Sing, Stranger: A Century of American Yiddish Poetry—A Historical Anthology 9781503625303
Sing, Stranger is a comprehensive historical anthology of a century of American poetry written in Yiddish and now transl
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Sing, Stranger
Illustration to A. Léyeles’s poem “In the Subway” by Yosef Foshko
Sing, Stranger A Century of American Yiddish Poetry A Historical Anthology Edited by Benjamin Harshav Translated by Benjamin Harshav and Barbara Harshav
Stanford University Press Stanford, California 2006
Stanford University Press Stanford, California ©2006 by Benjamin Harshav and Barbara Harshav. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sing, stranger : a century of American Yiddish poetry--a historical anthology / edited by Benjamin Harshav ; translated by Benjamin Harshav and Barbara Harshav. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-0-8047-5183-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8047-5183-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Yiddish poetry--United States--Translations into English. 2. Yiddish poetry--United States. 3. Authors, Yiddish--United States--Biography. I. Harshav, Benjamin, 1928- II. Harshav, Barbara, 1940PJ5191.E3S56 2006 839’.113080973--dc22 Designed by Bruce Lundquist Typeset at Stanford University Press in 10/14 Sabon
2006024109
Contents
A Note on Transcription
xxvii
Preface
xxix
prelude
1
Yehuda Leyb Gordon (1829–1892) To Dr. G. Zelikovitch
3
A. Léyeles (1889–1966) Storms and Towers
4
Ruven Ludvig (1895–1926) Sing, Stranger
5
H. Leyvik (1888–1962) Yiddish Poets
7
Berish Vaynshteyn (1905–1967) On Your Soil, America
8
Jacob Glatshteyn (1896–1971) In the Middle of the Road
10
vi
Contents
part one
Proletarian Poets
Morris Rosenfeld (1862–1923)
11 13
Why I Am I: As a Worker
15
The Swearing-In (Fragment)
19
The Millionaire of Tears
20
The Sweatshop
21
The Pale Apreyter
23
A Tear on the Iron
25
To My Beloved
27
The Bride of the Mountains
28
Shoot the Beast
32
The Bradley Martin Ball
32
Evening
34
Niagara Falls
35
The White Devils: Thoughts about New York’s Underground Trains
39
Three Generations
43
Scenes in the Mountains
45
The Ghetto in the Catskills
48
Dovid Edelshtat (1866–1892)
53
In Strife
54
My Testament
55
The Miner
55
The Child-Murderer
57
August Spies
60
The Two-Legged Beast
61
Louis Lingg
63
The Jewish Proletarian
65
Wake Up!
66
To the Working Women
67
My Dream
68
Tears
69
Contents
Yoysef Bovshover (1873–1915)
part two
70
Revolution
71
A Song to the People
72
To the People
73
The Lyrical Turn
Yehoash (1872–1927)
77 79
Flowers and Thorns
80
The Mightiest
82
Folk Ballad
83
Snow
84
Snow-Rest
86
Beautiful Is the Forest Alone
87
Woven In (I, 1919) Grass
88
I Cannot Understand
89
Among the Trees
90
Gray
92
A Buddha Prayer
92
An Eye
93
Subway
94
Rising
95
Woven In (II, 1921) My Ships . . .
95
The Girl of the Mists
96
Dancing
97
Summer Sun
98
Microcosm
99
Blooming
99
Trees
100
October
101
vii
viii
Contents Snow Stars
102
Eyes
103
Woolworth Tower
104
Broadway
104
In the Crowd
105
Cinema
106
Lynching
107
Fun-Yen
107
Kozumi the Old Carver
108
Bakhr Esh-Shaytan
110
In the Temple
112
Your Teacher
112
Remembrance
113
Song
113
Mani Leyb (1883–1953)
115
I Have My Mama’s Black Hair
116
My White Joy
116
I Am the Climbing Vine
117
Seven Brothers
117
Who? . . .
118
My Papa
118
Avrom Lyesin and I
119
Stars Drip
120
Jewish Letters
121
Three Wanderers
121
The Mountain
123
The Wonder Horse
127
Funny Sonny Smart
137
Contents
Y. Rolnik (1879–1955)
156
A Window to the South Like Tranquil Water
156
From the Window
157
Shabbos
158
Bread from the Pocket
158
The Abandoned Bridge
159
Rest
159
A Winter Dawn
159
A Morning
160
Back from Prayer
160
A Winter Night
161
The Fishing Rod
162
Moab’s Daughters
163
Ducks
164
A Stain
165
Turets
167
Riverside Drive
167
Ruven Ayzland (1884–1955)
169
Still Life
169
Clouds
170
Night Reflex
170
Four Boys in White Shirts
171
In the Port
171
From My Summer
171
The Song of the Stupid Hosid and Other Fools
174
David Elkin
175
My Poems
175
B. Vladek (1886–1938)
177
The Voice that Spoke . . .
178
The Badlands
179
ix
Contents
Zisho Landoy (1889–1937)
181
1911–1915 Epilogue
182
I, the People, and the Waitresses
182
Verses
183
Tuesday
183
August 28, 1915
183
My Happiness
184
This Evening
185
My Dear Ruven Ayzland
186
In the El
187
Of Course I Know . . .
188
1916–1918 A Sweaty German Helmet
188
And Discussing in the Café . . .
189
1919–1924 In the El
190
Oh, How Many Smells . . .
190
Limbs
191
Pine Hill
191
I Have a Big Favor to Ask, Brothers . . .
192
The Little Piggy
192
A Very Wonderful Tale of the Rebbe Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk and the Rebbe Rabbi Naftoli of Ropshitz
193
The White Lamb
195
1925–1937 The Poem of Tired Porcelain
198
Leg in Space
199
The Poem of Green-Blue Beads
199
Marquise Batovim
200
Contents
Avrom Reyzen (1876–1953)
part three
201
Six Million People
202
My Home
203
Symbolism and Expressionism
H. Leyvik (1888–1962)
205 207
Poems (1919) Somewhere Far Away
210
On the Roads of Siberia
210
In Snow (Fragments)
211
In No-man’s-land (1923) The Yellow-White Glow
213
Under the Tread of My Feet
214
Unsatiated Passions
215
The Sick Birds
216
Over the Sleeping Eyes
217
Here Lives the Jewish People
218
The Wolf: A Chronicle (1920) [And It Was on the Third Day in the Morning]
219
[And Jews Expelled from Other Places]
224
[And It Was in the Morning When the Jews]
226
[And It Was Just Before the Afternoon Prayer When the Stranger]
229
[And on the Eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement]
231
[And it Was When the Blower of the Horn Put the Shofar]
232
Poems (1932–1940) The Sturdy in Me
234
The Holy Song of the Holy Grocer
235
White Moon
236
Clouds Behind the Forest
236
xi
xii
Contents Poems from Paradise (1932–1936) Denver Sanatorium–New York Open Up, Gate
237
Again a Neighbor Died
238
Yiddish Poets
239
Mima’amakim
240
Song of the Yellow Patch
241
A Leaf on an Apple Tree (1955) In Fire
243
When We Let Ourselves Run Downhill
244
First Grass
244
Holiday
245
Bullfight
246
Kabbalists in Safed
247
With Exultation, as We Can!
249
To America
250
Moyshe-Layb Halpern (1886–1932)
254
In New York (1919) Momento Mori
255
Why Not
256
The Street Drummer
257
Our Garden
258
This Is Our Lot
259
Ghingeli
260
My Restlessness Is of a Wolf
262
Tuesday
262
“Watch Your Step!”
263
In the Golden Land
264
Not His Blood
265
Go Throw Them Out . . .
265
Contents The Golden Peacock (1924) The Story of the World
266
Zlochov, My Home
267
The Bird
269
Aby Kirly, The War Hero
270
With Myself
271
I Shall Never Go On Braggin’
272
Zarkhi on the Seashore Zarkhi to Himself
273
Zarkhi, His Pipe to the Yard, Cries
274
From Zarkhi’s Teachings
274
What Do We Know, Dear Brothers
276
The End of the Book
276
Posthumous Poems (1934)—I Salute
277
Night in Manhattan
279
Sacco-Vanzetti
280
To the One Who Seeks Me
282
From My Royzele’s Diary
282
Your Dress
285
Summer Rain
285
Overtime
286
He Who Calls Himself Leader
286
The Bird Mertsifint
288
The Ballad of Moyshe Kramgold
290
The Old Leader Complains
291
Make for Him a Revolution, If You Can!
292
The Messiah-Seeker
294
A Poem of a Love
296
A Velvet Dress
298
Married
299
My Only Son
299
xiii
xiv
Contents In Central Park
301
Kol Nidrey
302
The Poem of Boynisl the Orphan
303
My Crying-Out-Loud
304
Posthumous Poems (1934) —II How Long Will I Stand
306
My Blind Neighbor
308
There Wasn’t
309
So Far, So-So
312
So It Shall Be
312
I and You
313
In a “Speakeasy”—The Flower Girl
313
We The Revolutionaries or This America
315
Shalamouses
316
My Crying-Out-Loud
317
New York—Mount Clemens
317
This I Said to My Only Son at Play—and to Nobody Else
320
Berish Vaynshteyn (1905–1967)
332
Broken Pieces (1936) On the Docks
333
Sailors
333
My Street—Sheepshead Bay
334
Negroes Negro Village
335
Negro Geo’ge
336
Laundry
338
Harlem Negroes
339
Lynching
340
Guys of the Volye Guys of the Volye
340
Slaughter
342
Dogs of Dawn
342
Contents New York Everywhere Sheep in New York
343
Mangin Street
343
People Who Talk to Themselves
344
Division Street
345
Junk
346
New York Everywhere
346
Poems (1949) Harlem—A Negro Ghetto
349
Hides
350
Introspectivism
part four
A. Léyeles (1889–1966) The God of Israel
351 353 354
Labryinth (1918) Winter-Night Sonnet
355
New York
356
Young-Autumn (1922) Castles
356
Whiteness
357
Young-Autumn
357
Taos
358
Yuola
359
Rondeaux and Other Poems (1926) Villanelle of the Mystical Cycle
359
New York Wall Street
360
Manhattan Bridge
361
In the Subway: 1
362
In the Subway: 2
363
In the Subway: 3
365
xv
xvi
Contents Madison Square
365
Evening
366
Night
367
On Broadway
368
Autumn: A Sonnet Garland
369
Storms and Towers
376
November
376
Symmetry
377
Immobile
379
I Came from Ethiopia
379
Fabius Lind (1937) Fabius Lind’s Days
380
From ‘Fabius Lind’s Diary’ January 28
381
January 30
382
February 1
382
February 4
383
February 7
383
February 10
384
February 15
384
February 17
385
February 23
385
My Poems
386
Cold Night
386
Bolted Room
387
An Encounter
387
Moscow Night, End of December 1934
388
Fabius Lind Is Riding the Wind
389
Fabius Lind to Comrade Death
390
The Madonna in the Subway
391
Fabius Lind to Fabius Lind
393
Contents A Jew in the Sea (1947) The Poem
395
That’s It
396
Late Hour
397
On a Sixth Floor
397
Foreign Fencers
398
Shlomo Molkho Sings on the Eve of His Burning
399
Herod
400
Fatal Longing
403
On the Hudson
403
Why?
404
Sabbath Hours
405
Desert Madness
406
At the Foot of the Mountain (1957) What Do People Do?
407
It Will Pour
407
In Gray Light
408
On the Way Back
409
Islandish
409
A Variant
410
A Red Beard
411
Rondeau of My Life’s Walk
412
Jacob Glatshteyn (1896–1971)
413
Jacob Glatshteyn (1921) 1919
414
The Proud King
415
Bayonets
417
Property
417
Turtledoves
417
Twelve
418
Arteriosclerosis
418
xvii
xviii Contents Free Verse (1920) Abishag
420
On My Two-Hundredth Birthday
421
Like Chaff
422
Gaggie
423
Evening-Bread
424
Autumn
425
A Death-Charade
425
The Cry of the Gravediggers
426
Credos (1929) Ballad
426
Girl of My Generation
427
A Song
427
I Am Coming to You
428
From Our Yoke
429
Sheeny Mike
430
Autobiography
432
Jewish Kingdoms
433
The Baron Tells of His Last Experience
434
Exegyddish (1937) From the Nursery Clock and Mommie
442
A Boy and a Roll
442
Night, Be Mood to Me
443
To a Friend Who Wouldn’t Bother to Strain His Noodleboard Because Even So It Is Hard to Go Hunting When Your Rifle Is Blunt and Love Is Soft as an Old Blanket 444 Dissolution
447
We the Wordproletariat
448
Songs of Remembrance (1943) Small Night-Music
449
Contents Songs of Remembrance Good Night, World
453
Wagons
454
A Hunger Fell upon Us
455
On the Butcher Block
456
Here I Have Never Been
458
Nakhman of Bratslav to His Scribe Nakhman of Bratslav to His Scribe
460
Hear and Be Stunned
467
Radiant Jews (1946) Without Jews
470
My Wander-Brother
471
Resistance in the Ghetto
473
My Children’s-Children’s Past
475
Chopin Nocturne
477
My Father’s Shadow (1953) We, of the Singing Swords
478
Dostoyevsky
479
I Shall Transport Myself
480
Our Teacher Moses
482
Beginning
483
Evening Jews
485
How Much Christian
487
Old Age
488
Down-To-Earth Talk (1956) Without Offerings
488
Let Us
489
A Few Lines
490
Soon
490
The Joy of the Yiddish Word (1961) The Joy of the Yiddish Word
491
Steal Into the Prayerbook
491
xix
xx
Contents A Jew From Lublin (1966) In the Morning
492
My Grandchild-Generation
493
I Shall Remember
494
J. L. Teller (1912–1972)
503
Symbols (1930) Evening Motif
504
Miniatures (1934) Figure
504
Rock
505
Ruins
505
On the Road
505
Winter Evening
506
City Highway
506
Etude
506
Landscape
507
Animal Mood
507
Woman in Rain
507
Desire
508
Wild Song
509
Late Evening
509
The Knight Sings
509
Sharp Hour
510
Poems of the Age (1940) Psychoanalysis Jud Süss Oppenheimer on His First Visit with Professor Sigmund Freud
510
Jud Süss Tells About Them and About Himself
512
Letter to Sigmund Freud
514
Sigmund Freud at the Age of Eighty-Two
515
Wilhelm Stekel Gives up Life
517
Three
520
Deportation
523
Contents To a Christian Woman
526
Meditation at Stuyvesant Church
528
Invasion A. Passport
530
B. They March In
531
C. Trial
532
D. Landscape with Military
533
E. Behind the Front
534
F. Idyll
535
G. Landscape with War
535
H. A Child Sees
536
I. Of Immigration
537
98 Fahrenheit
538
Poem
538
In a Minor Key
539
Posthumous Poems (1972) New York Landscapes
539
October
543
Pantheism: 1968
543
New York in a Jewish Mood
544
Switzerland 1938–1965
544
From Three Poems of Nightmare Flood
545
Midnight
546
Ruven Ludvig (1895–1926)
547
Who Shot the Leprous Nigger
547
Daisy McClellan
548
Indian Motifs
549
Steps in Sandy Trails
551
Mexican Shacks on the Canal
552
Old Levi
553
The Last One
555
xxi
xxii
Contents
B. Alquit (1896–1963)
556
To My Brothers
556
Us
558
For One Moment Only
558
Ladies
559
Your Grass
559
White Night
559
On the Left
563
Moyshe Nadir (1885–1943)
565
part five
Fists and Flags A Night in the Open Field
566
A Chimney Sweep
569
Display Windows of New York
569
Opportunity
572
One of 365 Days: New York, Winter, 1932
573
In the Library (In the Department of Old Classics)
582
Menke Katz (1906–1991)
585
Three Sisters (1932) [So Many V’s Burning Vis-à-Vis]
586
The First Sister
587
Dawning Man (1935) Dusk
589
Night
590
Zushe in the Smithy of the Worker-Poet
590
The Lynching Crow (Fragments)
591
Burning Town (1938) Burning Town (Fragments)
599
Dawn
605
Contents xxiii The Simple Dream (1947) On Bicycles Through Central Park: Triolets At Dawn
611
Evening-Bread
612
Midday (1954) Yiddish May in Mikhalishek and in Svintsyan
613
Tsfat (1979) The Tiny Land
614
It Was Good, Oh Tsfat, It Was Good
614
Menke Sonnets
part six
Clouds Over Tsfat
615
Children of Tsfat
615
In the Lucid Land
616
Against Lock and Rhyme
617
Summary
618
To a Butterfly
619
Narrative Poetry
I. Y. Shvarts (1885–1971)
621 623
Kentucky (1925) Chapter One A. After the Civil War
623
B. A Night of Dreams
626
C. Daybreak
629
D. The End of the Pack
632
E. In the New Land of Canaan
637
Chapter Two C. Neighbors
638
Chapter Five A. Joshua
641
xxiv Contents
part seven
Women Poets
Anna Margolin (1887–1952)
647 649
Once I Was a Slender Youth
650
Mother Earth, Sun-Washed, Trodden by Many
650
Years
650
My Race Speaks
651
Eyes Half-Closed
652
Slowly and Shining
653
You
653
In Copper and in Gold
654
Poem
655
You Kissed My Hand
656
Ghosts Whistled Sadly in the Dark
657
Beautiful Words of Marble and Gold
657
Snow
658
Brisk
659
The Masquerade Is Over
661
Ruven Ludvig
661
What Do You Want, Marie?
663
Marie’s Prayer
663
Marie and the Priest
664
Marie and the Visitors
664
Marie Wants to Be a Beggar
666
Marie and Death
667
On a Balcony
667
My Venus Wears Silken Slippers
667
Forgotten Gods
668
Her Smile
668
Marie
Tsilya Drapkin (1888–1956)
670
In the Hot Wind (1937) Adam
670
Contents You Plowed Open
671
My Mother
671
The Circus Lady
672
If Only I Could See
672
I Am Drowned
673
Do You Recognize Me
673
To Lucifer
674
In the Dirt of Your Suspicion
674
I Fall to the Ground
674
An Evening in March
675
White as the Snow
675
Through Night and Rain
676
Malka Heyfets-Tussman (1896–1987)
678
Poems (1949) With Teeth in Earth
679
Her Oak
680
Mild My Wild (1958) Slavery
680
Earthquake
681
Leaves Do Not Fall (1972) Saw You Among Trees
682
Thunder My Brother
682
Under Your Sign (1974) Widowhood
683
Desert Wind
684
Cellars and Attics
685
Now Is Ever (1977) Out Of and Back In
688
Sweet Father
689
Forgotten
690
In Spite
691
Dream
691
xxv
xxvi Contents Keep Me
692
Out and In Again
692
And I Smile (1983) My Persecutor
693
Homeless
693
Faker
694
songs by yiddish poets
697
Elyokum Tsunser Paper Is White
699
Zalman Shneur Daisies
701
Moyshe Nadir The Rebbe Elimelekh
702
Avrom Reyzen To My Hammer
705
Say, What Does It Mean? . . .
707
Wild and Wilder, Wicked Winds
709
Dovid Edelshtat In Strife
711
My Testament
713
Wake Up!
715
To the Working Women
717
Glossary
719
List of Poets
725
A Note on Transcription
the transcription of yiddish into the latin alphabet in this book uses, in most cases, the standard system devised by YIVO. Its main principle is a direct correspondence between the Latin letters and the sounds of standard literary Yiddish. The main pronunciations to keep in mind are: s
like s in English sad
z
like z in English zebra
sh
like sh in English shoe
ch or tsh
like ch in English chair
ts
like zz in pizza
kh
like ch in Chanukah or chutzpah
y
like y in English yes
a
like the first a in English affair
e
like e in English get
o
like o in English dog
u
like oo in English moon
I
like ee in English feel
ey
like ay in English day
ay
like uy in English guy
oy
like oi in English toil
Hebrew words have different pronunciations. When I refer to “Hebrew,” I imply Israeli (or Sephardi) Hebrew. The Hebrew component in Yiddish is fused with other components and pronounced variously. Thus, the Jewish New Year is pronounced in Israeli Hebrew as: Rosh Hashana; in Yiddish: Rosheshone; and compromises between the two: Rosh Hashono, and so forth.
xxvii
xxviii A Note on Transcription Some Yiddish syllables have no vowels. At the end of a word (and before a suffix), two consonants in which the second is l or n constitute a syllable. Thus, Yiddish meydl has two syllables, mey-dl (like English peddle), whereas its English translation, “girl,” has one syllable. This is also the case with ma-khn (“to make”), la-khn (“to laugh”), a shti-kl (“a piece”), ge-ke-stl-te (“checkered”), tu-ml-di-ke (“tumultuous, noisy”), and so on.
