate fascism win at the end of the beginning of the system of things?

FREQUENT FUTURE Yuval Loulay Delicate, dazzling dream, And at last, a gleam. Now: turn to the beam.

Amor fati prevails Lo! The ship – it sails – Tales to come – Plans he soon unveils. Mystic memories move. A new way to prove – New nights, new lights, new love.

Healthy Distance Tobias Siegal Moments defined By this unrelenting shame Slowly lose shape, Rapidly morphing into Silhouettes of pain;

Pitch dark, sluggish, These stains follow suit, Demarking my days As endless cruel loops;

Like receding waves On a distant shore They crash and return, These memories of yore,

As I try to hear the sound Of sea And bathe in its remorseless

Serenity.

Is this an illness? Is it My own? Or an idea birthed By this place I call Home?

Session Yael Cohen And then my therapist looked at me and said: “I know you can’t stand the quiet, but what if we give it a try? There must be a place in your mind that might appreciate you taking the time,” “Listen,” I replied, “you might be the one with the degree. But let me tell you, you have no idea how to begin to approach a subject like me. I’ve been through this shit so many times. Really, I should be the one who sits there, with this pen and this way too big of a chair. I spent years learning and fixing my mind. I even spent two months on pills that peeled nothing but my sanity and took the comfort of emptiness inside my ribs. Sitting in silence only makes things louder. Don’t you know? There’s no Right or wrong, the laws of logic don’t apply. Nothing rhymes. Not a thing rhymes. Listen, I get it.

You want to try. But, Not on me. Isn’t it funny?” I suddenly stopped. I let that part play only for me, in my mind. ‘Isn’t it funny? Again, I’m the one who spends so much money.’

UNTITLED Daniel Niv

UNTITLED Maya Sinai We all cried and that’s rare The tears are growing flowers That decorate All but our clothes That will now stay black Nothing will light them again Brighter, like you, than the sun

A severe case of a garage sale One by one they all sail away Into the safe shores of the neverland And the tears of the sky Shower my thoughts Until all my flowers wither And I Am There

Carnival Clown Jonathan Billet Carnival of the living clown is pulling me down. Around the park, I walk, as people do the lingo talk. The exploding light bulb ran glass from the top, to the bottom below. Lights on the street seem to grow. The winds begin to blow, at the sun. As I blow it out. Don't shovel, what I don't already know. As the change is slow, from pouring rain, to winded snow. I found a missing foe, in the circus of a cosmic show.

Picking up heartbeats, never too slow. Your love will always grow. But my appetite, in old age, will go. My love for you is just so. A sky, I will throw it away. Letting out a quiet, burning cry. While you lie in repose, towards the cloudy sky. Above the atmosphere, .

For your love, I die. You let out a sigh. It's as American as Pumpkin Pie. The plot where I am laid out to fly. Has no room for me to sit or lie.

Birth Yael Cohen A new life after death It’s burn, it’s health You ache, you crave You hate, you care You learn How to love again After love has cruelly been Taken away

And freely given Again, A new life after death It can’t replace It’s new. It’s fresh It’s life. After Death.

UNTITLED Maya Sinai Sometime soon we will wonder out of our doors, driving far, far from the storm, landscape light looming, pulling, whispering, ‘welcome world’

UNTITLED Daniel Niv

Buttercup Dance Jonathan Billet Buttercups in the sunshine. Bright as the brightest starlight. The sun, so yellow and white, changes like a stoplight.

The howling of the dog dimns. Saturn's rings sing. Sunflowers in the moonlight thrive. Cactus desert plants survive.

The store caught fire. He was the sire of a space child. The fire truck is on fire. A constipol caught the sight.

There will be no dancing tonight. Fire's light under pale sunlight. Ruth may be the artificial Jezabel. To get the people very uptight.

There was no sun, the operator blew out the light. Caroline and Bob took a bite. Columbus couldn't realize the art of sight.

The rope is tight. Ringside sight is the wrestling fight. Cosimo cut the strand of rope on the kite. I heard Randall cry despite the fight. Where there's heat there's light.

Dozens of daylights later, Sodom and Gomorrah, toothless, began to bite. They'll always survive the plight. They take flight.

AIRY FAIRY Yuval Loulay Green in her eyes with soft sunlight Shining through, and the silence that fills her ears–she thanks it for amplifying the chatter that fills her mind, until it becomes slight. Tomorrow will eventually come and this moment Will fade, will dissolve, will merely be an event Lost in time; the feeling remains, however, And will be there for her whenever The noise gets noisier, or the world begins.

alone* Maya Sinai a l (Everybody day t i me) one you are on

your

OWN

A reaction to E. E. Cummings’ poem “loneliness”

happy to be here Nimrod Morgenstern (author) and Feodor Brodski (artist)

"Body without organs/the rhizome”1. <read in manic voice> “I’m sitting in a room”2 Staring at the screen. The visceral connection an overwhelming sensation. Sitting in a room I’m Closing my eyelids. The blank, bursts with bright sights within it, the flashing lights. In a room I am sitting Dis-in-te-gra-ting forms \shape/ form \shadows/ from “L'anus Solaire”.[ 3] Art? “to create art is to deprive a gesture of its reverberation in the organism”[ 4] --ism screw your isms I I want a-name for my pain. Isaiah, Seraph ”Lo, this hath touched thy lips.” [5] Erelim. Cenobites. “we’ll tear your soul apart! “[6] Desire. Vishnu. “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds7. ”I AM MY OWN ACCUSER.” [8] “ Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi. “ [9] A search for a name imprisons the being. But it must have a name. “This is going to be a place for captives.” [10 ] (TIME TO WORK)“which forces you to stand here.” (START WORKING) “THE TIME IS OUT OF JOINT” [11] --I am a person inside a room to a screen. ---Breathe in, and out. – - Loneliness embraces, - But paradoxically - Disembowels. Grace, - Before dissection – \Of pleasure, of pain./ \”Je-sus wept”\ [12] \Buddha suffered\ Solomon sighed. \The Dao is the way.\ om nama shiva yaa\

The cycle repeats, again. ___________________________ /// The big O of Delphi. E .\\\ _________________________________ \Marks the spot. ‫\ אי‬ Of self discovery. Ei. ismênian. Pythia, Pathê Legion. Pathetic. (WAKE UP) we. E. of Emancipation. of Empathy. Of Emotion. She sculpts her gospel. (WAKE UP) I demolished my own we choose to stir up our own evangelion, while owning nothing. we are becoming. sitting/stirring in a room. “different from the one you are in now.” [12] Are we?

Caesura Vol. V: Healing

Articles inside

happy to be here