Of Writing
Four Pieces for Unsung Voice
I. Of Writing
(Like the burning prophecy of Isaiah)
The act of spilling ink.
Through the spillage,
the writer transfers a part of himself
to dwell inside the page.
The ink is the vessel,
freight of the soul.
Writing is the vomiting of what sits
in the writer’s mind and heart.
A half-controlled eruption.
The ink
must come out.
The page
wishes to host it.
The writer must learn to channel the stream.
He must not let the ink burst without control.
That would be scribbling.
The scribbler is not a writer.
The writer must cultivate a climate of writing.
The letters should dwell like clouds within him.
It does not mean it always rains.
The ink will not always flow.
But what matters is to remain
within the climate of creation.
The ink must come from the depths of the soul.
The writer must never dilute it.
He must be able
to stand naked before the whole world
and smile.
He must shed his clothes,
strip away his deeds.
He must pour, release,
transfer his soul onto the page —
for only then will his spillage become eternal,
the most precious of all.
(Tel-Aviv, 30.8.25)
II. Your Ink Is Dry
(With restrained rage)
They spoke of introspection.
Of knowing the body.
Of barefoot shoes.
Of movement, posture, breath.
They spoke as if they had discovered something.
As if silence were a destination,
as if motion were meaning.
I asked them:
Do you write?
Do you set your thoughts to page?
Do you risk form?
They answered:
“No… the words don’t come.
“I’m not a writer.
“I’ve tried.
“But I can’t focus.
“It just doesn’t work.”
Well, yes—
Spoken words are like wind.
They come and go.
Nothing stays.
But when you sit down,
when you write,
it lasts.
It lingers.
And through that lingering—
through the repetition—
you discover yourself.
That is introspection.
Not talking.
Not wandering.
Not touching leaves and calling it awareness.
But shaping something.
Staying with it.
Letting it accuse you.
Letting it teach you.
All that talk—
But not a word written.
Not a line shaped.
Not a soul revealed.
Real introspection ends in a sentence.
Real struggle leaves a mark.
Don’t tell me who you are
if you’ve never written what you’ve found.
Don’t preach depth
if you’ve never tried to give it form.
Your ink is dry.
Your soul is silent.
Walk barefoot if you like—
I’ll wear my loafers
And write the world you’re too afraid to see.
(Tel-Aviv, 18.7.25)
III. The Dry Men
(Fast, but not too much. Enough for a paper cut)
Beware the dry men.
They speak loud.
They make noise.
They blow wind—
but they are dry.
Their nibs are dry.
Their ink unspilled.
Their life’s mission
is to keep it that way—
for themselves,
and for everyone else.
For if they see ink,
if they get wet,
their life had gone to waste.
One drop of ink
is their undoing.
In that drop,
dryness dies.
That is their nightmare.
Beware the dries.
They will try to dry you out.
But with just one spill,
they vanish—
and you are left
with your own creation.
What better companion?
(Tel-Aviv, 19.7.25)
IV. The Onion
(Slowly, with gentleness)
Among the toughest things for a creator
is facing feedback.
Years ago, sharing my first drafts
left me shattered, my words broken,
my pen stilled.
In those times, I hardly published anything at all.
There is an imbalance between the writer
and the one who delivers feedback.
For the writer, something deeply personal is at stake.
For the other,
Nothing.
I do not doubt the goodwill of the critic.
The scenario itself is harsh.
The early writer,
still unsure of his voice —
does he need to hear all the elaborate ways in which he is wrong?
Or does he need to write?
Does the new cook, entering the kitchen for the first time,
need a lecture on onion cutting?
Or does he need to cut onions?
In the first scenario,
he might throw away his apron
and never return to the kitchen.
In the other,
he will learn how to cut an onion.
Let the young cook figure it out.
True, he might cut himself.
He might need to throw away some onions.
But such is life.
(Hamburg, 14.7.25)
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