Preface
this book is designed to sink a shaft to a lost continent: an intensely American poetry written in the Yiddish language. A poetry that starts with poems of the sweatshop and the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, confronts the thicket of the big city, the new architecture, the streets, the Negroes, the docks, the landscapes of New York, Arizona, or California, is clearly a form of American culture. Moyshe Nadir’s “One of 365 Days,” written in the winter of 1932, is a walk through the incoherent, noisy and associative city that prefigures Frank O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died,” written forty years later, though Nadir is more attuned to the social injustice of it all. Of course, theirs was an America seen through the eyes of immigrants, but as the Yiddish saying goes, A gast oyf a vayl / zet oyf a mayl (“A guest for a while / can see for a mile”). The Prelude to this book—with samples of six poets—gives us a glance at both their involvement and their alienation: “Sing, stranger,” wrote the young poet Ruven Ludvig, who observed with empathy the self-conscious identities of the Indians, the blacks, and that last lost tribe, the Jews in the new world. The tragedy of Yiddish poetry in America was that it tried to promote an autonomous ethnic culture—and in a separate language, at that—at a time when the idea of the melting pot reigned supreme and exerted pressure on Jewish immigrants and their own children. As a result, once the idea of multi culturalism arose in the United States, there was hardly any secular Yiddishspeaking society and literature left. Nevertheless, Yiddish American culture left a rich, variegated body of poetry that could be seen as both a unique corpus of American literature and a remarkable chapter of Jewish history. Readers will recognize it if they meet this literature on its own terms. Yiddish poetry in America, like Yiddish poetry in Eastern Europe and around the globe, was the product of a self-conscious society that saw itself as a spiritual nation without a territory (in S. Dubnov’s terms), Am Olam, which means both the “eternal people” and the “people of the world” (or the global people). According to Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky and other “Yiddishists,” the language was their territory, “Yiddishland.” It embodied the interplay of xxix
xxx
Preface three homelands: the ancient one of Jewish imagination, Eretz Israel; the “Old Home” in Eastern Europe, where most of the poets and their parents were born; and the “New Home” in the New World. This form-conscious poetry strove to produce works of literature of high poetic and aesthetic standards, as idealized in the best of world literature. Thus Russian poetry through the Russian Yiddish poets and German poetry through the Galician Yiddish poets, and translations from world literature into those languages as well as in English and Yiddish, influenced the modes of Yiddish writing in the New World, even before any clear influences from contemporary English-language poetic trends could be detected. At this intersection between American realities and the traditions of Jewish culture, several waves of lyrical poetry focused on the individual, his or her experiences, responses to nature, love, death, women’s lot, aging, the rich connotations of language and art in language, and the tragedy of their dying tongue. If we observe each individual poet, Yiddish poetry in the United States looks like a matter of one (or one and a half) generations: the parents of the poets still lived in the old religious or enlightened world in Eastern Europe, and their children had already assimilated to American culture and the English language, while the poets themselves were enmeshed in Yiddish writing. But generation after generation kept immigrating to the United States and the literary and cultural institutions continued the history of Yiddish poetry here for more than a century. A few poets are still publishing poetry in Yiddish today. The journal Tsukunft (The Future), founded in New York in 1892, continues its life into the future, but it is safe to say that the heyday of Yiddish as a living culture and a high literature with a social Yiddish-speaking base is gone. With all the openness of Yiddish—a language at the intersection of several languages and cultures—and its attentive ear to poetic trends in this turbulent century as well as to the historical events and movements of the age, Yiddish American poetry developed its own autonomous, even closed, culture, with its own internal history, separate from what was going on in their neighboring English as well as in their own language in Europe and in the Soviet Union. This anthology brings to the English reader a large body of poetry, representing the full scope of Yiddish American verse in English translations. The values and ideals of this poetry cannot be found outside their own, changing contexts. There are several major trends of Yiddish American poetry: The first American generation of politically engaged “sweatshop” or “proletarian” poets of the late nineteenth century The demonstratively disengaged lyrical poets of the “Young Generation” (in Yiddish, “di yunge”) in the first two decades of the twentieth century The poets going beyond the self, influenced by European Symbolism and
Preface xxxi Expressionism, in the teens and twenties of the twentieth century The sophisticated, world-conscious individualists, the Introspectivists of the 1920s and 1930s The Communist sympathizers of the Proletpen (“Proletarian PEN—Poets, Essayists, Novelists”) in the 1930s and 1940s, who were so steeped in Jewish topics and sentiments that eventually they exploded their Communist cover Each trend emerged at a certain time and then grew into the others, intertwining, antagonizing, and responding to the glories and horrors of history. In addition, we have a section of women poets; a section to indicate the narrative genre, important for this literature in the twentieth century (but impossible to bring into full force in an anthology); and a section of songs made to poems by the major poets. The short biographies of the poets combine into a collective picture of their lives in multiple and multilingual historical contexts. The Table of Contents is an overview, listing all the poets and the dates of their lives. A detailed listing of all the poems is appended at the end of this book. Instead of a few poems by many poets, we selected a few poets and gave them ample space, thus presenting the poet’s personality, his or her poetic world, and its growth and change. The size and demands of this project made it impossible to include all the poets we would have liked to include. Several names come to mind: the influential poet of Jewish historical themes and editor of the prestigious cultural journal Di Tsukunft, Avrom Lyesin; the master of epic poetry and author of the book-length epic of travels through Jewish historiosophy, Der Geyer (“The Wanderer”), Menakhem Boreysho; such original poets as Zishe Vaynper, Abba Shtoltsenberg, Yitzkhok Shteyngart, Dora Teytelboym (author of the Yiddish narrative poem “Little Rock,” addressing the fight against segregation in southern schools), and Mikhl Likht, who was influenced by Ezra Pound and translated some difficult modern poetry from English into Yiddish. Most of the poets in this volume were born in Europe and became poets in the United States, where they arrived in their teens or early twenties; they still knew the depth, the ironies, and the folklore of Yiddish but grew into a literary culture in America. On the other hand, there were poets who came to the United States as refugees, especially after World War II; they were formed as accomplished poets in their lands of origin and cannot be considered part of American Yiddish poetry: Kadya Molodovsky, Chaim Grade, Aron Tsaytlin, Reyzl Zhikhlinsky, and many others. They are not included in the present anthology. Since the original language is known to only a smattering of readers, we felt an obligation to present a translation that is as close to the original as possible. The widespread trend among translators of creating a new English poem, taking off from the Yiddish, is neither faithful to the translator’s responsibility nor
xxxii Preface rewarding; there are many other themes for poetry. Although focusing on the poem’s own intentions, we have adopted a reader-friendly approach and made the text as transparent to a contemporary American reader as possible. Like German and Russian poetry in the first half of the twentieth century, Yiddish poetry in this period was highly invested in poetic form, meter, and rhyme. We did not reproduce it in every case but tried to preserve those forms in as many texts as possible, without substantially distorting the content. Whenever a rhyme, for example, required the change of a word, we tried to do it in the style and thematic attitudes of the poet and the poem. Our first effort in this direction was a bilingual volume, American Yiddish Poetry (University of California Press, 1986; paperback edition, Stanford University Press, forthcoming), which included parallel texts in both languages, parallel art by American painters of the same generation, and a large section of manifestoes and theoretical essays by members of the Introspectivist group. The volume, however, was not historical in orientation and included only seven prominent poets. The English texts of that anthology are included here, with some corrections, new translations, and augmentation. A Note on Transcription, a Glossary, and a List of Poets are added.
Acknowledgments We thank Kathryn Hellerstein, who was present at the very beginnings of AYP, translated most of the poems by Malka Heyfets-Tussman, and participated in the translations of the early M. L. Halpern and some other poets. With all the layers of writing and rewriting, it is hard to distinguish precisely who contributed what. In any case, Barbara and I edited and, if necessary, retranslated all the texts in this book, and the responsibility for the final product is ours. This project was many years in the making. We benefited from an NEH grant in 1989–90, which gave us time to produce the first part of this anthology. The Rifkind Fund of the Judaic Studies Program at Yale University helped with the last push to finish this volume. We are grateful to YIVO for the images of the poets. Benjamin Harshav Professor of Comparative Literature, J. and H. Blaustein Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature, and Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures Yale University
Sing, Stranger
Prelude We sit on soft cushions and talk About eternity, death, and grammar. (Jacob Glatshteyn, “On My Two-Hundredth Birthday”)
May I be damned if I’d like To sit mute on a heavenly rock. Here, in the sinful world— To talk and talk and talk. (Nakhman of Bratslav, in Jacob Glatshteyn, “Hear and Be Stunned”)
Prelude
Yehuda Leyb Gordon (1829–1892) Major Hebrew poet of the Haskalah in Russia, in favor of Jewish immigration to America. Though proclaiming “Hebrew or Russian,” he also wrote poetry in Yiddish.
To Dr. G. Zelikovitch Over the deep sea You made a voyage terrific, In America you became Professor of hieroglyphics. Would it not be better If you stayed in Zamet, Rather than being Professor You’d have become a melamed. You would then be assured Of your share in the World To Come, You would get in the Great Shul A seat on the board, a plum. Now in a short while You may forget your tongue, And for your Jewishness I wouldn’t give half a song. Today, I’d like to give you A book of rhymes, not a drama, So you’ll remember at least The language of your mama. 1887
Professor of Egyptology in Philadelphia and Yiddish poet, emigrated from Russia in 1887. Zamet or Zamut—an area in northwestern Lithuania. Teacher of small children in a religious heder.
Prelude
A. Léyeles (1889–1966)
Storms and Towers Snowy expanses On hills of earth. White endless spaces, broken and absorbed on the point of a spear, On the peak of Woolworth Tower. “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” Villon, my brother, Maître Villon, You did not see The Tower of Woolworth In a storm of snow. You did not see the introspective sign, Which spires of concrete with a thousand electrical sparks (Each the star of a Heloise, a Beatrice, an Alice) Thrust into the thick of snows, Among masses of people, rails, automobiles. You only knew, that eternal is the will Sweeping away the snows of yesteryear, Eternal, the memory which remembers them, Eternal, the hand sowing whiteness in the world. And so I know, That eternal is the hand that builds towers, And eternal, you and I— The rememberers, The knowers, The creators.
Prelude
Ruven Ludvig (1895–1926)
Sing, Stranger Stranger, Our steps will measure the length and breadth of the land And seek the wonders of the land. Our sweat will not plow the raw earth, Not fill to bursting the granaries of the land. Our blood will not color the yellow world-fall Of festive main-street carnivals. Our hands will not tighten white ropes Around black necks of Georgia’s sons. Our hands will not light pyres For a black body of Louisiana. Our mouths will not hurl poisoned words At a brown dying face of New Mexico. We shall only seek the wonders of the land On the desolate roads of the land. Our steps in the dust of distant roads Will become the wonders of the land. Stranger, Stranger. When you hear my joyful song of the muddy Mississippi, Let sparks of happy sorrow kindle in your eyes. And sing with me, stranger, Sing with me— When you hear my sad song of sunny Arizona, Let smiles of dreamy joy twitch in the corners of your lips. And sing with me, stranger, Sing with me— When you hear my hymns to the rugged Sierras, Shut your eyes, bow quietly, And sing with me, Sing with me—
Prelude
We shall seek the wonders of the land And sing our last song To the earth, Not our earth. We shall sing our swan song To the home, Not our home. Stranger, Our own Stranger— 1924
Prelude
H. Leyvik (1888–1962)
Yiddish Poets When I think of us—Yiddish poets, A sorrow grabs me—sharp, acute; I want to scream to myself, to pray— And just then the words grow mute. So outlandish is the look of our poems— Like stalks the locusts have possessed; One comfort: get disgusted with yourself, Slink on God’s earth, an alien guest! The blood of our word on cold fingers, From fingers—to cement, hard and cold; Oh, ashamed, ridiculous singers, Squeezed between four disgraced walls! And if one like us comes, a brother From a cellar, a sweatshop—he’s cursed: He finds in us his own mute tongue And avoids our solemn verse. And we, like children, like knights in love, Like Quixote, doing things unheard, In loneliness as ever we tremble Over every letter and word. Sometimes, like frazzled cats, dragging Their kittens around, distraught, We drag our poems between our teeth By the neck through the streets of New York. When I think of us, Yiddish poets, A sorrow grabs me—sharp, acute; I want to shout to a brother, to pray— And just then the words grow mute.
Prelude
Berish Vaynshteyn (1905–1967)
On Your Soil, America On your soil I was destined to sing the song of your land. So many people, so many ships I saw in your broad harbors, And from the tongues of your nations I learned how to be a stranger And began to understand that though Rayshe, Galicia is my home, My city is New York—my streets: Delancey, Ridge, and Pitt; And you became more homey to me since that mournful day When I saw my father-mother die on your soil, America. Father-Mother from home—grandchildren of Amsterdam Jewish vagabonds; Of great-grandfathers, from George Washington’s great times, Who sailed in fear over waters of the flood With their Sabbath candles, tallises and tefillin from old Holland And brought to the thin Lincoln the wisdom of “Holy Moses,” To soften the cry of Negroes in cottonfields. So many sad streets on your soil, America! Uncanny Jews walk around stooped from house to house With packs of wares hanging on heavy, weary shoulders And trade in clothes, in gold, as in Warsaw, as in Lodz, Twisting their tongues in English, Spanish, Italian and Yiddish. In your misty nights—on avenues and squares, One can see how lonely people can be on your soil. Your moons at months’ end rise thinner and paler And pour their sadness onto faces, onto drunken bodies, When your soil, America, is in wind, in bare snow. Somewhere into heavy distances, into blue depths—away, Ships sail on your dusky, stooped waters. Over the hanging bridges of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Cattle walk to slaughter with the glint of knives in their eyes And make grayer the loneliness of your soil, America. Nights fume city-like and blow autumnly from cold roofs. The blue of the skies grows sad like the city, like the windowpanes. Along your waters float barges with little lights, Shove off the flaming foam and shake the wood off the shores.
Prelude The harborlight of warehouses grows wintry and poor; Gloomily, watchmen pace among your foreign wares. Evening docks—murky and drunken with fog. Blond and muddy-brown sailors stand in taverns stinking of liquor, Stand at dreamy bars, with bowed heads, And talk to emptied beer mugs with dribbling mouths. From ropes and anchors their hands are rough and nimble, They can haul up masts in the middle of the world—in the middle of the sea. In November all things here become rusty, grow yellow. Boyish fires smoulder with nail-studded crates, boards and tin cans. God, what a longing looks out of faces, Jewish, Negro, Italian. “East-Side, West-Side”—everywhere the same windows, the same night. And when a man dies on your great wide soil, America, It is as if he died in many countries at once!
10
Prelude
Jacob Glatshteyn (1896–1971)
In the Middle of the Road Could you hush the drums a bit Until we, the desert generation, die out. Be patient with us. Could you slow your pace a bit, Let them think that we, too, will arrive. We shall not get there. We cannot get there. The road to forgetful joy is too long. When we fall, lift us up, Carry us like Holy Books of sadness. If we die, Bury us in the middle of the road, Like pieces of parchment. And if you show some disrespect, Let it not be held against you, Generation of singing intransigence. If we remain alone, The night will fall on our bones And cover our graves. And when our graves disappear, You will become a people Of orphaned joy, Without fatherly, gentle sadness. But our sadness is not merely gentle, It is full of strength. Without us, You are a childish people With a silly, paper God.
First published in 1948, at the time of the creation of the State of Israel. The generation of the Exodus, destined to die out during forty years of wandering in the desert and not enter the Promised Land. Holy books require a pious attitude. Stray pages and pieces of parchment must be buried and not destroyed.
part one
Proletarian Poets
(In Yiddish) Editors of [Yiddish] Socialist and Radical newspapers and journals in America, 1886–1907. upper row From left to right: Abe Cahan, New Times, The Future (Tsukunft), Spirit of the Time (Zeitgeist) and Forwards; Aleksander Harkavi, The New Spirit and Progress; M. Leontjef, Free Society, Free Workers Voice (Fraye Arbeter Shtime = F.A.Sh.); D. Edelshtadt, F.A.Sh.; Dr. V.A. Merison, F.A.Sh., Free Society; Jacob Gordin, Dramatical World, Truth (Wahrheit); L.E. Miller, Forwards, Future, Truth second row Moris Vintshevski, Truth (Der Emes), The Future; B. Feygenboym, People’s Paper (Folkstsaytung), The New Times, The Future, Morning Paper (Morgen-Tsaytung); M. Zametkin, The Socialist Democrat; Sh. Peskin, Spirit of the Time; Dovid Pinski, The Worker; Kalmen Marmor, The Jewish Warrior (Yiddisher Kempfer); Jacob Milkh, Future; Philip Kranz, Evening Paper, Our Time, Workers World, Future lower row M. Rosenfeld, The Sun; L. Katz, F.A.Sh., Free Society, The Nation; Dr. K. Zhitlovski, The Nation; Dr. Hillel Zolotarov, F.A.Sh., The Nation; Abe Goldberg, The New Voice; Dr. K. Farnberg, Future
Morris Rosenfeld (1862–1923)
also: Morris Rozenfeld, Moyshe-Yankev-Alter Rozenfeld
born in the village of boshka, Suvalk district, Jewish Lithuania, then in Russia close to the German border. His father was a tailor for the Russian army. Rosenfeld lived in the town of Suvalk, studied in heder. After his marriage, lived with his in-laws and studied Talmud. Also learned German, Polish, read modern Hebrew literature and Yiddish poetry. From the age of fifteen, he wrote Yiddish poems. In 1882 visited America, returned to his parents, who had immigrated to London, where he worked as a tailor, lived in dire poverty, and was drawn to the anarchists. In 1886 settled in America, worked in New York tailor shops as a handworker and then as a presser. Began publishing socialist propaganda poetry that found an admiring audience among the Jewish workers. His poems were sung in shops and at assemblies. From working as a presser, he became ill; tried to earn a living by singing his songs and selling his books. After his third book, 1897, he became famous. In 1898, Leo Wiener, professor of Slavic literature at Harvard, translated a book of Rosenfeld’s poems, Songs from the Ghetto, into English. Translations into other languages followed, including a book in German with Berthold Feiwel’s translations and Lilien’s illustrations and a book in English, Songs of Labor and Other Poems, translated by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank. Rosenfeld got a position as a journalist. In 1905 his only son died at the age of fifteen and Rosenfeld was paralyzed in half his body. His collected works were published in New York in six volumes, 1908–1910. In 1913 he was forced out of the daily Forverts and eventually became isolated from the new world of literature dominated by the aestheticians of the Young Generation (in Yiddish, di Yunge). His poems and collected writings were published in many editions in the United States and Europe, and several of his poems were set to music and gained wide popularity. Rosenfeld was received in Yiddish criticism as one of the fathers of Yiddish “Proletarian” poetry, but he also wrote many national and Zionist poems, as well as personal lyrics of love and nature and satirical verse on the human condition and the Jewish scene. 13
(ieber beS Gt:Jetto oon IDORRTS ROStTTft(D 1\l
Hutor. UbiZrtragung aus b!Zm JObirci:JIZn oon
BtRffjO(D ftliDt( mit 31Zicl)nung1Zn oon
e. m. rTrTerr
erftiZS TaufiZnb
Selected illustrations from the book of Rosenfeld’s poems translated into German: Lieder des Ghetto (Songs from the Ghetto) by Morris Rosenfeld, authorized translation from the Yiddish by Berthold Feiwel with drawings by E.M. Lilien, Berlin: S. Calvary, 1903
Morris Rosenfeld
Why I Am I As a Worker
Stand up, oh Muse! Sing of my rank, My worth among the slaves and Jews! Illuminate the source of song, Reveal my secret spring, oh Muse! Tell all the world the greatest truth! Proclaim what is in me the best: How every sound and every tone Burst from my full, my throbbing breast. Reveal why I did have to cry, And why I cherished joy—explain! For only you combined in me The greatest joy with greatest pain. And tell from where my anger came And why my bitterness was thick, For it was not a fickle mood That teased and shook me to the quick. I followed faithfully your call That came from heaven to console!— My body never overpowered The swinging motions of my soul. I lived through many sufferings, I saw some joy where joy belongs, And always there my soul did weave The purest, most sincere of songs. And always I remained myself, Wherever I was hurled by fate. And when my soul did tell me: “Cry,” My bitter tears did not abate. And if the farthest joy awoke, And resonated in a wind, I beamed and hoped and laughed and sang Of happiness, with joy I grinned.
