In the song "Connected" in Giora Fischer's new book, "At the Bottom of the Days", the poet describes a situation from the world of social networks that is familiar to us all.
"What do you want from Chaim Schwartz's life?" He asks, under an English caption describing a seemingly routine virtual friendship proposal.
"Every month, for almost four years, he sends me a request: 'I want to connect.' Even when he was alive, I had no social interest in him."
The encounter between the tragic and the comic is the source of Fischer's critique of the world of technology and social media, which tend to flatten the social discourse and shrink it into nothing more than a random encounter between data in an algorithm.
One that does not take into account what is happening in real life - or those who are no longer alive.
But Fisher owes quite a bit to those virtual platforms, given its popularity his songs are gaining on the net.
"There is certainly a critique here of the technology and its absurdity, but I must point out that poetry has benefited from the Internet," he says.
"Short poetry is something that is very much in line with the mood and human patience today. The sharing function passes the songs on to people who have not been exposed to poetry, or who have run away from it because they have had traumas from poetry in school."
Fischer's fourth book, which began writing poetry after the fall of his son Marom in 2002 in Operation Defensive Shield, this time deals mainly with the visible but hidden from the everyday.
It contains criticism of the country, jugs from the Corona period ("It's not pleasant to say that, but a lot of poets will tell you that their main occupation in their free time is staring into the air," he says) and analyzing worn-out expressions from small talk.
But it is easy to identify in words (in lines like "There has really not been a remarkable disaster lately") the bereavement that has stuck in his life, and probably also in his definition as a poet.
"In the first book I wrote because I wanted Merom and the songs about him to be remembered," he explains.
"Today it makes me a little angry. Most of my poetry is no longer about heaven. But people read my poems that deal with ordinary things, search and also find the bereavement there, and I say 'Where do you see this thing here?'
"I understand that such a significant biographical item sits in the minds of readers. What I ask of them is that they read a poem as it is. When I want to talk about bereavement - it will be in a bereavement song."
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