Introduction to Selected Writings, New York, 1912. The poem consists of three parts: “As a Worker,” “As a Nationalist,” “As a Satirist.”
15
Morris Rosenfeld My youth lay crushed by running wheels, A gloomy yoke has pushed and shoved . . . And I lamented my own pain, I wept and sighed for those I loved. A sickly slave, crushed and destroyed, With dread and grief on every side— All I have known is lamentation In pain over a life that died. I left behind the finest woods, The prettiest river, finest sky, In slavery’s cursed mould immersed, Turned rusty and decayed have I. The sun has never shone for me, No grass, no leaf provided glory, My “yesterday” and my “today” Have sunk in slavery and worry. The driver’s power, wild and vile, The Need with its long bony finger— Has crushed my strength, has made me old, Has made of me a graveyard-singer. I saw around me just defeat, Destruction placed upon a throne, It could not happen otherwise— And all the millions I bemoan . . . Awake my Youth, just for a while! My life’s great victim, come, wake up, And say: Where does your young blood lie? Say: Have you died there in the shop? Yes, you were trapped by early death, With all your friends, all done and said, And I alone, alas, alone! I have accompanied the dead. I could not coldly contemplate The highest joy in vise and chain; I could not follow with dry eyes Dear coffins that evoke my pain . . .
17
Songs of Labor
Morris Rosenfeld I followed them in tears of sorrow Where last of roads will lead unseen, I did not say that God is just, For such defeat should not have been . . . I did not cry for crying’s sake, Revolt my every tear pervades, Reveals a hidden meaning here: I poured not tears, but hard grenades . . . In deep despair that weighed my song, There was a striving to the height; And quiet waking glowed so hot And gave the signal for the fight. I did not blame the rich in vain, And for his joy did not despise, But that he blocked the only road To Freedom’s splendid paradise. Oh, not an onlooker, I knew The robbed man’s life not just by sight, I lived myself through all mishaps, I bore myself this dreary plight. I had no time to think and brood, Just feeling filled my hasty song, My brain was silent all the while, My heart did shiver and did long. And every day, I had to choke A piece of me and cry “Alas!” And so did I become this I, The poet of the sweatshop mass.
The Swearing-In (Fragment)
For the poet a program To sing and complain In our great ocean Of suffering and pain. Oh, do you see the shops? Observe the factories? Here men create for men their happiness and ease:
19
20
Proletarian Poets They carve and build and spin and weave, in daily strife, And cut and saw and forge and thus they shape their life. But ask the pale, sad workers, who shiver there and sweat: How big is their reward, how much they own and get? Oh, ask how their home looks when they return at night, When the dark wheels fall mute and there is no more light! Oh, ask what do they do in times of lack of breath, In times of slack and need, oh yes, in times of death! Oh, ask who is to blame for all the wretched pain, And if they lack awareness—it’s you who must explain! You must explain the reason, explain what is their choice, If even all corruption be furious at your voice. And may your pen a violin be, a sword to run its course, To play and to rebuke them, to exercise your force! The animal will hate you and man will love your song, And justice will adore you, your name will then grow strong. Oh swear you’ll be with him who suffers and who braves! “Oh, hear: I swear!” — And now accept the blessing of a thousand slaves!
The Millionaire of Tears Oh not a golden tuning-fork Tunes up my throat to sing, A hint from high above cannot Raise high my voice to ring; The sigh of weary slaves awakes The songs I make for others— And flaming high my song revives, The song for my poor brothers.
•
•
•
And so I sink before my time, My life runs out so fast: What can poor people pay for this, For poetry to last? They pay with tears for every tear, In poverty’s pavilions:— I am a millionaire of tears And weep for all the millions . . .
Morris Rosenfeld
The Sweatshop The machines in the shop roar and shriek out of tune, I forget who I am in the noisy routine;— I get lost in the horrible roar and commotion, My self melts away, I become a machine: I work and I work and I work with no counting, I create and create and create without end: For what? And for whom? I don’t know, I don’t ask,— How can a machine think at all, comprehend? No feeling, no thought, there is no understanding;— The bitter, the bloodiest work deals a blow To the noblest, the best, all the finest and richest, The deepest, the highest that life has to show. The seconds, the minutes, the hours streak by, Like sails disappear all the nights and the days;— I drive the machine as if to overtake it— I rush without reason, I rush in a haze. The clock in the workshop ne’er knows any rest, It points, ticks and wakes, it won’t leave you behind;— A man once explained its deep meaning to me: Its pointing and waking, inside lies a mind; But something occurs in my head like a dream: The clock wakes in me life and meaning so keen, And something beyond it—what is it, don’t ask! I forgot, I don’t know, for I am a machine! . . . And often when I hear the tick of the clock, I see all at once through its pointing, its tongue;— I feel that the pendulum prods me go on, To work and to work, even more, fast and long! I hear in its tone all the boss’s wild anger, His dark, gloomy look in the pointers that show;— I fear that, relentless, the clock drives me on And calls me: “Machine!” And screams to me: “Sew!” But at noon, when the master goes off for his lunch, And the terrible roar for a while does depart, Then slowly it dawns in my head like the day, Then I can feel my wound and the throb in my heart;—
21
Dlt IDtRKStfltt. es faufr.m unb braufen fo roilb bie ffiafd)inen, f:s raufd)t unb fd)roirrt unb furrt urn midJ ~ er : Der Taumel oerfd)lingt mid), mein ld:J ge~t unter, ld:J bin nur ffiafdJine, ffiafd)ine, - nidJts me~r. Jlrbeit auf Jlrbeit, - roer red) net bie Jlrbeit '1 ld) fd)affe unb fd)affe unb fdJaff' o~ne 3a~l : IDofur '1 Unb furroen '1 ldJ roe ill nid)t, id) frag ' nid)t, Denkt benn au d) eine ffiafd)ine einmal '1 ••• Tobt jebes 6efu~l . tobt jeber 6ebanke: !a:: !elj Die blutig =graufame Jlrbeit ~rfd)lagt !a! !elj Das f:belfte, Befte, bas Reid)fte, bas fjod)fte, Das Sd)onfte, was menfd)en~erzen beroegt. f:s fd)roinben Secunben, ffiinuten unb Stunben, Unb tage unb Tiad)te zie~n pfeilfd)nell ~inroeg : ld) treibe bas Rab, als roollt' id)'s erjagen, Unb jage brauf los, o~ne Sinn, o~ne 3roeck. Die U~r in ber IDerkftatt, bie fte~t nid)t ftille, 3eigt an unb tickt unb fcl)lagt unb roeckt. !a:: ffiir fagte einft rziner bie eigne Bebrzutung, 91 Die in brzm Tieken unb Sd)lagen fteckt. !a:: faft traum~aft kommt mir ein feltfam f:rinr. rzrn: Die U~r rorzckt 6eift unb [ebensbege(Jr !a::
“The Sweatshop”
Morris Rosenfeld And bitter tears fall, and boiling tears fall To soak my dry bread, till from food I recoil— It chokes me, I can no more eat, I can not! Oh, harsh bitter need! Oh, terrible toil! The workshop appears in the midday recess As a battlefield bloody that rests from its flood: All around I see lying the corpses of men, A scream from the earth—it is the shed blood . . . One moment, and soon they sound drums of alarm, The dead come to life, and the battle grows bright, The troops they are fighting for strangers, for strangers, And struggle and fall and sink in the night. I look at the battleground, bitter with rage, With fear, with revenge, with a hellish wild ache;— The clock, now I hear it all right, it awakes: “An end to the slavery, an end we must make!” It rouses in me all my reason, my feelings, And shows me the hours—a stream with no dam: I shall remain wretched as long as I’m mute, Forlorn, the while I remain as I am . . . The man who is sleeping within me awakes, The vigilant slave falls asleep inside me;— This is the hour, the right time has come! An end to the misery, an end there must be! . . . But suddenly—the whistle, the boss—an alarm! I forget who I am in this deafening scene— I’m losing my reason, I’m losing my self— I don’t know, I don’t mind, for I am a machine . . .
The Pale Apreyter I see there a pale apreyter Steeped in his work, what dismay! Sewing ever since I remember, Wasting his forces away. The months fly away like the minutes, The years disappear from the scene, Yiddish pronunciation of “operator,” i.e., one who works a sewing machine.
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“The Pale Apreyter”
Morris Rosenfeld The pale man still sitting bent over, Still fighting the raw machine. I stand and I look at his mug, Sweaty and dirty and shrill, And feel it’s no hero at work, Inertia is toiling there still. The drops fall incessantly, drip From dawn to the last sunbeams, Soaking the dresses he sews, And drowning into the seams. Pray tell me, how long can the pale one Keep turning this bloody wheel? Who knows when his end will arrive? Who knows that terrible deal? Oh, hard, very hard to tell, But one thing it’s sure that we know: As soon as his work breaks him down, Another will sit there and sew.
A Tear on the Iron Oh, cold and dark is in the shop! I hold the iron, stand and clop!— I cough and sigh, my heart is weak, My chest is sick, my breath is bleak. I sigh and cough and press and think, My eye grows damp, a tear does sink, The iron glows—my tear does simmer— It boils and sears and won’t grow dimmer. I feel no strength, a broken band; The iron falls from my weak hand, And still my tear, my hot wet tear, My tear is boiling, boiling near. My spinning head, my breaking heart; I ask in pain, and with a start: “Oh, say, my friend in need, my tear, Will you forever boil and sear?
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“A Tear on the Iron”
Morris Rosenfeld Oh, silent tear, oh, silent tongue! Can I still shed my tears for long? Or is this tear the last today, Of all my searing friends, oh say! Are you a messenger for some, To tell me there are more to come? I want to know: under the sun, When will the great lament be done? I would have asked a lot more here, Asked the malaise, the soaring tear, But suddenly a downpour came Of boundless tears, more of the same, I understood the rising tide: The flood of tears is deep and wide.
To My Beloved Be blessed, my happiness, my joy, The golden light I love to see! You came to me, you came in vain In the damp shop to be with me. It hums, it boils, it burns, it seethes, There is no place for you, oh go— I hired out my arms and hands; I cannot now embrace you—no! And though without you I am dead, I must demand of you—please go! Here rules the struggle harsh for bread, And I must tremble when I sew. Come later, oh, please come at night, Come to my home where I am free— My heart leaps up, my spirit wakes, My love flames up again in me. Oh, then I run to you, my love, And fall excited on your breast, And all the day’s harsh sufferings, For you I take them off my chest.
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Proletarian Poets And you then have my kisses hot, And all my tears, both old and new— The best of everything there is Inside my soul I give to you: My finest poem will emerge And greet you when you first appear. And every single word you say Turns into music in my ear. But now, my love, now you must go. Love has no power here, no right, Here I may not embrace you—no! My life starts only with the night.
The Bride of the Mountains
In the Allegheny Mountains You can see so fine An old ruin where there was Once a fallen mine.
And not far from that old ruin, Lonely, lost, alas, A small house there stands abandoned, Drowning in the grass. The old miner used to come there In the night to rest; There the quiet tears were flowing, Moans came from the breast. But the mine is now a ruin— Where the thick blood flew: There his daughter’s bridegroom lies, And the old man too. And his pious, pretty daughter— Oh, what could be worse?— In the mountains, evil spirits Wander like a curse.
The Allegheny Mountains are located in the states of Pennsylvania and Virginia and are rich in coal mines.
Morris Rosenfeld Lonely, among stones she lives, In despair so deep; Late at night above the mine, Mute, she falls asleep. As she sleeps, musicians come And the music raves, While her father and her bridegroom Open up their graves. And with them the miners all, Singing, and so near, From the little church nearby Muted sounds you hear. Mute and silent like his grave, Steeped in blood and pain, In his arms, the frozen groom Takes his love again. The old father comes along, Cleansed of all his fears, Cries and blesses his two children, Sighs and disappears. The musicians hush their playing, Bells no longer boom— All does vanish; and remaining— Only bride and groom. They remain and dance so calmly, Undisturbed, they soar, Till a wink from somewhere comes— Is the groom no more. Then the dead man’s bride leaps up Fleeing thereafter, Disappearing in the mountains With a crazy laughter.
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“Storm in the Sea”
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Proletarian Poets
Shoot the Beast Oh, load your guns and spare no lead, Shoot at the miner, take his breath! No matter what, he rarely dies A natural and human death. What is the value of a miner? It’s now or later, make an end! No matter what, he’s buried deep, A corpse that no one will defend. What does a miner care for night? Will light console him here, perhaps? A man who lies in a black shaft And hears the mountains all collapse. A miner’s not afraid of death! Oh, load your gun, and fire away! His place is deep below, he should Not bother us in light of day. What needs a man deep in a pit? A slave who sees no day or light? A pretty dress, a pretty house, A higher wage? For wrong or right? Oh, fire away, don’t spare the lead! For free will flow the miner’s blood, Oh, fire away, and have no fear— No man will help, no god will hear.
The Bradley Martin Ball This is the Bradley Martin Ball How splendid these cotillions! They’re dancing wild in Waldorf Hall Who robbed the people’s millions. There flows the wine, the music roars, The crowd will dance till dawn; There, time and world are flowing back, Instead of marching on. This poem was written during the great crisis in America when people died of starvation in the streets
and Mrs. Bradley Martin made a splendid costume ball.
Morris Rosenfeld A flower costs a hundred bucks, A thousand for a stone, And more for every costume there, And for a smile alone. But that’s old hat, no news in this, It’s all been said and done— The old world’s seen a million times Much greater bons vivants. It’s not the first great costume ball On history’s old stage, This splendid dance shall end like those That were in every age . . . This is the Bradley Martin Ball, Eight hundred—no one winces! They’re working all—they have the gall To imitate the princes. But it’s not easy for our crowd— No use for money’s glints; For still the richest bon vivant Is not a real prince . . . But do they know of any shame? They are no royal heirs. They are the rulers in this land, They are the millionaires. They’re ruling wild, in every place, With proud and haughty hand, They govern north and south and west, They rule throughout the land. If they desire . . . But that’s enough! We know, make no mistake, The jug will serve just for a while, Till it will fill and break . . . This is the Bradley Martin Ball! For here the golden Golem Makes paradise in graveyard’s vale, A dance so wild and solemn.
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Proletarian Poets For see the masses sick and pale! They are the starving dregs! The best and finest class of men Stands in the street and begs. The ignoramuses, they stand, Hold out their hand for hours, Those who have clad the Waldorf’s guests In diamonds and flowers. And Mrs. Bradley Martin laughs, The “Princess of Navarra”— Oh dear! There’s so much pomp and glow, In misery’s Sahara! Oh to avoid the punishment, The guilt for all the nation— Oh people, when will you wake up? When will you be impatient?
Evening On the Palisades, the sun rests, Casting its last, sweet glance At the abandoned Hudson, lying In its cold silver-bed, pensively Murmuring a yearning “good night.” Good night to you, princes of light, silently As a dream of youth sinking In the mountains, taking joy with you: In your light, you forget your splendor, You leave the world alone—good night! Soon, just a red stain remains On the horizon like blood, a pain Is spun in the West and a wind Sways the fields sleepy and soft, And all around it whispers: “Good night” . . .
Morris Rosenfeld
Niagara Falls
The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea. (Psalms, 93:4)
A piece of the Works of Creation in the midst of Civilization; a vestige of Chaos without form and void illuminated with electricity; a remote corner of unfinished world; the ruin of God’s first abode—
Niagara Falls!
Eternal water capering down an eternal mountain, as if a sea committing suicide; as if nature wanted to take her own life; as if the Devil learned to swim; as if the World Architect confined here the unrest of all times—
Niagara Falls!
Is it the aftermath of Creation or a sampling of the dying of the World? Is this how the World looked in its mother’s womb? How it will look in its demise? Is this a stubborn primeval ore that wouldn’t be mastered? Did the Ineffable Name fall in here?
Niagara Falls!
No, those must be the tears of sufferers who, unable to rest, hurl themselves screaming into the valley, the Vale of Woes . . . Yes, this is the flood of tears of the wretched, and here is the rainbow over the abyss . . . Here is the bow whose colorful hues mirror the multicolored hopes for a future and the tears roar; their uproar spreads with a million voices, drowning out the solid, tough mountains all around . . .
Niagara Falls!
And maybe it is my own heart, trembling, boiling, seething, bustling, overflowing like a sea in tower-waves, whose echo wakes God and man and world—the sleeping trinity which must awaken? . . . Is it my poor soul capering down the heights? The “divine part in me,” a divine waterfall on earth—a Niagara Falls?
Niagara Falls!
Perhaps this is the curse of an Indian witch, a blind, old “squaw” for the violated freedom of her race which once danced to the ghosts at the shores of the abundant Lake Ontario—the big, strong lake which has gone mad since the map turned it into a shameful partition between two nations with one language? And perhaps this is the witch herself, the spit of the lost tribes whose fiery horses were transformed into waves and kick and neigh and slap
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“The Jewish May” (A Zionist dream)
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Proletarian Poets with their water hooves the lashing eddy performing an exuberant concert for the mountains, passing the “Great Gorge” that breathes miracles?
Niagara Falls!
Yes, those are ghosts, primeval spirits of an extinguished humanity, of another “once upon a time,” with no chains, no grammar, no ethics, no science, no morals, no law . . . From the whirlpool of this awesome cataract, the ghosts wink at me and speak a long-forgotten tongue I think I understand . . . From the silver foam of the pulverized water mountains they emerge big and sublime like thoughts, and sing and dance and flutter with their wet wings, dripping pearls as the lips of a prophet drip prophecy. Now they paddle off into the moiling whirling torrent passing the rocky walls, now they swim back like veiled nymphs astride the rainbow over Niagara Falls.
Niagara Falls!
And overhead—the trains whistle, the factories hum, the bridges span and seem to connect two countries . . . And the electrical wagons bustle and the roar of the locomotives blends with the roar of the smashed water worlds, and one wants to drown out the other: Civilization wants to scare Nature and Nature—to shout louder than Technology. A war between Primeval Spirit and the Spirit of the Time. And the stars look down pensively and, winking their shining, celestial eyes, they hide in fear under the clouds. And the mountains freeze in fear and shrug their mighty shoulders and their long, giant shadows are swallowed in the mist.
Niagara Falls!
I stand bewildered and amazed, and ask: Who will triumph? — I! shouts the Spirit of the Time—See, I harness the wild force to my factories. Here are the reins and here is my whip! — What God could not tame, I conquered. For “Now” is stronger than “Was” and “Will Be” . . . And the swoosh of the express train flew off in a silver smoke like a white dove bathing in milk. And the water falls and falls, as if it isn’t concerned. And it breaks down from mountain to valley, and every drop is stamped with the seal of eternity, bearing the secret of secrets: the cradle or the grave of the world.
Oh, Niagara Falls!
Morris Rosenfeld How long will it fall and fall, the screaming riddle with no solution? And my question itself is drowned out in the thunder of crushing floods. The Chaos “without form and void” and the “Let there be light” struggling with each other, both surface from the abyss like two fighting serpents. One twined around the other, they get entangled in the roaring water train that rips on the reefs gazing out of the depths. And ghosts and witches and thoughts and riddles and beliefs and languages and races and gods and the “Red Jews” whirling in the Sambatyon of the waves, and in the midst of this whirl-storm whirls my heart and my fantasy and the deafening, monstrous chaos rises to the rainbow and higher, and my questioning soul rises with it.
The White Devils Thoughts about New York’s Underground Trains
Can you make the witch that conjured up the Prophet Samuel conjure up an “Emperor” of the old “Indians” from his eternal sleep and bring him into the new underground train of New York City? Can you now conjure up one of those “wild men” who sold America for a string of beads, to take a look at what the “white devils” have made of it. And the “White Devils” have really performed “miracles.” Like witches, they pounced on the tranquil nature of the new world and spirited up from her closed womb new skies, full of glimmer and life. Wild rocks gave way to sublime architecture and the muddled mires were transformed into “sky-gazers” and “cloud-scrapers,” whose high roofgardens fraternize with the stars. The majesty of the human spirit has spread out, everywhere we see the stamp of the holy seal of the striving soul. The new man breathed a soul into steel and iron and a Brooklyn Bridge appeared, a Williamsburg Bridge, a Pike Street Bridge; high trains hovering in the air, and street trains running like ghosts; passenger ships and merchant ships and warships; and millions of factories and machines and locomotives, and cylinders that occupy the brain. The “White Devil” frowned and thousands of hidden forces loomed up from the Chaos and began to serve man like base slaves.
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Proletarian Poets Human Genius waved his magic wand and said “let there be light” and electricity began to compete with the sun. Where the former red warrior didn’t have enough words to declare his love to his beautiful “squaw,” and where there were no concepts for “hurry up, brother,” for Art and for Science—the phonograph began singing operas and declaiming poems. The telephone offered the human word a “leap in space,” and a “White Devil” invented an alphabet for the telegraph. The “wise” immigrant created honey from flowers the “stupid” native used to trample on. He opened the entrails of the earth and extracted its children to play for the immigrants of the New World. Coal, gold, silver and precious stones were fished out in the net of wisdom. The lost, unknown ground became the famous, redoubtable America, the pride of nations and the beacon of energy and activity. The magnet of America’s greatness and grandeur attracted all the striving and energetic members of the great human family. They came and made a “commune” of souls, a union of muscles, of thoughts—a model world of unequaled achievements. The “White Bees” worked so long, toiled, bustled, flitted from flower to flower and glowed in the sunshine, until they created the big, famous beehive called—New York. And the bustle grew stronger. The activity accelerated. “Hurry up” drowned out “slow down”; and “move on”—squashed “who cares.” The human bees began making honey for the whole world. The work had to be done faster, harder, people began running and chasing one another. There was a pushing and shoving till all roads became narrow and they had to create transportation under the ground. So the underground train was born, the train flying with American “got no time” in a few minutes from Castle Garden to the Bronx, from one end of the city to the other. A tunnel was cut through the stone ribs of “Old Manhattan” so the pale noisemaker can tremble and hurl itself faster in all directions. The new American is busier than his annihilated predecessor. He is bigger because, from the same soil, he can extract more things and artfully whittle miracle after miracle the red hunter never dreamed of. The Indian did not ask more of the world than what he needed right now. He was good to the soil that gave him life, let him tread it, catch its fish and trap
Morris Rosenfeld its animals and birds. He was good to nature and to himself. A wild man . . . He did not cut down the forests, did not undermine the earth that bore him. But today’s American takes whatever he can and cannot get. He swaggers against whatever gets in his way. Not in vain, says he, did nature make him farsighted and imaginative, skills he uses to obtain whatever his eye can see and his imagination can reach. In the short time of its existence, white unrest wants to achieve more things and discover more secrets than time and life can serve him. In this respect, the immigrant Jew does not lag behind his Yankee neighbor. He outgrew the “ghetto” very fast. His innate spirit of progress leaps forward. “You’re running so I’m running too” and the Jewish quarter too has a “subway,” an underground train. Giant bridges span his street, and under his feet lightning drives the “Jewish” express train. The Jewish street never lagged behind, it overtook . . . But here the question arises: What would the old Indian have said if he saw the electrical ghost flying like a “black plague” with the wise white man? Wouldn’t he have preferred to lie in the shade of a tree, his bow and arrow beside him, looking at the stars? Wouldn’t he have preferred to live in peace and quiet on the bit of earth, wherever he happened to be? Wouldn’t his big, strong, wild heart bleed to see how the green trees were cut down, the mighty rocky mountains smashed and boxes of clay and iron erected? Boxes, where people run up and down in unsafe machines to make a living? Sad boxes of thirty stories, no air, no birds, no flowers; boxes where you elbow your way and cannot let go, riding a fiery horse that breathes valor, hovering with disheveled mane over green fields? Would the old child of nature have liked to earn his bread in a sweatshop, make a living with a pushcart, seek riches in the stockmarket, a name for himself in a newspaper and immortality in an encyclopedia? Would he have liked to risk his life on the elevated train and crawl like a mole through the earth to look for the debt nature owes him? Does it pay for the white landlord to run crazily for life and death in the high stories and in the deep mines? Doesn’t the fast train bring him faster to his grave? Living on a machine, doesn’t he live faster, doesn’t he lose the beauty of the free, open, shining world in his bustling in the deafening noise of the cumbersome New York? Does he have time at least for one moment to ruminate on the blue canopy spreading over nature and man as over a bride and groom? Can he see how
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“Autumn Melodies”
Morris Rosenfeld the old green oak spreads its fragrant hands like a high priest to bless God and His creation? Oh, where do you get the witch to conjure up the old Indian and return man to nature?
Three Generations Once upon a time, people used to “run” to America; much later—they “went” to America and now—they “travel” to America. This is a mighty big difference! Those who “ran” to America years ago are almost all gone, but their children and grandchildren are now big shots, rich “Yahudim,” aristocrats . . . Most of them are doing pretty well and look down on the “East Side” with a microscope . . . Those poor souls who “went” to America, yes went, because their lot and persecutions drove them out of their home without travel expenses—those people are still almost all with us. It is they who paved the way here for Jewish knowledge, Jewish journalism and Jewish art. Not all of those who went to America are happy. Many, a great many, fell on the battlefields of livelihood and progress. And many remained hanging in the air with no firm ground under their weary feet. Those who came “running” here were good at amassing wealth in various ways, as they had done in their old homeland, from which they were forced to run so as not to be caught . . . But those who went here had to struggle bitterly, very bitterly, for their existence. Very different are those who are now traveling to America. Those who “travel” find everything waiting for them here. They don’t know and don’t want to know what happened before. They immediately begin interfering and advising. They don’t want to be grateful for what has been done here for their sake; they immediately put on airs and “kick” as if they had helped to build or create something. No doubt in the course of the future generations, those three categories of immigrants will blend so completely you won’t know “who is who,” but meanwhile, those who “ran,” “went,” or “traveled” are three quite different classes. Those who “ran” moved up into the high places of the West Side and into the elegant spots of the East; those who “went” also shuffle off little by little from Hester and her sisters; and those who “traveled” more and East European Jews’ nickname for the old, assimilated German Jews in New York.
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Proletarian Poets more remain the rulers of the East Side, the so-called “Ghetto.” Those who “traveled” here found ready-made newspapers, ready-made unions, ready-made theaters, ready-made lodges, organizations, unions, societies, hospitals, groups and institutions of various kinds. Those recent immigrants immediately begin using them and even more—criticizing! They don’t know how much blood and sweat, how much marrow and effort and lives it cost to create it all in a foreign land under the worst circumstances. These new immigrants are not at all interested in the history of the “East Side,” in the many sacrifices made on the altar of Jewish progress in the new world. They pounce on it all as if it were their own, and they don’t even have a good word to say for those who came before. Until now, nothing was heard of the East Side; but as soon as it became prominent, as soon as devoted people made the Jews famous, those who “ran” came and asked for a share of recognition. They say all this happened for their sake, that their light influenced us from up high . . . And some new “greenhorn” nobodies, who didn’t even bellyache about America, have the chutzpah to come teach us and enlighten us and curse us with the most disgraceful words. For many years, we sacrificed ourselves for the people, we created for them a widespread and first-class journalism, we wrote books and created everything in poverty and misery, fighting starvation and despair, and those who reap the fruit of our bloody labor don’t even look back at us. Never mind. The “uptown” aristocrats, the bigwigs of the golden ghetto, gradually discovered we don’t want to recognize them as partners in the genesis of our spiritual creations; we showed them we are our own bosses; now all we have to do is to remind the new travelers not to forget their brave pioneers. Now, from overseas come many bloated intellectuals and just plain Jews with pretensions and puff themselves up and kick up a fuss against the old fighters for Jewish progress in the Jewish quarter. Those intellectuals better take off their hat to those who paved the way here for their sake. Every Yiddish newspaper of the “East Side” has its tale of suffering and every writer who now makes a living starved for years. Every union has a record of bloody scenes, of tearful and lamentable chronicles, and every Jewish actor who wears a diamond stickpin and a gold watch fought with fate for many a long year and fenced for a living. Every true Jewish poetry in the Diaspora language composed in the damp tenements of the Jewish quarter bears the stamp of sacrifice and every textbook written here to teach the greenhorns the language of the land is a tombstone on a piece of lost life.
Morris Rosenfeld Those who achieved all those fine things on the East Side are slowly but surely retreating, grown weary. Soon their activities will be taken over by other, younger hands. Soon the first quarter century of effort and drudgery, of incessant struggle—will be dead. You, new Americans, you who “traveled” here, do not forget your brave predecessors! Don’t forget what we did for you! Don’t be so proud! Respect the good things you find here. What we pass on to you, even if it is not entirely perfect, is still pretty respectable, but what you will go on doing we don’t know yet. Respect for the martyrs of the “East Side!” Bow your head to an immortal quarter century!
Scenes in the Mountains A few days ago, I journeyed with two friends through the southwestern Catskills to the tiny little town of Parksville. My intention was twofold: first, to observe the splendid nature of those places and enjoy the bracing air so necessary for my health; and secondly, to see the various Jewish farm areas in the wonderful valleys. We did not travel in the hotel automobile, but in a simple farm carriage that looked more like a plain cart. We wanted it to look more natural and we didn’t want the not-so-nice-smelling piece of civilization to intrude on the soul-refreshing fragrance wafting from the ancient mountains of Sullivan County. Besides, we were afraid to trust the Angel of Death to drive us. Our driver was an old Christian farmer who had grown up in these Mountains and knew every path in the wilderness. We crossed the famous Park Mountain still breathing with the primeval matter of the Act of Creation. A sublime seriousness permeated all our limbs. Even the horses, as if intentionally, began to walk slowly, step after step, letting us see God’s wonders in the secluded nature. We didn’t talk, we were silent. Words would be sacrilege. I was afraid to breath aloud, not to disturb the divine calm hovering over us. We saw God. We felt Him, we understood Him . . . Yes, we were silent and only held each other’s hands as if to impress our feelings upon one another, into our hands, our blood, our souls. What we felt remained a mystery, just like the creation of these Mountains. We shall
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Proletarian Poets never tell it, we cannot tell it because as soon as we descended into the valley, we forgot it all . . . We drove through the lonely, melancholy-cheerful mountain path, narrow but wide in thoughts. On both sides, generations stood, centuries, and stared at us with earnest and sharp looks. Those were mighty trees, the stamp of eternity posed on their gigantic bodies and the shadow of lost worlds resting in their branches. From time to time, the voice of an unfamiliar bird was heard. He told us something, revealed some secret; but who could understand him? Suddenly, a rustle was heard in the thicket, and another rustle, as if ghosts were playing hide-and-seek. What happened there I don’t know to this day. —What a marvelous area this is, the farmer suddenly remarked, turning his head to us; I was born in these places, but when I come here, it all looks new and fascinating to me. We woke up abruptly as from a fantastic dream or as if you were interrupted in shul while reciting the Shmone-Esre blessings . . . We were angry at the old man for committing such a sin. “May God forgive him,” I thought to myself and plunged again, possessed by holy thoughts, and I felt my soul had risen. My spirit blended with the deep silence of the rocks and wove into a dreamy Sh’ma Israel . . . —We haven’t yet reached the peak, the farmer again interrupted. We’re coming now to the real top of the mountain. From here you can see for miles, only the trees block the view. But the most beautiful will come when we drive downhill from the mountains to the valley. I didn’t daydream anymore The carriage began climbing higher and higher, the horses stood on their hind legs and we felt suspended in the air. We seemed to drive into the clouds. Fear and wonderment descended on us. My nerves trembled feverishly. For a moment, we seemed to be falling backward into the abyss, no trace would remain of us. At last we reached the peak of Park Mountain. A new nature, a young, fresh sky, different trees and a different air. A cool breeze caressed the delicate plants and, straying into our path, it cooled and fanned us. A sea of young trees striped with little wildflowers was revealed to our eyes. Nearby stood an old, hollow, stooped tree with one single descending branch. It looked
Morris Rosenfeld like a nasty old Heder teacher with a lash in his hand, teaching small children the alphabet . . . A little further on, it is bare. A stretch of naked mountain, as if he had just emerged from his mother’s womb. A lonely oak stands there, encircled by the roots of a torn-out pine tree, uprooted by lightning running through the mountains. The roots entwining the sturdy oak look like the stripes of tfillin, the tree stands pensively against the sky, in solitary prayer . . . Going on we saw a slatted wooden farmhouse among the rocks. A tall old man with a long white beard falling over his chest walked barefoot behind a tremendous ox grazing on the wild bushes. The barefoot old giant looked like the spirit of the mountains, or like Messiah pasturing the Wild Ox for the Saints in the World-to-Come . . . But our driver told us the old man was a farmer, who had once upon a time been a soldier in America’s Civil War, who got a pension from the government and lived alone like a hermit. —He was a hero, the old man, the driver went on, he has several medals for bravery. Next to the hut lie his wife and daughter, both died on the same day. He wants to die here too. Meanwhile, feeling barely secure, we drove slowly downhill toward Parksville. The ride down was awesomely sublime. On both sides of the road, deep deep down, as in an abyss, spread enchanted landscapes—with beautiful horses and lush, well-tended fields. The road, on which two narrow carts could barely pass one another, led through the Fear of Death. The valleys on both sides were spinning before our eyes. The horses led us straight into the abyss; if, God forbid, they slipped, we would fall down and be crushed to dust. We traveled through deserts where nature is still so wild, young and new, as if it just now left the Creator’s hands. But from the valleys, the alert genius of human labor smiled at us. The fields were worked by skilled hands. Many of the pretty houses belonged to Jews. Those are kosher hotels. In the winter, the owners have other businesses in New York. —All those lots are for sale, remarked the old farmer. —What’s the matter, I asked; is the land bad? —Heaven forfend, he replied. Those are Jewish farms, bought only for speculation.
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Proletarian Poets For a while, the valleys disappeared from view and we saw a wild, terrifying vision. The pointy gray rocks poking up from the ground looked like hollow human skulls. The valley resembled the Valley of Jehosaphat where the nations will be judged someday . . . a sea of trees, old and young, stretched out in all directions like a congregation kneeling in prayer. Above this vision hovered a rare bird, from time to time uttering a hoarse sigh (like the prayer leader on Yom Kippur, finishing the final prayer of Ne’ila . . . ) But we passed by this scene too and finally, finally reached Parksville.
The Ghetto in the Catskills Jewish Gardens with sidelocks.—“Farmers” convert the mountains into Judaism.—A pale allrightnik goes to seek appetite.—“Sheeny Mountains” and Khaim-Moyshe Lake.—Diaspora and the stomachs. Quite a few years ago, when Jewish beards still grew on Bayard Street and trees still grew on East Broadway; when on Mott Street they still blew the shofar and Yiddish wasn’t understood on Grand Street; when they were peddling Jewish ritual fringes on Forsythe Street and Cherry Street was still Little Ireland; when they could still drag a tin peddler into a minyan on Christy Street and they still recited a Jewish blessing on First Avenue over an apreyter: “blessed be He who changes his creatures”; when our Jewish magnates were still cracking . . . nuts . . . in Europe and Yiddish “holiday papers” were not yet used for other purposes—in a word, a long time ago—no one dreamed Jews would spread up beyond Central Park or that the Catskill Mountains would be a continuation of Hester Street . . . Now, if you want to describe the New York Jewish quarter, you must keep in mind Sullivan County, Green County, and Holster County, because only a trained eye can recognize the difference between Centerville, Parksville, and Brownsville . . . The Jew took vengeance on the goyim for not accepting Jewish lodgers, he bought their farms and converted them. The gardens grew sidelocks and the trees were circumcised . . . And the fields will produce more fruit because Jews don’t lack fertilizer . . . The New York Jewish summer lodgers make the greatest effort to fertilize all the surroundings . . . A few years from now, you won’t be able to know which hills are higher, the dunghills or the Catskills and I fear they will have to make a new geographical map of New York state.
Morris Rosenfeld As for rain, you won’t need to worry about that either. If it rains, fine; if not, Jews will make their own “irrigation” to wet the fields, i.e., they make it already . . . they sprinkle the soil with fingernail water, fingerbowl water and made water . . . They pour it out the windows of the Jewish “farms,” of the Jewish lodging houses and hotels. Basically there is a big difference between New York and the Catskills. In New York, for example, the buildings stand in the city and here they stand outside . . . You can see that they stand outside, it is indicated by the empty space around. But the Kosher Jewish hotels, and especially the summer lodgers, want to deny the fact, they make an effort to endow the mountains with the same form as Essex Street and we must admit that they succeed . . . Yes, with time the Catskills will belong entirely to our fellow Israelites, just like Woodbine . . . The Christian farms are gradually bought by Jewish tailors and heder teachers. Christians who have private summer places in the neighborhood of Liberty or other spots close to Jewish lodging houses yield their expensive buildings for a pittance and flee. They flee from the Jewish neighbors, from the asthmatic, choking, and consumptive summer guests and from the proud, vulgar and gaudy upstarts; and it won’t be long before you won’t see a goy here for all the tea in China. The antisemites have already begun offending the Catskills and angrily dubbing them “Sheeny Mountains.” A Jewish farmer swore to me that he heard it himself . . . But it’s even nicer when the Jews give the old places Jewish names. Take the famous summer place Kaimishaw Lake, they call it “Khaim Moyshe Lake” after the Moyshes and the Khaims who come there . . . Only now do I understand why the Jews are an eternal people. They are really much stronger than nature because, in nature, there is a big difference between New York and the Catskills: the earth here is much higher, the air fresher, the climate healthier, but the Jews are all the same, on Rivington Street as in Mountaindale, in a cellar as on the mountains, time and place make no difference . . . When you travel from New York by train to the mountain districts, you cannot but be amazed by the huge number of Jewish passengers; men, women and children, young and old; yarmulke Jews, shaved Jews, puffedout Jews . . . Females of all kinds: with wigs, headbands, hats with ostrich feathers, and with kerchiefs tied under their chin. Everybody leaves New York. It is a mass exodus. Jews are fed up with the narrow, stifling streets; they haven’t always lived like that, once upon a time they worked the soil. The holy
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Unb flud)en barinnen, Von einer gar traurigen IDelt. Das Rab roirb gerd)roungen, Das [ieb roirb gefungen Von Hlten unb Jungen : IDir braud)en bie fungen Den Reid)en zur ffiadJt unb zur Prad)t. IDir Ongen unb nngen, 0, bis uns verrd)Hngen Die Sd)atten ber Jlad)t.
“Songs from the Street of the Poor”
Morris Rosenfeld summertime wakes them up from Exile. The bird calls, the green flowerbeds wink, a feeling from the golden ancient times wakes up and draws them far, far into the free world, the lost orphan returns to Mother Nature . . . Oh, how beautiful it is to fantasize! But in truth they travel to the mountains to eat . . . The air is stuffy in the city, You cannot well digest So what, there is a God in heaven— We go to country fest. May valleys green, May mountains green, In midst of summer’s heat— Now go there just to eat. The trees they smell, the grass is fresh, The shining sun is good, But we have just in mind the “table” And mountains full of food. And they rehearse eating right away on the train. Suddenly, “as God is with us,” bagels, rye bread, and bananas crawl out of pockets. The dress rehearsal is on. Eggs with mustard appear, fried giblets, cheese cakes with sour pickles . . . peanuts with corned beef and calvary sponge cake with smoked flounder. They are arming themselves for the farms, they will take vengeance on them . . . When I traveled to the Catskills, next to me sat a Jew, skinny and long as a Hasidic sidelock, but he was a parvenu, he wore a panama hat and a gold watch. He looked at the mountains with a pair of hungry, eager eyes and sloppily chewed a hard-boiled egg. His pointed goatee shook and white grains of salt fell from it . . . He travels to get fat in the mountains and, meanwhile, he learns how to eat . . . —There you must have appetite—the Jew addressed me, pointing to the mountains. —Yes, the mountains are sublime, their splendor is indescribable. —But you do get hungry as you come there?—my neighbor again begged pitifully.
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Proletarian Poets —The mountains stretch almost unbroken through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In New York State they are called the Catskills, in New Jersey, they are called Blue Ridge, and in Pennsylvania, they are called the Alleghenies . . . —And everywhere, do summer lodgers go to catch up? the Jew asked picking his beard for pieces of yolk and pensively throwing it on my jacket. —These are not yet the highest mountains, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are much higher. America has mountains that rise to fourteen thousand feet above sea level. —There people must really be stuffing themselves!—my skinny travel companion said happily. —And the Adirondacks can’t be ignored either. In those mountains there are still wild animals; President Roosevelt goes there to shoot bears . . . The Jew fell silent. My explanations, apparently, didn’t interest him very much. The conductor meanwhile shouted: “Liberty! Liberty!” When I came to, I saw the crowd didn’t waste time. They rehearsed down to the last prop. The benches of the cars and the floors looked like the aftermath of a battle. Big and little bones, pieces of meat, eggshells, banana peels, orange peels, peanut shells, onion peels, pieces of Yiddish newspapers smeared yellow, something awful . . . Uneida Biscuits and empty paper boxes . . . In the middle—a forlorn diaper lost by a baby . . . A yarmulke gets under your feet. I walked into Liberty amazed: what stomachs the Diaspora has developed among the Jews!
Dovid Edelshtat (1866–1892)
also: David Edelstadt
born in kaluga, russia proper, outside the Jewish Pale of Settlement. His father was a veteran “Nicolai soldier” who served in the Russian army for twenty-five years and was thoroughly Russified. In civil life, he worked as a policeman and in a sawmill. There were very few Jews in Kaluga and the language at home was Russian. Edelshtat studied Russian literature with a private tutor, began writing Russian poetry at age nine and published poems in the local newspaper at thirteen. In 1880, he moved to Kiev, where he had several brothers and half brothers. He was influenced by the Russian revolutionary movement. He witnessed the pogrom in Kiev in 1881 and, with an older brother, joined the Am Olam (“Eternal People,” as well as “World People”) movement, propagating immigration to America and establishment of communes there. Since there was no money for such settlements, he came to his two brothers in Cincinnati and worked as a buttonhole maker. He studied English and was impressed by the American anarchist movement. The Haymarket Affair in Chicago in 1886 and the hanging of four anarchists in 1887 shattered his calm. He published several radical poems in Russian, moved to New York, and wrote his first Yiddish poem, “Tsu der Varhayt” (“To Truth”), for the first issue of the Yiddish anarchist newspaper Die Wahrheit (Truth, in German), February 15, 1889. He wrote poems and articles for New York and London Yiddish radical newspapers (also under the pseudonym “Paskarel”). In 1890, at twenty-four, Edelshtat became editor of the anarchist weekly newspaper Fraye Arbeter Shtime (Free Workers’ Voice). His poems on topical issues appeared on the first page of the paper, along with articles and caricatures. In 1891, suffering from consumption, Edelshtat went to Denver, but the support of workers and family was barely enough for sheer survival. He died and was buried in the Jewish “Workmen Circle” cemetery in Denver. 53
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Proletarian Poets Edelshtat was a legendary figure, beloved by workers and young intellectuals. His poems became popular songs, sung in sweatshops and on picket lines. His poetry and biography embodied a suffering revolutionary romanticism that had wide appeal. He was admired by several generations of Yiddish poets. Dozens of poems and several books were written in his memory. His collected Yiddish works were published in London in 1910 and his Yiddish and Russian poetry in an academic edition in Moscow, 1935. Four of the following poems also appear in “Songs,” beginning on p. 711.
In Strife We are hated and hunted and driven, We bear the heavy yoke— And all because we love The poor, the languishing folk. We are whipped and shot and hanged, We are robbed of our life and our right, Because we demand for the suffering slaves Truth and Freedom and Light! But we will never be frightened By prison and tyranny, We’ll awaken the human race And make them happy and free. You may bind us in iron chains, Like beasts, our limbs you may sever, You can only kill the body, Our spirit will live forever! ........................................ You can kill us and murder us, tyrants! New fighters will rise and be— And we fight, we fight on till it dawns, When the world will be finally free. March 1, 1889
The poem was set to music (see p. 710).
Dovid Edelshtat
My Testament Oh, comrades, friends, when I shall die, Come raise our banner on my grave, The free Red banner, waving high, Sprayed with the blood of working slaves. And there, when our Red banner reigns, Sing my free song that rose and flew! My song “In Strife” rings like the chains Of the enslaved Christian and Jew. And even in my grave I’ll hear My song of storm that rose and flew, And I will shed again a tear For the enslaved Christian and Jew. And when I hear the swords that ring In the last fight of blood and pain— From the grave, I’ll to my people sing And will inspire their heart again! March 22, 1889
The Miner Warming yourselves at the jolly fire, Sheltered from wind and from rain, Do you think, brothers, how terribly dear Each piece of coal is to gain? Do you ever think that the price is too high? You see these embers before your eyes?— They are dyed with the human blood Of thousands of young guys! The fire blazes cheery and bright, But my limbs shiver in gloom. For every coal is a gravestone black On a murdered miner’s tomb. But no, those are no dead stones, This fire’s a bloody shrine, A black mountain of workers’ bones— A coffin of coal was their mine!
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Proletarian Poets Brothers, do you know the terrible life Of a miner, flesh and bone? Tell me, can there be in the world Such a dark lot as his own? From childhood he slaves, buried in the earth, For the paltry piece of bread, And even this not every day— He suffers from hunger and dread! His very own child he hardly knows: He leaves his home at dawn And runs to work, to slavery’s shame, In the cold dark pit, a pawn! He works and works in his dark cave For the railroad pirates, For all the thinkers and artists of the world, For all the sated tyrants! He works his life in danger and fear, Buried in a pit dark and damp . . . And what is his wage? For that he is robbed! Over his body they tramp!! Coal barons, you robber gang! You slaughter and turn your face . . . If you are human, it is a shame To belong to the human race. For the wild beasts are much higher, Are more human at least, A beast is never a criminal Against his own brother beast. One lion will not kill another, And men—the crown of nature— Men devour one another And leave no trace of the creature! Warming yourselves at the jolly fire, Sheltered from wind and from rain, Think of the miner! Think how dear Each piece of coal is to gain!
Dovid Edelshtat Think of the miner, of his wife and child, Enslaved by the golden gods, See how they are murdered like dogs With no friend, no savior, no odds! And if you have just a morsel of courage, Wake up, take the weapon, be brave! With your throbbing heart and with all your blood Defend the suffering slave! February 14, 1890
The Child-Murderer An original image from life
On a cold, dark, winter night, In the office of Dr. Gran, Pale and languid, entered An impoverished young man. The doctor asked him why he came. For a moment he was mute and scared. And in tears, sad and quiet, To the doctor his wounds he bared: “I am poor, doctor, terribly poor! I have a wife and two children. The cost: We live together in a dark grave, Where the walls are covered with frost . . . “For four months now, I’ve been on strike And I cannot make a cent; Every day I go out of my mind— And the landlord wants his rent. “Yet, doctor, I did not come to you For charity for me and my wife. Though I am poor and you are rich, I’ve never begged in my life! “I come to ask for something else . . . Oh, my heart bleeds inside me! Doctor! I ask you to save us From a new calamity!
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Proletarian Poets “Till now, with two children, we’ve suffered Terrible hunger and strife, And soon my wife will bring forth a third Miserable slave into life! “Bring forth—for eternal suffering and pain, For the bloody pursuit of bread! I came . . . I must prevent this misfortune, Oh, doctor, help me!” he said. “A slave child, what will the world Give him aside from a chain? He will curse his father’s heart, That gave him a life of pain! “What awaits him is the beggar’s shame, The curse of famine’s flood, That drives us to sell to the robber gang Our freedom and our blood! “Oh, doctor! It is not yet too late To choke life’s approaching spark. Why should another innocent babe Come into this world so dark?” Pensive, young Doctor Gran Paced up and down his room, He looked at the impoverished man In his torn clothes, in his doom, His black hands, his pale brow, His bowed, dejected head, And the big tears rolling down From his eyes, gloomy and red. “Young man, I sympathize with you! You want to commit a crime, I could have you arrested at once, But you’re still in your prime— “I hope you won’t think of it again! Go to those who have got, They will give you a few dollars And have pity on your lot!”
Dovid Edelshtat On the pale face of the poor man Played a smile, ironic and blind; Doctor Gran was flabbergasted: “The man has gone out of his mind!” “‘Go to the rich!’ To the robbers of light! I have poison enough in my cup! Not me—the rich must be dragged into court, The criminals are higher up! “They’ve grown rich sucking our blood! If not for the lords, fat and wild, A father would not be begging you To murder his own child! “‘Go to the rich!’ You’re not a bad guy, I thank you, Doctor Gran!” And with a caustic laughter, Exit the young man. Again a cold winter night: At a fireplace, on a divan, Sitting pensive with a book, The young Doctor Gran. Suddenly he hears a cry: “Open the door, Doctor Gran!” And pale as death, covered with snow, In runs the poor man. “Doctor! Not a minute to lose, My wife is breathing her last!” The doctor fetches his coat and hat, And both of them run out fast. ........................................ In a tiny room, by the light of a candle, The doctor regarded the sight: A young woman with a sunken face, Black as the darkness of night. Next to her lay two children Shivering with cold and curled . . .
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Proletarian Poets Oh, how happy are the blind In this unhappy world! “What did you do to the woman!” Screamed at him Doctor Gran. “Yesterday I brought a doctor to her,” Answered the poor young man. “He promised me to take care of the child . . . Yet, doctor, what happens to her?” “She and the child are both dead, And you’re the terrible murderer!” “Oh, doctor, save! Save them both!” “Too late! They are no more!” And with a wild scream, the wretched man Fell dead upon the floor. May 23, 1890
August Spies Calm and proud, like the great Socrates, He stood on the gallows, inspired, His every word was a holy deed, A death blow for every tyrant! Seldom has a human spirit Risen so heroically high! The hangmen are pale, the criminals wan, He is brave, facing the sky! From the terrible gallows as from a stage, A prophet inspired and proud, With the fire of the Paris Commune He spoke to the murderous crowd: “A time will come when, from our graves, A mighty voice will arise, Stronger than the one you want to choke, A thousand thunders in the skies!” August Spies (1855–1887) Born in Landeck, Germany, Spies emigrated to the U.S. in 1872; was active
in the labor movement and became editor of the Anarchist journal Arbeiter Zeitung in 1880. On May 4, 1886, Spies was arrested at the Haymarket riot in Chicago, accused and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. He was executed on November 11, 1887.
Dovid Edelshtat These were the last words of Spies. Hangmen, you killed the one! Did you destroy the spiritual giant? Did you extinguish the sun? Oh, no! The martyrs live—and the singer Takes his free spirit along: He touches his lyre with holy fingers, He sings me his holy song! And I see: the sun breaks through the fog, Darkness descends to the ground— The slave wakes up! Tremble, you tyrants, Your last hour will sound! The free shining morning is here, A mighty voice will arise, Stronger than the one you just choked, A thousand thunders in the skies! . . . F.A.Sh., October 10, 1890
The Two-Legged Beast Tell me where am I, I don’t see any men, Two-legged animals running around . . . Nothing to love, nothing to bless, The world is ugly, in dumbness drowned! Look, how they rob your sisters and brothers, Driven to suicide and murder, a herd; They suck their blood, they cut off their limbs— Look, swallow your tears . . . And don’t say a word! And if you say a word, if you want to be good, To defend the weak in the war, Then say good-bye to your dear old mother, Your wife and child . . . You won’t be back anymore. You won’t come back, the hangman is waiting To take you to the scaffold’s plane! The laurel wreath of a free thinker In our century—a rope and a chain!
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Proletarian Poets Men! You proud two-legged beast! What are you so proud of? Explain it to me! Every little bird that is free Has more justice and love than thee! See how free the bird builds her nest, Feeds herself, free in the sun, Has food, a roof in the storm, in the cold, Not enslaved to anyone. She greets the sun with a sweet song, Inhales fresh air, free as a feast, And knows not how unhappy and sick, Below, on the earth, is the two-legged beast. She knows not of bloody murdering cannons, She knows of no chains, scaffolds, or might, Of plague-infested churches and thrones, That make the shining day into night! Nor does she know that we humans have A wonderful civilization, That can bury thousands of men Without blinking an eye at abomination! That has scaffolds at every step, An open or sly tyrant, a Croesus— Here they kill us with electric wires, There the railroad cuts us to pieces! Here we are buried in a coal mine dark, Here we fall from an elevated stair, In this free civilized land Our poor head hangs by a hair! Development, progress!—But, sweet bird, I see you don’t know our world at all, You eschew the earth like a somber jail Where the sun is blocked by an iron wall. I envy you, free flying bird! Sing high! And be happy as you run, That you are not a vile two-legged beast That rapes freedom and spits at the sun!
Dovid Edelshtat Sing high! And with your free songs Remind man that he too can be free! Awaken, rouse my suffering brothers From their bitter sleep of slavery! Fly, birdie, high! And with your free wings Knock on Joliet’s window bars, Where people languish under lock and key, For speaking up for freedom’s stars. Give them the love of a lonely singer, Whose thought of them will never depart— Perhaps it will ease their weary lot When they hear a word from a free heart! F.A.Sh. October 17, 1890
Louis Lingg He stands before me in a flood of light On the world’s bloodied stage; Freedom’s divine halo rests On his beautiful face of a sage. Young and strong, with black locks, With an eagle’s sharp gaze; As proud and daring as Brutus, He was in freedom’s blaze! A lion in battle—his hero’s breast Was endowed with the heart of flowers That knew how to love with a holy love Whatever’s sublime, never cowers. How mightily his voice thundered, Branding the court so base! What bitter, ugly truths He hurled in the enemy’s face! “Tyrants! I hate you and your law, With the dark statutes you breed, Prison. Louis Lingg (1864–1887). Born in Baden, Germany, Lingg came to Chicago in 1885 and was known
as an anarchist-supporter. During the Haymarket riot in May 1886 he was arrested, accused and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. On November 10, 1887, Lingg committed suicide.
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Proletarian Poets That ensnare the poor folk in a net And force them to suffer and bleed. “I tell you frankly, I believe in force Of the workers who want to be! Power has enslaved our world And power will make it free! “To your bloody, murdering cannons We shall respond with dynamite! We shall destroy the chains and the thrones With our gigantic might! “You laugh: ‘Just wait, brother, We shall choke your impertinent voice.’ Murderers! Choke me! Another will soon Take up my place and rejoice “And will continue the holy cause With more fire and iron will! Tyrants, he will take vengeance on you For the innocent blood that you spill! “I condemn your murderous attempt To stifle the free-thinking men! I hate you, I send you a triple curse! Hang me for that, you hangmen!” ........................................ ........................................ Whether he was murdered by the oppressors Or that his own free hand Smashed his proud head to pieces— It is not known in the land.— But Lingg is not dead . . . On the barricades His spirit still hovers; you hear How he calls to us: “Forward, comrades! With armor and sword, reappear! “Our red banner must grow even redder In the last freedom’s strife! The graves of fighters are holy ladders, To freedom and happy life!”
Dovid Edelshtat So says to us Lingg, his voice thunders And wakes us to duty and grace, And the sun of the twentieth century, Shines on his proud face . . . F.A.Sh., October 24, 1890
The Jewish Proletarian (Sung to the melody of the Russian revolutionary song, “Vy zhertvoyu pali”)
Brothers, we carry a threefold chain— As Jews, as thinkers, as slaves; We are persecuted, tormented to death By antisemites and knaves!
In Russia oppressed by the wild Katzap, And here, in the free land, Bleeding, in a dungeon, a dark shop, At the machine we stand! Delicate flowers, starting to bloom, Are harnessed in binding reins, Trampled by moneybags and thrones, Chafing in slave chains!
They make us beggars, they make us slaves, They choke us, they wring us out; They say: This is what is right for you, If you’re robbed—you may not shout! But, brothers, the holy spirit still lives, Even the weak will be brave! It tumbles the dungeons, breaks the chains And frees the weary slave! It will help us free the working masses From the threefold chain; Only then, man will read his annals With no shame, no pain! Brothers, we must free the suffering earth, For us, we need no thanks! A pejorative nickname for Russians used by Ukrainians and other minorities.
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Proletarian Poets Shoulder to shoulder, with armor and sword, Forward in the battle ranks! The harder the war, the sweeter the triumph, Splendid the jubilations! And he who falls in the fight for freedom, Lives in future generations! Who needs a life without freedom or right, Under the tyrant’s whip! How long will we be homeless slaves, How long in their deadly grip?! Brothers, swear to the bloody earth, To free the folk from its foes! Shoulder to shoulder, with armor and sword, Forward in the battle rows! December 12, 1890
Wake Up! How long, oh, how long will you slave and still wait, Chained in shame and in dread! How long will you splendid treasures create For those that rob you of bread?! How long will you bow, unable to rise, Debased, with no home and no right! Day dawns! Wake up! Oh, open your eyes! Discover your ironclad might Proclaiming the freedom of strong barricades, Let war against foul tyrants be! Brave comrades, courage and will pervades And leads you to victory! The chains and the thrones must all fall away Under the worker’s sword! With fragrant flowers, in golden array, Freedom is the earth’s reward. And all will live and love and bloom In freedom’s golden May!
Dovid Edelshtat Brothers, don’t kneel. See the tyrants’ doom! Swear you’ll be free as the day! Strike everywhere the freedom bell! Let suffering slaves feel their might! Inspired in struggle, struggle like hell— For yourself, for your holiest right! F.A.Sh., January 9, 1891
To the Working Women Dedicated to the “Women Workers’ Organization”
Working women, suffering women, Languish at home or in shop’s abyss, Why stand at a distance? Why don’t you help build The temple of Freedom, of human bliss? Help us bear the red banner high, Forward through storm, through the dark night! Help us spread, among ignorant slaves, The message of Truth, the message of Light! Help us raise the world from its filth, Sacrifice all that we hold so dear, Like lions, we’ll fight together for freedom, Equality, principles, have no fear! Not once have noble women put fear On a throne, a hangman, a moneybag, They showed that in the bitter storm You can trust them to bear the holy flag. Always remember your Russian sisters, Murdered for freedom by the vampire Tsar, Tortured to death in cells of stone, Buried in snows of Siberia far. Remember the names, the holy names: Perovskaya, Helfman, Ginzburg, and more, Thousands ashamed to carry on Obediently the yoke as before. The poem was set to music (see p. 716). Russian women revolutionaries.
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Proletarian Poets Women heroes, they’ve stood in the storm, In darkness they’ve promised Hope and Light! They’ve meted out vengeance on murderous tyrants, Looked in death’s face, proud and upright. Remember them? When you do, let their lives Inspire you again! In triumph you’ll pass! Learn and think, fight and strive For freedom and joy for the working class! F.A.Sh., May 8, 1891
My Dream I had a dream of white flowers, White as the falling snow; How they got into my room, I truly do not know. With silk petals, they quietly touched My hot brow, it appears, And inside my sickly chest I felt their pearl-tears. I felt how from every flower Pours into my heart A wonderful sweet fragrance With its healing art. Into my window peered so white The beautiful pale moon, I asked her: Who brought the heavenly gift To my bed so soon? She looked at me with her silver rays And whispered in the blue: “The flowers, they fell down my dear, From a holy bosom to you. “The freedom goddess quietly flew, Over the slave-world bent, Her heavenly eyes have spied The poor poet’s tent.
Dovid Edelshtat “Pale, alone, forgotten by the world, Far from its filthy stream, He sat there with a plume in his hand, Steeped in a freedom dream. “Tearfully the goddess gazed At her pale singer And tore the flowers from her bosom With a trembling finger: “He dreams of me, he yearns for me, Go to him, snow-white flowers! Tell him I’m standing at humanity’s gate, And will enter in a few hours! “Console his heart, heal his wounds With your pearl-tears.” And among golden stars The goddess disappears. I woke up with a start. The moon shines Amid a silver stream. But where is the flower gift? It was just a dream, just a dream . . . The sweet dream floated off; But I don’t know why or where: I cannot forget the snow-white flowers And seek them everywhere. July 24, 1891
Tears I see a glass box—like a steeple Reaching from earth to the spheres; Inside, hot bleeding tears Of the poor, hated people. A storm is coming . . . It’ll pierce The glass box with a groan, And every castle and throne Will be swallowed by the sea of tears.
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Yoysef Bovshover (1873–1915)
born in lubavich, byelorussia. Received a religious education but left at an early age for Riga, where he learned German and knew Heinrich Heine’s poetry by heart. In 1891 came to America, Y. Bovshover reading to a young poet, A. Mintz. invited by his brothers who had immigrated previously. Worked as a furrier in a sweatshop. Joined the anarchist movement and began writing poetry. At first, Bovshover was influenced by Edelshtat and other Yiddish proletarian poets, but around 1894 he developed his own style, influenced by American poetry, especially by Walt Whitman. Lived in New Haven, Connecticut, learned English, and published poetry in English in the anarchist Liberty under the pseudonym of Basil Dahl (for example, “To the Toilers,” March 7, 1896, with the editor’s enthusiastic endorsement). His English poems were subsequently translated into Yiddish in the Soviet Union. Also wrote prose and essays, published critical biographies (including verse translations) of Heine, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Whitman, and Edwin Markham in Yiddish. His translation of Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” was performed by Jacob Adler in the Yiddish theater in New York. Poverty and mental illness led to his incarceration in a mental hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he spent the last fifteen years of his life, to the dismay of Yiddish literary critics. After his death, Bovshover was included among the four founders of Yiddish proletarian poetry, alongside Rosenfeld, Edelshtat, and Morris Vinchevsky.
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Yoysef Bovshover
Revolution I come like a proud, flaming comet, like the sun when the day starts to rise; I come like a raging, high storm, with thunder and flash in the skies; I come like a pouring hot lava from volcanoes forever in motion; I come like a storm from the north, that frightens and wakes every ocean. I come, for the tyrants have turned the nations to thrones full of dread; I come, for they nourish the peace with cannons and powder and lead; I come, for the world is divided, humanity’s bond torn apart; I come, for they’re closing the cosmos for our generation’s heart.— I come, for in deserts of power I was born and came of age; I come, for the powerful have awakened and nourished my rage; I come, for humanity’s breast cannot kill the strong seed of life; I come, for no one can forever forge in chains human freedom’s strife.— I led the enslaved hungry peoples in earlier generations, too, I helped them to shed their slavery, to change it for freedom anew, I walked along with all progress, helped it pave for itself a new way, And I’ll walk with the nations again and will free them from bondage today. And you, holy sacks of gold, anointed bandits, crowned fools, I shall annihilate you with your false laws and customs and rules, And your hearts yearning for blood, I shall pierce with a pointed stake, And your crowns and scepters of gold, in my rage I shall break, I shall break! And your colorful purple, I shall rend into pieces like tatters, That the people used to admire in their silly enjoyment that shatters,— Your frozen world will then lose its shining, blinding ways, As the snow falling down from white glaciers will melt in the sun’s rays! And I shall annihilate then your spiderweb morals, old lies, And your priests, the sinister dark ones, I shall stifle to death like flies, And your skies and your ghosts and your gods you set up in our lives everywhere, I shall smash and destroy, and pure will I make all the earth and the air!— And if you will choke me and hang me and shoot me—your effort is vain! I do not fear any dungeon, guillotines, gallows, or pain! I shall emerge from the earth, with weapons I’ll cover it brave, Until you will sink forever, you will be wiped out by the grave!—
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A Song to the People Lift up your eyes, oh my people, from your misery, rise and go forth, Lift up your eyes to the east, to the west, to the south, to the north And see the assembled treasures, the fruit of your labor’s creations, And see the collected riches of all the past generations. Lift up your eyes and see the loaded ships on the ocean, See the smoke in the dark forests of locomotives in motion, See how they float from afar, a speedy merchant brigade, And carry to other lands the products and wares for trade. Lift up your eyes and see the factory walls that grow, Where workers saw and plane and weave and knit and sew, And forge and file and carve and chisel and sand and brace, And create wares and create riches for the human race. See the machine, the gigantic, blank iron slave, Guarding human strength, helping wealth to create and save; See how the wild, mighty force of nature is subdued, For human reason did its deep secrets intrude. To the blooming, joyous fields, lift up to the distance your eyes And see the golden stalks bending heavy under the skies; See in magnificent gardens the trees hung heavy with fruit, And birds fill all the branches, fill the air with song and flute. See how the plump juicy grapes are crushed in the press into wine, And the wine is poured into barrels, to make it aged and fine, And later it bubbles in goblets, and warms a human heart, Waking hope and love, chasing out all pains that smart. See how all of nature is prepared to sweeten your lives, And feel in your breast a yearning, feel how your heart strives, And brave, in tremendous armies, stretch out your shriveled hands, —Enough being robbed and fooled! Rise up and shake off your bands! Lift up your eyes, oh my people, from your graves, rise and go forth, Lift up your eyes to the east, to the west, to the south, to the north And take the inherited treasures, take the fruit of your labor’s creations, And live creating, and enjoying create in the freer generations!—
Yoysef Bovshover
To the People 1 I hate your dumbness and your blindness, people, I find no reason in your daily chatter, All your sharp wit seems tasteless to my ear, Your shallow joy is not my joy at all, And yet I do respect, admire you still! Your heavy toil, your life that knows no rest, Your giant might, your quiet activity, Your wonder-works, whenever those I see— I stand still there and feel respect for you. The rock is mighty in the desert waste, The forest awesome in a time of storm, The torrent terrifying in its haste, But rock and woods and torrent disappear When you approach them with your mighty hand, Had you but joined your reason with your might, How great, how happy then you would have been. 2 Oh, you are boasting with the name of man, You call yourself the emperor of nature— But do you understand what it means: “Man?” The eagle builds his lofty nest like you, The weakling fly, it multiplies like you, The tiny gnat is diligent like you— What is your high humanity made of? Are you the wisest creature on the earth? You understand yourself? You fathom nature? Have you a sense of beauty, art and splendor? Have you desire for freedom, joy and lust? Are you inclined to peace and happiness? Say, is your friendship great, is your love pure? If not, what are you then? What are you then?— 3 You live and know not what life is about, You die and know not what death is about, And you believe and know not what belief is, You hope and know not what hope is about. If you had understood what life’s about,
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Proletarian Poets And also understood what death’s about, If you had understood what is belief And also understood what hope may be— Then you would not have lived in misery, Would not have died not having lived at all, You would not have believed in wind and dust, Would not have hoped for things that cannot be. Your pallid face would flush with strength and vigor, Your dark eye would then radiate with joy, Your weakling arm would be like iron strong, And your light legs as nimble as the deer. Your heart would fill but would not have to sigh, Your head would think but would not have to fret, Your mouth would speak, but would not curse again: Your every word would be a sweet soft sound, And you—a springtime on the blooming earth. 4 You’re pressed together in a rich metropolis Where every house is towering as a fortress. Is it that you are frightened of fresh air, Coming to you from forest, field, and valley, Scared it will choke you like an evil foe? Are you enamored of the density and noise? Is all the poverty sweet to your taste? You hate the world without its dust and dirt? Destroy the prisons where you are oppressed! And leave behind you the commotion and the sin And come, turn back to nature once again. Spread out over the beautiful wide earth And build your towns, so clean and small and rich, Where every dwelling will a temple be, So comely to the eye and for the body good. The rocks will furnish you with stone enough, The woods will furnish you with wood enough, And you have strength and wisdom well enough. Above you, let the sky shine bright and warm, The lovely sun will freely shed its light, The birds will sing for you a morning song, The fragrance of the fields will cradle you. And let your streets be filled with endless joy,
Yoysef Bovshover With sound of flutes and cymbals and guitars And let your life be free and great and bright, And you so fresh and healthy and alive, Your old will be as strong and firm as pines, Young children, beautiful and good and hearty, Young people solid as the cedar trees, Crowned with their beauty like the god of light, And full of life they’ll be as life itself. The girls’ cheeks so delicate and rosy-red, Their breath as pure and sweet as flower-smells, Their eyes so beaming and so filled with love, Their laughter warbling and as silver bright— How happy I would be to see you so!
Apollo
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The Lyrical Turn
“The Young Generation”—Di Yunge, 1915. sitting From right to left: Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Avrom Reyzen, Menakhem Boreysho; standing A. Raboy, Ruven Ayzland, Zisho Landoy, H. Leyvik, A. M. Dilon photos on the wall Yoysef Opatoshu, Perets Hirshbeyn, I. Y. Shvarts, Sholem Asch; above: Yoysef Rolnik
Yehoash (1872–1927)
Pseudonym of Yehoash-Shloyme Blumgarten; in English: Solomon Bloomgarden
born in virbalen (wierzbalowo), Suvalk district, on the Polish-Lithuanian border and at that time on the Russian side of the Russian-German border. His father was well read in Jewish religious and Enlightenment literature and an early “Lover of Zion.” The breadwinner was his mother, who kept a small hardware store. From the age of four, he studied in heder and with private teachers: Talmud, Bible, Hebrew, and secular Haskalah literature. At thirteen, after Bar Mitzvah, he began to study foreign languages and literatures and wrote poetry in Hebrew. Yehoash was a private Hebrew teacher for rich families. In 1890, he came to America, tried out various trades, and wrote a book of Hebrew poems (unpublished). He lived in poverty and contracted consumption; in 1900 he went to a sanatorium in Denver, where several Yiddish poets convalesced at different times (Edelshtat, H. Leyvik). With the head of the sanatorium, Dr. Chaim (Charles D.) Spivak, Yehoash authored a comprehensive dictionary of Hebrew and Aramaic expressions in Yiddish. From 1909 on he lived in New York, published poetry and essays in the international and American Yiddish press as well as several volumes of collected poetry and fables. In January 1914, he left with his family to settle in Palestine. As American citizens, they were evacuated from Eretz Israel in 1915. His memoirs of that romantic period of Jewish settlement in the Holy Land, From New York to Rehobot and Back, were also published in an abbreviated English translation (The Feet of the Messenger, 1923). Yehoash contributed to hundreds of Yiddish newspapers and periodicals around the world (United States, Canada, Poland, Russia, Austria, Argentina, Eretz Israel, and elsewhere). Published poetry, prose, fables, essays, drama, travelogues. Translated hundreds of works from many languages (English, Russian, German, Hebrew, French, Arabic) into Yiddish, including a masterful Yiddish rendering of Longfellow’s Hiawatha, Lafcadio Hearn’s Chinese and Japanese Legends, Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, Merezhkovsky’s Sakya Muni,
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The Lyrical Turn Rostand’s Chantecler, Byron’s “Hebrew Melodies,” and many more. He studied classical Arabic and translated parts of the Koran into Yiddish. His translation of the complete Bible into Yiddish, combining archaisms of the medieval Yiddish Bible translations with neologisms in the style of Yiddish modernist poetry, is one of the richest books of Yiddish literature and was the source of Marc Chagall’s Bible illustrations. Many of his poems were translated into Hebrew and other languages; others were set to music. Numerous volumes of his works appeared during his lifetime, including a ten-volume new edition, published in New York in 1920–21. His later poetry and Bible translations exerted a major influence on Yiddish modernist poetry and art, especially on A. Léyeles, A. Sutzkever, and Marc Chagall.
Flowers and Thorns 1 I cannot escape from your face Wherever my roaming gaze falls: It winks in a thousand manners From doors and windows and walls . . . Here was where you used to sit, Here you stood, I deem, in bliss, There you rollicked, and there you chattered, And there you would laugh and kiss . . . And when slumber closes my eyes, Your gaze pursues me, it seems, It meanders—back and forth— In wild fantasy dreams . . . Come fast, oh witch, show your face . . . If not, have mercy, take away The spell that will not relent, Will not let me rest, night and day . . . 2 I would have learned seventy tongues In the time that it takes me to glean Your eye-language, and learn by rote What in the world it may mean . . . Often I think I have found Your secrets I seek to query,
Yehoash I think I know every dot In your Gazes Dictionary. Then a sweet wink shows up On your eyebrow in the dark— And your blue eye plays the music Of a spanking new spark . . . I shall die not knowing for sure The deep meaning of your gaze; Sometimes I doubt if you Can find it yourself in the maze . . . 3 Long did Ponce de Leon The enchanted fountain seek, That far wonder spring that charms Into a youth a graybeard weak . . . And revives the coated eyes With the bright shine of desire, Smooths all wrinkles on his face, Fills the breast with youthful fire . . . Long did Ponce de Leon Seek and, seeking did he die, I alone the spring discovered In your leaping, sparkling eye . . . When you smile, I must become Right away a jolly fella, When you frown at me in anger, I grow old as Methuselah . . . 4 A magic pulls the magnet needle To the north, so cruel and cold, Where for sun and shiny days No fleeting hope can one behold . . . A magnet draws me there to you— But you are frozen like the frost; I run to you and know it well: My fleeting hope is gone and lost . . .
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The Lyrical Turn 5 I often dream how good it might be If I were an emperor, A mighty hero and ruler Who frightens the world with a roar. I could have told her: “Take it all— My heroic sword, scepter and crown, Altogether they aren’t enough To earn your love as my own . . . ” And maybe if I should give her The globe with all its granites, If I should bring her the moon, Perhaps with a dozen planets. Better that I be a beggar, And keep on wishing . . . But she, She needs no reward and she loves Simply because she likes me . . .
The Mightiest You saw the ocean’s might, playing With a ship armored in steel bands. You saw the avalanche crushing in a wink The work of a thousand human hands. You saw the crater spitting its gall: Yellow lava over fields and creeks. You heard the mountain tempest thundering, Cracking the millennia-old peaks. You saw and heard and, filled with awe, Silently admiring, you froze: The greatest might appeared to you— But do you know what is stronger than those? The gray silent rust that dyes the pyramid: Unnoticed, atom after atom it deploys— It never roars, never wearies, It waits an eternity and finally destroys . . . 1907
Yehoash
Folk Ballad —Dear Mama, sweet Mama, Untie from my neck the beads, The Emperor will come to our village, He may with my beauty be pleased. —Daughter of mine, dearer than gold, Let your heart not be upset, I don’t want the Emperor to love you, No jewelry will you get . . . —Dear Mama, sweet Mama, Comb my hair in an ugly braid, The Emperor will come to our village And will send for me, I’m afraid . . . —Daughter of mine, dearer than gold, He won’t send, but we must beware, I don’t want the Emperor to love you, I will make a clump of your hair . . . —Dear Mama, sweet Mama, Cover with dirt my fair face, The Emperor will come to our village And will take me away in disgrace . . . —Daughter of mine, dearer than gold, Do not tremble from head to foot, I don’t want the Emperor to love you, I will cover your face with black soot . . . —Dear Mama, sweet Mama, I pour tears, bitter and wise, The Emperor will come to our village And where can I close my eyes? . . . —Daughter of mine, dearer than gold, Flee like an arrow from a bow, I fear that the Emperor will love you, If only he sees your eyes glow . . . 1913
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Snow The space grows mute . . . From the gray gelled air A single snowflake arrives, Soon joined by a friend, Both swirl Down slowly Drop together On the head Of a naked tree At the edge Of a lonely field . . . Simply a kiss Silently given, Or maybe a greeting Murmured, if that . . . Then they die quickly and melt— For this is the lot of firstborn snow: Not to leave a trace in the world . . . Then it grows thick and dense . . . In the air, snowflakes assemble, And slowly, layer on layer, Spread their bed on the earth . . . Till every bush is clad, Every tree a shrouded corpse, And the blue ice Of the river Is cloaked in a white fur . . . And roads and paths vanish from the land, Sheeted in the same light linen, Covered by the Snow-King’s trail . . . But swiftly a panic bursts— It whistles and roars and barks . . . The air is filled With tangles and white whirls
Yehoash Till between Earth and sky A wild turmoil swirls and blasts, And the white force Of devils and ghosts Howling— The storm is master . . . He tears the chains off his neck, Waltzes with the snow across the prairie, Turns everything Upside down, The rushing hero . . . Now he sweeps the pits, Now he builds castles and towers In hasty, fantastic shapes, Erects gigantic buildings . . . And now, in a mad hurl, He spins and turns and entwines, And wails and whistles and charms, And shovels and pushes and scatters, Until every building collapses, Falls down in a heap, Or is raised to the clouds In pieces of down and dust . . . And the whirl is gone . . . Veiled In tepid light, Lies the face of the landscape. Diamonds shimmer on pure fields. And over white and endless expanses Puffs the frost Till he leaves A silver skin . . . And this is the snow— So lucid and pure, Your heart breaks To tread on it as you walk . . . 1910
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Snow-Rest I lived to see Winter’s gift . . . No rush, no noise, Smooth as air, Like tiny winged fairies, Flies The first crowd Of tasseled snows . . . Long long The horde parades, Sinks and sinks, As to the beat of a song Someone is singing And I don’t know where . . . Now rest will come Of white gelled days With no grass, no hue, no spot . . . And nocturnal splendid hours, When countless stars Multiply in the sky, And for every spark lit up above A million Bright sparks ignite In the valley . . . Hidden In the snow’s Cold Sewing, The dry dreams of summer Lie in death or slumber . . . And after the sprouting shudder, After the August storms, After the autumn’s mocking— A calm frost and a mute shimmer Will arrive, Far from joy and purified of gloom . . . Oh, you snowy freshness, I greet you with delight! . . . In the stark and heavy
Yehoash Moment of depression, When the cruel wind tore Leaf after leaf— As if he felt Sweet joy In plucking— How I waited and yearned For you to come and spread your cover And kill The death-struggle of the earth . . . Thank you, white calm! In your closet of ice, lock River and stream, And shut Every crevice Through which I could still see The tiniest tremor of life . . . White calm, frozen rest, Cover it, cover . . . 1912
Beautiful Is the Forest Alone I wandered through the forest And looked at every tree: “On which trunk grows the wood That will my coffin be? . . . ” The whole forest answered With leaves on every tree . . . And in the roar I couldn’t hear The tree that speaks to me . . . But I did know that somewhere near I came upon a chord: “A long time, inside my bark, Lies your coffin board . . . ” “For every tree a coffin is, And every trunk hides its own Black death for someone there— And beautiful is the forest alone . . . ” 1911
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Woven In (I, 1919) Grass Did you ever hear, in your bed, in the dark, Half-asleep, half-awake, in the middle of the night, Tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap, so soft, on the windowpanes— The rain that washes the earth before spring? Tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap, You wake up with a start, Jump out of your bed, Bare feet on bare floor, Open the window as wide as you can, Thrust your breast into the air And listen and look How a drop with a drop Make a full, black, warm flood . . . Shuffling and rustling and humming regards From afar, from the past, from above, from below, From a star that falls, From a ship strayed in fog, From a green and eddying water that springs Over laughing bodies and foamy breasts, From a treasure in the forest, From an ivory palace in the middle of a desert . . . Tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap, How it pours, how it floods . . . The lantern wiped out, the street is dead, And you sit, and you sit, And your temples are wet, Your eyes are washed, your neck sprayed, And you hear how it draws, and it trembles, and sprouts, You are breathing the humid and grassy wind, And with every puff— You are rain, and wind, and earth, and grass . . .
Yehoash
I Cannot Understand Comes a bird to the windowpane, Knocks upon it twice— Pretty bird, little bird, What can I do to be nice?
Cheep-cheep-cheep and cheep-cheep-cheep, No word will come to hand, Cheep-cheep-cheep and cheep-cheep-cheep, I cannot understand . . .
Comes a storm from way afar, And tears up my door— Evil storm, tell me what Are you asking for?
Whoo-whoo-whoo and whoo-whoo-whoo, No word will come to hand, Whoo-whoo-whoo and whoo-whoo-whoo, I cannot understand . . .
I come to a little brook, And I hear it shout— Water dear, what does it mean? I cannot figure out.
Plash-plash-plash and plash-plash-plash, No word will come to hand, Plash-plash-plash and plash-plash-plash, I cannot understand . . .
Whispers all the field around, As I pass the scene; Oh dear stalks, your whispering— Say, what does it mean?
Shhh-shhh-shhh and shhh-shhh-shhh, No word will come to hand, Shhh-shhh-shhh and shhh-shhh-shhh, I cannot understand . . .
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Among the Trees 1 Deep in the forest stands my tent, No one can find me. Late at night and at early dawn I hear the spring rise— From the deep roots below To the moss-covered trunks, From the dark-cold depths To the sun in its flames . . . A covenant between earth and sky, And I am part of it too . . . Deep in the forest stands my tent, No one will come to me. Like a wave flowing away Is the far distant world . . . By day, I strike Deep roots in the ground, By day, my limbs grow heavy With the sap of the forest— Big stars are my audience, Green grass my poems . . . 2 Dark cypresses told me: You will remain, You will no longer go on hunting . . . We shall share with you Our drink and our food— Root-sap and sunbeams . . . You won’t fly and not fall, You will rest and heal . . . And the bee spun in the light And sang in my ear: The gate was open, Someone was waiting for you, You will meet him now . . . From secret streams he will Rain down fresh on your soul And bring you new seeds . . .
Yehoash 3 I dreamed of getting free And got entangled tighter, I forged my chain myself, Every day a new link . . . In quiet crucibles, I will now Melt down all the heavy chains, Then all the stilts will drop, And all the glued-on wings . . . I will pick daisies, Pluck red anemones, And of all the false thrones No trace will remain . . . I will lie in the fields And will ask earth and stars: Let me hear your truth, Mine was a lie . . . 4 I have a kingdom, And what is your wish?— To be a waterflower in the river, And rock back and forth with the river . . . I have a magic wand, And what is your desire?— To be a buzz-buzz in the day And slumber on a stalk at night . . . I come with everything, What do you choose?— To be a dew on red poppies, And glitter and go out in the sun . . . 5 The forest is silent except for the bees And the tall, tall trees. See, how beautiful Under big trees to be small . . . 1914
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Gray She will come in a night of rain And slowly rap at my windowpane, And slowly call like a dove: Open the door and do not ask . . . I will leap from my bed, pale, And light all the candles in my chamber, Wordlessly, I shall dry her wet face, Wring the water from her brown braids . . . She will take my hands in hers, Nestle me against her cold body, And drowsily beg: Don’t put me out— With a tear on her closed eyelids . . . Morning will come on tiptoe, Stand at the head of my bed, And I will be frightened by the mocking Day with its thousand tongues. 1917
A Buddha Prayer Buddha, Broad is your heart and deep As a hundred seas, Calm as the snow of the Himalayas In the white morning— Drink in my soul, As the earth drinks in A sliver of dew left over from the night, As the sun sips in A scrim of fog on the Ganges, As the full night swallows The shadow of a butterfly . . . Let me slumber in you, As a blind seed slumbers In the warm flowerbed, And blindly sense All the worlds flickering through your heart . . .
Yehoash Buddha, Darkly to me roars the forest Where stars fall in the night And sprout at dawn Like white flowers, Where death and life fertilize each other In boundless love— Let me be in your ear And hear the song of love In the falling of leaves, In the decay of trunks, In the hungry digging of a blind mole, In the scream of a ripped swallow, In the green eyes of the desert snake, In the tiger’s teeth when he strikes, In the knife fresh from fratricide . . . Buddha, Put out my spark, Swathe me in your darkness, Break the little vessel, And let the potion run out In your full rivers . . . Buddha, You are in my blood, and it’s crowded— Open your prison, Buddha, And leap out . . . Put me out and drink in my soul In your darkness . . .
An Eye A blind deaf night . . . Mute, A lonely eye, Floating awake, Looks at me . . . Not crying, not laughing, Not scolding, not mocking, Not begging,
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Subway An unseen hand shut the door And imprisoned a throng of people, Some dunked on benches, Some hanging on white rings. The light—lime falling On thin transparent fingers Fresh from the typewriter, On heavy hard hands Sweaty from the workshop, Nacre gloves . . . And the throng sways Back and forth, back and forth, In a weary, glazed rhythm, As if lamenting a death . . . The throng is shaken, Collapses in a heap, Gels. And the unseen hand Opens a door . . . Smiling, pushing into the tangle, A slender girl, A bunch of lilacs pinned to her lapel. And the throng begins to sway again Weary and glazed, As mourning for a death, And in the middle, the slender girl With a bunch of lilacs . . . 1919
Yehoash
Rising A thousand years of waiting, a thousand years of waiting, And when the black wall falls, Where will you all be, where will you all be, You who believe and you who trust? . . . A thousand years of waiting, a thousand years of waiting, And when all the rings burst, Who will be the strong one, who will be the strong one, To come and conquer? . . . A thousand years of waiting, a thousand years of waiting, And when the rock splits, Who will to the fresh drink, who will to the fresh drink Hold out his ewer first? . . .
Woven In (II, 1921) My Ships . . . My ships are sailing over seven seas, What will they bring on their deck?— A crown of gold with polished diamonds, And amulets to hang around my neck. Pebbles and shells on the shore are enough, I play in the sand, sing my song and laugh: My ships will come in . . . My masts pierce the blue skies, Into black abysses my nets are thrown, The knots burst with the heavy burden, For such treasures no words are known. On the shore, I catch butterflies at play, The black are called night, the white are called day: My ships will come in . . .
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Yehoash
Rising A thousand years of waiting, a thousand years of waiting, And when the black wall falls, Where will you all be, where will you all be, You who believe and you who trust? . . . A thousand years of waiting, a thousand years of waiting, And when all the rings burst, Who will be the strong one, who will be the strong one, To come and conquer? . . . A thousand years of waiting, a thousand years of waiting, And when the rock splits, Who will to the fresh drink, who will to the fresh drink Hold out his ewer first? . . .
Woven In (II, 1921) My Ships . . . My ships are sailing over seven seas, What will they bring on their deck?— A crown of gold with polished diamonds, And amulets to hang around my neck. Pebbles and shells on the shore are enough, I play in the sand, sing my song and laugh: My ships will come in . . . My masts pierce the blue skies, Into black abysses my nets are thrown, The knots burst with the heavy burden, For such treasures no words are known. On the shore, I catch butterflies at play, The black are called night, the white are called day: My ships will come in . . .
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The Lyrical Turn Pebbles and shells slip out of my fingers, Butterflies tremble and decline— Oh, my ships, lighten your load, Let the wind your sails all entwine. Butterflies lie dead in disarray, The black are called night, the white are called day: When will my ships come in? . . . 1920
The Girl of the Mists (Niagara Waterfalls)
A hundred feet wide, Green and silver is the dress Of the mist-girl, Rainbows span the seams, Snow and sun and strings of foam Plaited into her braids. Yoo-hoo! On white strings, On green ribbons, Over stone bannisters Leaps the girl of the mists, water-sprayed, Swimming through shimmering bows of foam— The slender, idle daughter of the mists. And the black forest lusts With the lust of ten thousand years, And the heavy, black forest says To the white girl of the mists: Dance for me, Undo your green and silver garb, Rip up your rainbows, Show your body, The nacre of your breast, The white blossoming of your thigh. Yoo-hoo, you old forest, I shall dance a dance for you, Yoo-hoo, you forest with your black lust, I shall dance a dance for you.
Yehoash On the green and gray steps Swings the mist-girl, Pure, laughing, Nimble and white, Green and white, Her long train spread out, All the pleats arrayed, All the rainbows aglow, And a leap . . . To the deep screaming waters, To the young screaming waters . . . Yoo-hoo, you old forest, What did you see of my groin? Yoo-hoo! White dust, Snow and sun, Pearl and crystal, Veils and shawls. You old forest with your black lust, What did you see of my thighs? White dust, Snow and sun above, And a belt of rainbows. Dances the mist-girl With the strong screaming waters, With the young screaming waters. Yoo-hoo, you old forest, What did you see of my groin? 1920
Dancing You are the morningbud that sings In the wide steppe, You are the morningglow that drinks With loose and flaming braids From the brooks in the mountains. How you swing, how you lean In the dancing swirl!
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The Lyrical Turn How you suck with your eyes the scream Of my limbs! Your bosom laughs with boundless joy, Your legs leap out of their tulle-covered sheath, Your arms hang around my neck Like branches laden with ripe fruit, Your lips graze my cheeks Like petals of bursting poppies. My eyebrows fall weary, And I circle amid Noisy assemblies Like a blind man. The wicks flicker Lower . . . All couples flew away, All thuds fell silent, All walls collapsed . . . On the wide highway, On the wild spring field, The dance will go on . . . Spring grass under your steps, Dew on your dress, April wind in your braids. Your hips tremble, Your lips seethe, And the forest is drunk On wild bursting sap. The last drop of blood I’ll kiss out of your heart, And the gray day will find us dead In the forest . . . 1920
Summer Sun (1) On the wide silver surface Gelled A white sail far away. Twisted trees
Yehoash With dripping locks Seek their face Over the abyss. A string of swallows high above Pecking yellow grains of the sun, Linking chains Up and down. (2) Oars fall from hands . . . Head resting on shoulder, In a waste of white water . . . Skies soaking in the waves . . . From the depths, pale, The king of corals gazes, Gold his eyes, bronze his beard . . . On a ship of silver, sails The young Queen of Sheba, Rows of slaves all around her . . . Islands steeped in blue Swim toward the sun . . . Distant voices Call and sink . . . 1920
Microcosm On a branch hangs A golden sun imprisoned in a drop— Trembles and glitters a forest of songs In a tiny cage . . . 1919
Blooming Under branches have I hidden. Spreading a shadow beneath me, Weary leaves sang me a lullaby And the tree covered my eyes: In a wide clearing of the forest
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100 The Lyrical Turn I sat at a spindle spinning Clumps of sun and dumps of sky And clumps of earth Into a pink nacre thread, And the fragrance of reseda and roses and lilac Wafted from the spindle . . . When I awoke, My face and my head Were covered with blossoms, And the branches turned scarlet In the last tufts of the day . . . 1920
Trees 1 Two trees intertwined, Green braids in green braids entangled. When the rain pours, they drink together, When the sun sprays, they share the rays, When the evening comes He wraps them in one shadow, When a star falls into the leaves— Together, they kiss the sky’s gift . . . In a black night I often creep up, I lie in the grass between them, And see the fireflies leap, And stretch my arms: Fireflies, fireflies, Teach me to entwine Into the trees . . . 2 I don’t know how it happened: I was lying on the ground Covered from head to toe With a warm summer night,
Yehoash And the grass under me And the branches above Talked to me, And someone inside me answered, And I listened to both, And didn’t understand . . . 3 Under my head Hard, twisting roots, I say to myself: here it will happen, One of the twisting roots Will grow into my body, And through my blood will sip Waters of underground streams And saps of mute sad things That do not speak and do not think, Just grow, grow, grow . . . 1919
October 1 Bare crooked branches, Gray clumps peering through the branches, Ducks with puffed-up feathers On a leaden-blue river, And pale grass slowly swinging . . . A barefoot shepherd boy Striding in soft mud, Swishing a peeled-off staff At his weary sheep . . . An old horse covered with yellow leaves At the fence of the meadow, Sniffing with damp nostrils The wetness of the clouds . . . 2 Wild geese, where do you wander? Into distant lands they wander.
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102 The Lyrical Turn Wild geese, who knows the way? We shall ask the winds that play: Wind of the south, wind of the north, Where did our sun go forth? 1919
Snow Stars At the far threshold of the valley lies The heavy city of stone and steel, Girt with sparks. Alone lies the small house Steeped in big white wastes. Pleat over pleat, field in and field out, Whiteness, White cloths on rivers, White blankets over pits, White humps over stones, White steppe studded with white stalks, White heads of lime trees with jagged teeth, White braids bound on fences. Whiteness. White-sprayed seas stream Through a big cold sky, White eddies behind white eddies, Calm abysses under calm abysses. What a whiteness, What a calm, What cold clear silver seeds. A sower with a sack on his loins, Sowing, spreading, wasting Full handfuls here and there, Small sparkling reeds sprout. On he goes, Dots of clusters, pure silver-blue, By the hour More, clear and new. What a sprouting, What a white-bedewed lucidity, What cold, clear silver seeds. 1921
Yehoash
Eyes Jazz . . . Roses in the hair, Paint on the lips, Tulle around the body, Silver buckles on the shoes— Jazz . . . Come, you wild gazelle of the cabarets, Sip small rainbows from your glass, And laugh uproariously, And speak wild words, And I shall read the spell In your eyes . . .
In distant dark lands On high branches, swing Big mute birds With broken wing . . .
On nocturnal quicksilvery seas Assemblies of shadows wander And sigh to the waves . . . On desolate mountain peaks Masses kneel With veiled faces And weep— In your eyes . . .
Long weary brows, Like languishing grass in the sun— What do I know, And what do you know, Of the sorrow nesting In your eyes?
A hundred generations Sat on the earth in the night, Before small trembling candles Lamented the Exile of God’s spirit, To make your eyes beautiful . . . 1920
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104 The Lyrical Turn
Woolworth Tower A remnant of day’s madness wends his way home, Eyes like hot iron, faces numb . . . Fewer wheels in the streets. A heavy wagon, empty and slow, Clopping on the pavement. Evening falls Like a dead wing on the mixed clump Of bricks, cement and wires . . . The noise sinks to a mumble as in a dream, Sighing through clenched teeth at the end Of a stifled sob . . . Alone, above all the buildings, Graying tall and straight, The cathedral of the gold-and-iron god . . . 1920
Broadway Rushing cars, wagons, trams, Whistling whistles, blowing horns, ringing bells, A fire truck roars by Trailing a black braid of smoke. Masses shuffle their feet, Brown, yellow, pearl-gray, white bare legs . . . White necks, clumps of powdered bodies, Black painted brows, bleached blond hair, Hats with green plumes, Shining top hats, and a whirl of straw hats, Broad Mexican sombreros, Soldier and sailor hats of a dozen nations, Veteran denizens of the night with watery eyes And big diamond stickpins, Boys lighting up at every girl’s eye, People of all lands and all suns, Of a vineyard at the quiet sea, Of snow-mountains, of broad fields of wheat and rye, Of high grass pampas, Of where a hundred thousand slaves Dig gold out of graves in the earth . . .
Yehoash Northerners, southerners, of airplanes and ships, Rushing to the night bustle of Babel . . . A wanton shine screams from all corners, A bright raucous cascade pours And sprays up to the clay-yellow sky . . . Fire-serpents creep up high buildings, On a tower three fire-horses run With wild energy into the hot night, A huge fire-bottle taps Fire into a glass, From the dark, a fire-cat leaps And claws A fiery spool . . . 1919
In the Crowd As a wind carries a straw, A whirl of people carried me away, Dragged me from street to street. Wave attacked wave And a muted, dull roar Rolled over a hundred thousand heads. My eye fell On a tall man with flaming eyes And red needle-sharp hair. And as I clenched my brows, I heard a voice: “Kill him!” And the tall man lifted his fist At me, And a hundred thousand fists behind him: “Kill him!” Blood poured from my face, Broken teeth Hung on my chin. Heavy steps trampled me, Hard fingers Plucked handfuls of hair from my scalp: “Kill him!”
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106 The Lyrical Turn And as I unclenched my brows, I saw the tall man Screaming wildly: “Hooray! Hooray! . . . ” 1920
Cinema A thousand people head to head In the dark. Up above leaps A white clump. On the white clump, spinning, A big city with buildings And wires and lanterns. A broad street and packed sidewalks. With flags and music Comes a procession of soldiers, Pedestrians, riders, cripples, Trucks, ambulances, Girls with red crosses On white caps. Old people in old-fashioned uniforms Covered with medals. Out of the blue, a young man With a terrified face and raised collar Runs across the street. I sit among a thousand heads in the dark And think: A young man works in a factory, Goes home, Plays with his child, And one day he gets sick And dies, And above distant seas, In New York, And in Chicago, And in San Francisco, Night after night, he runs across the street With a terrified face And raised collar . . . 1920
Yehoash 107
Lynching “Father of my soul, Where shall I find You?—” Desecrator! Look at Your work: A black body striped with blood, A face of tar with upside-down whites of the eyes, A red tongue swollen Between glittering teeth . . . “Father of my soul, Lord of all flesh, Where shall I find You?—” Blasphemer! He who shivers in the blue webs Of Your holy dusks, He who is fog in Your nocturnal weeping And Your daily song, He who trembles in the seeds Of Your unborn desires, He who calls to You, tears You, elevates You— Has become flesh, Has become black body With thick lips and kinky hair, And You dug Your nails In his rib, Pierced knives into his breast, Spat at him as he was dying, Abandoned him swinging On a tree . . . 1919
Fun-Yen Fun-Yen the monk of the mountains Knocks at the Mandarin’s door, With a shepherd’s staff in his hand, With a wooden pot on his belt.
108 The Lyrical Turn Fun-Yen, Fun-Yen old wanderer, His garb crumbles into threads, His lip is blue as slate stone, His skin is yellow as old teeth. Says Fun-Yen to the Mandarin: Give me ten spoons of rice to eat, And I shall teach you a spell: A word and two, and sand turns to gold And stones become silver. Add a sheep bone to the rice, And I shall teach you a spell: A word and two, and wood turns to coral And shards become diamonds. Ho-ho-ho, ha-ha-ha, You silly Fun-Yen, Why do you knock at my gate? A word and two, And all the rice of seven lands You get for the gold. A word and two, And all the lambs of Persia You get for the corals. Says Fun-Yen the wonder worker With the shepherd’s staff in his hand, With the wooden pot on his belt: I have a spell for gold and a spell for silver, But I must knock at the gate. I have a spell for diamonds and a spell for corals, But I must knock at the gate. 1920
Kozumi the Old Carver The year is young in the land of Nippon. On all the cherry trees white butterflies Hang themselves, Cherry blossoms fall on the children, All the winds blow gentler
Yehoash 109 In the beards of old sages. The rickshaw man runs faster, The Geisha in her teahouse is nimbler, She dances lightly for the drinkers, Velvet petals in her small steps, Cherry festival in every limb. Night creeps up into the mountains, In her thin, silk garb, In her blue obi, She bears golden and white stalks Plaited on her temples, Over all the streets Hang strings of fire: Come from the houses and yards, Help spread the white joy In the holiday of white blossoms. Kozumi’s apprentices kneel At his little bamboo door: Come cheer your heart, Kozumi, All streets are black, All eyes are shining In the white holiday of cherries. Come catch the white butterflies Falling from the branches, In the golden net of dawn, In the silver sieve of the big stars. Kozumi sits on his bamboo chair, Kozumi swings his snowed-in temples, Whiter than the cherry blossoms on the branches: Petals die, the storm will inherit them, Cherries come, Fuller than a king’s chalice, Blacker than the eyes of the king’s daughters. All lips will be dyed With the blood of full cherries. And the carver Kozumi Will gather the cherry pits in his basket— Cherry pits for the carver Kozumi.
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The Lyrical Turn Little Buddhas will Kozumi carve, Sakyamunis full of wisdom, Sakyamunis full of goodness. Cherry pits for the carver Kozumi . . . 1921
Bakhr Esh-Shaytan Date palms Like green minarets against the sky, Springs leap in the sun Like scimitars in a bridegroom dance . . . Young gazelles with branching horns, Lap up the fresh drops. Houris cover their stiff breasts In tall grasses— Sayidi, The Shaytan’s Sea is poured over the desert To deceive the young Bedouin . . . Caravans stretch out. White camels, humps laden With pomegranates and figs, Ivory from Hindustan, Silks from Damascus, Sandalwood and amber, Rose attar for the Sultana— Sayidi, The Shaytan lurks in the sands, To catch the Bedouin . . . White ships over blue waters, Silver on the sails, Gold on the masts. Under red canopies, Sheikhs clad in green silk, Muraniahs in a circle-song, Bowls of snow, wine poured over them, In the hands of black slaves— “The Devil’s Sea”—the Arabic name for a mirage in the desert.
Yehoash Sayidi, The Shaytan’s Sea is over the desert And gnaws at the Bedouin’s heart . . . Dust rising to the sky, Pillar after pillar. Spears like a field of stalks, Hordes of warriors rushing, Grown into their horses . . . In the center rides the Emir, Milk his coat and beard, Blood his belt and sandals, Pearl in his turban, Diamonds in his dagger— Sayidi, The Shaytan is hiding in the sand And sucks the Bedouin’s blood . . . Sayidi, In the thin shadow we shall drag the hours Till the sun, weary and yellow, Totters like an old dervish after a Zikr And falls on its gray couch . . . Then, we shall mount the saddles And gallop between dew and stars . . . Sayidi, In the sun, the Bedouin grows small, His heart is parched As the teeth of a dead camel. His eyes blink Like a blind dog’s. With the blue shadows on the sand His kingdom returns . . . Then the Bedouin leaps on his Assila, And the whole sky hangs on his shoulder Like an embroidered Abaye. Behind him on the saddle sits the night Singing into his ear: Swifter than a tiger to his prey, Lighter than the stormwind raises dust, The Bedouin bears the desert night . . .
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The Lyrical Turn His heart is vast, his body young, Even younger is his wild wife— The desert night . . . For his horse new reins, All the stars his dowry Of the desert night . . . 1920
In the Temple In the high temple A bee buzzes. In the high quiet temple A bee sings. Buzz-buzz-buzz No saints with haloes around their heads, Buzz-buzz-buzz No marble pillars with blue-and-red veins, Buzz-buzz-buzz No silent plush. Buzz-buzz-buzz And vanished through a windowpane Out of the high temple, Out of the high quiet temple . . . 1920
Your Teacher In the desert you will find him With the gray eternal sand, With the white relentless stars In his eye. In the desert Your head wallowing in the dust At his feet, You will beg him for solace. He will lay his heavy fingers On your hair, And the gray eternal sand,
Yehoash And the white relentless stars Will run through his hard fingers Into your blood, And you will beg no more, Never, nothing. 1920
Remembrance On my fingertips remained The fluttering of soft loose loops. At my work, I begin to sing And crochet my fingers and— We sit together At the barn on the unharnessed wagon, And slowly the long shadows chase The last remnants of the day; valley And mountain disappear; glowing coals Are strewn over the sky . . . From the hay A sharp damp scent begins to waft, And your eyes are opened, You want to tell me something, know something, But your tongue and lips are numb with fever— Then you undo your hair and cover My shoulders, and my fingers wade Into it as if, sinking in high grass, A barefoot child seeks cornflowers . . . Till silently the night enveloped us In its thick cloth, Left us and fled . . . 1917
Song Song of grass, Song of earth, Song of gold ore in the entrails of a rock, Song of a tin-white river Washing the body of the moon,
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The Lyrical Turn Song of an extinguished cloud At the threshold of the sunken sun, Song of a hungry wolf Howling in the snow-steppe, Song of a locomotive with fiery eyes Rushing through black rainy prairies, Song of a forest burning for hundreds of miles, And herds of buffaloes fleeing the flames, Song of a white handful of ashes Remaining from a shepherd’s fire, Song of pearls in a courtesan’s ear, Song of a gray drop in a sick oyster That turns into a pearl, Song of a worm covered with his down, Waiting for his butterfly birth, Song of the sun on all distant icebergs, Song of the wind on all masts in the seas, Song of all spiderwebs In undiscovered forests, Song of the brown winding sheet On King Ramses’s mummy, Song of all bones in graves, Song of all dead nights And all unborn dawns— All are mine, Whether I see or not, Whether I hear or not. All will come to me On unseen roads— If I live Enough million years. 1920
Mani Leyb (1883–1953)
also: Mani Leib, pseudonym of Mani-Leyb Brahinski
born in nyezhin, chernigov district, northern Ukraine. Grew up in a poor family, the children (six sons and two daughters) sleeping on straw on the floor. His father traveled to fairs, buying hides of horses and cattle; he also wrote letters to America for abandoned wives and brides. But the real breadwinner was mother, trading vegetables, chickens, and eggs in the market. Until age eleven, Mani Leyb studied in heder, then was an apprentice to a shoe stitcher. Five years later became an independent shoe stitcher and employed six workers. He joined the revolutionary movement, often switching parties: first as a Ukrainian Socialist, then an S.R. (Russian Socialist-Revolutionary), then an Anarchist, then a Social-Democrat. He was arrested in 1904 but fled to England, where he published his first poems. Mani Leyb came to America in 1905 and became the most prominent poet of the Young Generation; published poetry and poetry translations, as well as articles, in Yiddish newspapers and periodicals. He was a virtuoso of euphonious verse in nebulous symbolist tones, softened by a folksy humor, and was a major children’s poet. The poetess Rachel Veprinsky was his life’s companion. For many years he worked as a shoemaker in New York. He suffered from consumption and stomach ailments but eventually got an office job in the Jewish Bakers Union. In 1946, he joined the staff of the daily Forverts (Forwards). He was the darling of the Jewish labor movement in New York; on his sixtieth birthday they gave him a house as a gift. Several books of his poetry appeared in New York, and many editions of poems and stories in verse for children were published around the world. The two posthumous volumes of his collected poems (1955) are incomplete.
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The Lyrical Turn
I Have My Mama’s Black Hair I have my mama’s black hair and green eyes, My papa’s delicate, thin hands, And blood that boils and sings, Blood of my grandfathers, Jews on the banks of the Dnieper. My head is crowned By nights spent with friends In longing for soft, thin lust, And on my breast, the sharp toothmarks Of an intimate, throbbing woman.
My White Joy Hey you, at my high gates, Make the dark with torches bright! My white joy in thirteen veils Is coming to me tonight.
My white joy flies in a sleigh Harnessed to seven horses, Her veils spread on their way White winds, white forces! She spurs on the white horses.
Hey, open up the high gates, Unhitch the horses in my yard! My white joy in thirteen veils— Bring her to me unscarred!
One veil falls, another veil, At the quiet, red-blue fire. Thirteen veils. And she, all pale: “See me so, with no attire?”— And she throws them in the fire.
Hey you, shut tight the high gates, Go to sleep like dogs or like stone! My white joy in thirteen veils Is here with me, with me alone.
Mani Leyb
I Am the Climbing Vine I am the wild climbing vine, At the fence of your yard I rise, Red and wild, I mount up high, Up to your window-skies— To sprawl on the floor at your feet, To breathe in the rustle of your gown, To turn pale in your lucid eyes, At your words to be sad deep down. To lurk in the shade of your lamps Like a spider, autumn green, To light up, pensive as your lamps, In the ash of your hearth to be seen. To lie, lifeless and pale, In the snow of your windowpane. Snowy snowed-in in the snow, To weep to you once again.
Seven Brothers We are seven brothers With gray and blue eyes. Three brothers like poplars, Supple, slender and tall, With haughty, beautiful heads. Three brothers like maple trees, Their sweet roots in the earth. And I—the singer of the song— A green willow in the wind. And our father died— Woe to us, woe to us!— Like a thin oak on a parched soil. And we, his seven sons, Arose from the grey mist In the grief of that rainy day, And with weeping hands soaked with rain We laid black shards on his eyes. Spades in hand, we filled his grave
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The Lyrical Turn With the red clay of Long Island, And we placed a little board At the head of his grave. Like a shaken grove Surrendered to blowing winds, We seven brothers Cried out with one voice: Yisgadal! And on that rainy day, We seven brothers With gray and blue, sad eyes, Parted at the gates of New York. And each of the seven brothers Separately went His own separate way On seven separate avenues.
Who? . . . Who will console us in our pain? . . . You will console us and You will heed, Not overlook, not expose us to share Us, as we are, small as we are. Mute as the earth and mute as the shine Of alien stars here in the night— Who will heed us?—You will heed, Mute as we are, small as we are.
My Papa On a sad Shabbos night, after Havdolah At the cold samovar, In his hand his thin beard, In his beard his worry hidden,
He stands up to bear the yoke: Wipes the windowpane and measures the stars, Harnesses horse and wagon in the yard, To vanish in the market towns. The ritual of separating the Sabbath from the week.
Mani Leyb And he left behind in the hut: Weekdays, children, need in cradles. But Mama would chase out all the Grief and sorrow with a tune. Suns hanging on the windows. Friday he comes back from the fairs And brings to our hut Joy and fragrances, bread and peace: Wife and children—his treasure, His own bit of blood together.— Shabbos candles and our songs Draw all the neighbors to the windows. But in snowy hours of dawn, With my childish ear I often Heard him reciting Psalms, His weeping and mute sorrow. Sorrow of a grandfather? Sorrow of Ukrainian steppes?— Not to be expressed in words, Not to be weeped out in Psalms, But in the blind blood of children To be conveyed forever. And his sorrow, blind, Blossomed in my life.
Avrom Lyesin and I In New York streets, with traders and dust, In Jewish streets with Jewish wares, With eternal sun over us, we stroll, Two Yiddish poets—Lyesin and I. He—masculine and bold, a lion out of a cage; I—boyish and supple, as green as a twig. He—Lithuanian wisdom lining his face With poem and Torah, heritage of his ancestors. Major Yiddish poet in New York, editor of Di Tsukunft (The Future), a journal for literature, popular
science, and social issues.
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120 The Lyrical Turn And I—I carry on my shoulder like a garment The joyous song of rich Ukrainian soil. My older brother—he walks at my side, In a fever of vision through space and time: Feverish with poems, and in the poems converge Hero and martyr chiseled in marble. In New York streets with traders and dust, In Jewish streets with Jewish wares, Martyrs and heroes—every figure, Growing out of the hard asphalt. His younger brother—I walk at his side, And chatter aimlessly, and chatter wildly Of beauty I saw in a dream, Beauty that never visited here. Here in the streets with traders and dust, In Jewish streets with Jewish wares, Beauty beams in seventeen hues, Sings out of the deaf, hard asphalt. In New York streets, with traders and dust, In Jewish streets with Jewish wares, With eternal sun over us, we stroll, Two Yiddish poets—Lyesin and I . . .
Stars Drip Roses burst with too much fragrance, Stars drip with too much light. To a white shoulder, with too much strength, Swooning, pale, I bend my face. With too much ferment, fat trees Die out in glowing fireflies. And a hidden wing of fire Flashes out in hot spaces— And the moon. In that fire, My hope feeds on the distant pasture. The white shoulder is atremble Up to the joy of my limbs.
Mani Leyb
Jewish Letters Deep in the yellow Long Island clay, Dig me a pit for my eternal home. I love that clay—intimate and blind, It devoured the bones of my child. Dig deeper the pit and cover my bones, Put at my head a simple stone. With Jewish letters, engrave in the stone My name—perhaps, in the seventh generation, A stranger will not understand the letters, And walk past my stone.
Three Wanderers On the gray island Of the seven seas Three weary wanderers Met beneath the trees. Three weary wanderers From everywhere appeared, Each with his old knapsack And his gray beard. On the gray island Of the seven seas, Three weary wanderers Rest beneath the trees. Rest and tell each other, Intimate and coy, Each of them recounting Suffering and joy. “Oh,” begins the first one, “Each bird will have its berth; I with my old knapsack Must measure out the earth. “Animals have lairs, I don’t have a land . . . ” And he points toward heaven, Sadness in his hand.
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The Lyrical Turn “You won’t find a nest In the whole wide world . . . ” Sigh the three wanderers, Bend their beards unfurled. “I,” begins the second, “Like the winds that roam, I got up one morning And left my land, my home. “Not to seek my fortune, Just a shade of luck . . . ” And he points to heaven— And his gaze dumbstruck. “You won’t find a nest In the whole wide world . . . ” Sigh the three wanderers, Bend their beards unfurled. “I,” begins the third one, “In my land of chains Freely walked there, spreading Love through all the lanes. “But the evil foe Drove me from that land . . . ” And a heavenly glimmer On his face was spanned. “You have found it all In the whole wide world . . . ” Calmly smile the wanderers Stroke their beards unfurled. On the gray island Of the seven seas Three weary wanderers Met beneath the trees— Dragged themselves on farther Through the night and day, Each with his old knapsack, Each in his own way.
Mani Leyb
The Mountain
Close to Khelm and quite nearby, Stands a mountain tall and high, Thrusts its head to heaven’s realm And looks down to our town Khelm. Like a nasty neighbor’s feast, Stands the mountain in the east, And obstructs God’s gleam and ray Till the middle of the day; And the night goes on and on— For the day begins to dawn Over half the town of Khelm, When it’s midday in God’s realm.
* And our Khelm is deep in trouble: In the town the night is double, Half a town lies, sleeps away Till the middle of the day! You just open up your eyes And the pane in darkness lies, So you don’t know when it’s day or When to say the morning prayer, When to milk the goats at rest, When to give the babes the breast, When to send the little boys With an anger in your voice, As is orderly, to school— To the heder with its rule, Where they study, hear and see Good and pious Jews to be. And the roosters in the attics Didn’t study mathematics, Didn’t see the dawn turn blue, Then turn red for me and you,
The proverbial city of lovable fools.
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124 The Lyrical Turn They begin aloud to crow With the chords of arpeggio, When the other half of town With God’s help was up and down Half a day in hustle-bustle Ate their meals, calmed down the rustle, Sated, opened up their vest, Laid them down and took a rest . . . * So in Khelm—it’s not a joke, Not to laugh at simple folk— A confusion there has been Which the world has never seen.
* Well, the people there assembles, And with talk so sharp it trembles, They discuss the mount anew, And they don’t know what to do With an evil mount so high . . . Till a clever man came by: Not from any distant realm, But a wise man right from Khelm. And he gives them such advice: “Khelm must gather, strong and nice, Push the mountain with its shoulder, Show the mountain who is bolder, And the mount will, on its own, Walk across the bridge alone . . . Let it there, with poise and grace, Find itself another place To relax its sloping foot, Block the day with mighty boot, Just as much as he might like . . . Khelm must hurry then and strike: Right away destroy the bridge, Burn it down, so that the ridge—
Mani Leyb On that bridge, along that track, Won’t be able to come back . . . ” Khelm admired the advice, And stood up so strong and nice With its shoulder to the mount— Young and old, a full account— And they shove with all their might— God give Khelm the strength to fight— But the mountain, in a pinch, From its place won’t move an inch . . . The whole city is amazed: “Here a mountain high was raised By the Lord . . . What do you know: Push it—and it will not go . . . ” Khelm then pushes hard and high, Obstinately, with a sigh: “One more push! And one more shove!”— But the mountain doesn’t move, Stands there firmly like a lord . . . But our Khelm, without a word, Lends a shoulder . . . won’t stop yet Till his shirt is damp with sweat, And evaporates in steam— Over Khelm a cloud would seem! “Push again!” they shove and shout: Until all their strength runs out, And they give it up for lost . . . And the thought had never crossed Their sharp minds that they have been In this matter taken in By a Tartar or a ghost, Or a dragon at the most, With two eyes upon his tail, Or a prankster, small and pale . . . For . . . When Khelm was pushing hot, There a boy—a tiny dot,
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126 The Lyrical Turn Small and nimble as a thumb, Wet behind the ears, did come, Climbed the mountain to the peak— Almost broke his neck and cheek— Just in fear to see and say How they push the mount away . . . And the boy—a curious brat— Seems he didn’t think of that: Though he’s small, he adds his weight To the mountain’s heavy gait . . . And this boy—I must proceed— Was my grandfather indeed. To his very dying day, Till his hair grew thin and gray, Rang his wisdom and his wit And the will that went with it, Far and wide and now and then Among all Khelm’s clever men. But as long as he did live He could not his sin forgive That for one smart prank he went And was willing to prevent The big mountain and its ridge Being pushed across the bridge— And it stayed—lo and behold!— In the same place of old . . . And as long as he did live He could not his sin forgive, And he took it to his grave— May God pity him and save!
Mani Leyb
The Wonder Horse
In the poor land Lithuania Sings a bird of miscellanea. And on every corner gray Poverty sings day by day.
Poverty sings, and all the crowd Sings together, clear and loud; And if someday comes a Jew, Singing there a song that’s new, Poverty will interrupt, Whistle, screech, and scream abrupt, Till the Jew, abashed and still Sings along with poverty’s will.
* Once there was a Jew so grand, Known and loved throughout the land; As a king, so rich and fine, His largesse will always shine. Suddenly the devil’s frown Turned his bread, butter side down; And his grinding wheel stood still, Now no longer turns his mill. Any trade he would conduct— He runs out of luck and pluck; And he loses all he’s got: Sheep fall down, decay and rot, And his woods go up in flame, And the fields dry all the same: Till his wealth runs out, unpinned, Like a fire in the wind. Just his beard, his girded loins And three round and golden coins, And an old and toothless horse— Skin and bone and tail, of course,
Stereotypically: Lithuania was extremely poor, and its Jews, the Litvaks, were learned and clever.
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128
The Lyrical Turn And a wife and seven daughters— Not to float it on the waters— Each one lovely as a dove, Fit for canopy and love. What remains . . . What can remain?— Drive out poverty—in vain. Drive out poverty, so droll— It creeps in another hole. And his wife complains, confides: Daughters grow, the seven brides, No chemise upon their flesh— Send them out so young and fresh? Tries the husband to console her: We are broke, he says in dolor, For the hand that gives and takes Made us poor, made no mistakes. Let us think and contemplate What will happen to our fate; I must go and leave my home In the whole wide world to roam. People come, tell up and down, That in Poland there’s a town Rich as any in the realm, City by the name of Khelm. I shall go there, test my luck, And in Khelm to ply my pluck . . . See you soon! May I return With the riches that I earn . . .
* And before the dawn of day, Harnessed he his horse and sleigh, With a whip and a heigh-ho, He set off in the white snow. With his beard, his girded loins And three round and golden coins, Quiet sadness in his heart, Trusting God, he will depart.
Mani Leyb 129 Freezing in the snowy might, On he wandered, day and night, Till his horse brought in the dark Him to Khelm, where he did park. * Khelm the town is sound asleep. Not a light or sound or peep, Houses locked and closed up tight, Covered up by snow and night. Frozen through, and stiff and gray, Climbs the Jew out of his sleigh. At rich houses he does batter, And with cold his teeth do chatter. People open eyes: not dawn, Grumble, rub their eyes and yawn. Cold and late, they sighed and said, Lazy to get out of bed. Just a dog will shake and wobble, Keep his people out of trouble, Fearsomely he’ll bark and bark— Falls the Jew back in the dark, Climbing back into his sleigh. Like a knife after its prey, Cuts the cold deep to his bone, On his heart there lies a stone. Rich old Khelm will in its rest Not accept at night a guest, Lets him die in need immense, Like a dog beyond a fence. Tears are searing in his heart . . . Only let the night depart, We shall see what will take place!— Drives up to the marketplace. In the market he will stay, Free the horse from off the sleigh, And he feeds his horse a bit— Seven straws to chew and spit.
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The Lyrical Turn And he waits—what can he do, Till the third cock-a-doodle-doo, Khelm will wake and rub its face, And fill up the marketplace. * Now the third cock crows his worth, Here and there, and back and forth, Where a house and where a shop is Lights go on, as red as poppies. And the sky, it glimmers blue, And a gate creaks on its screw; All of Khelm, both big and small Streams outside, to sell and sprawl. Bags and buckets in the breeze, And the shopkeepers with keys. One more lazy yawn, so sweet— All of Khelm is on its feet. Frozen, frosted through and through, Now he is relieved, our Jew; And he thinks into his beard: Let us see what will appear! And he strokes his beard with pride And his golden coins beside, Twists the horse’s tail, so slow, Spills his coins upon the snow. When the rich of Khelm appear, Wallets full of cash, they near, Wrapped in furs, just touch and feel— Then the market starts for real. But they open mouth and eyes: What a marvelous surprise! Baffled, they all turn to stone! Here’s a horse, just skin and bone. And a stranger girds his loins, And collects round, golden coins From his horse as white as snow . . . Why and when and how come so?
Mani Leyb Spins a tale the Jew from no-land That his road takes him to Poland, And that God has blessed his course With a marvel, wonder horse. When you feed him hay that coarse is, He will chew for seven horses, Right away he will produce Golden coins that you can use. If you want some golden ducats, Feed him oats in seven buckets, Ducats he will then put out, As you want, or thereabout.
* Khelm is famous for its fools. Who can stop the rumor spools? Spools are turning all the same, Khelm remains with its old fame. * And the rich of Khelm, they ponder: May God give us such a wonder, Such a horse, but not to ride! And they stroke their beards with pride. Merchants start to make their deal, Throw a word to test and feel: So he limps, so not so nice, What would be the horse’s price? . . . Then the Jew begins to boast That all Khelm, each worthy host, Does not have so much in gold, If the horse’s worth were told. Then they start to give and take, Gold coins in their pockets shake, And they march off to the inn, Sit on benches, make a din. Drinking brandy, eating cake, Such a compromise they make: Khelm will pay, all said and told,
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132
The Lyrical Turn For the horse a sack of gold, And a fur from furs of Khelm— Let the warmth him overwhelm; And the best horse of the town, Worth at least a king’s best crown. Then the Jew collects his gold, Ties the sack, lo and behold! Climbs into the fur, of course, Harnesses the Khelmite horse. And he whispers in the ear Of his old horse, drawing near: Be to Khelm as unto me, Give them ducats, big and free. And he wishes a new year To the Khelmites far and near, And he leaps into his sleigh— Salt his tail, he is away. When the Jew then disappears, All of Khelm laughs to its ears: How we fooled the Litvak clever, Got a fortune good forever!
* Khelm is famous for its fools. Who will fight the rumor spools? Who will wink? But just the same— Maybe it deserves its fame. But our Khelm can yet rejoice, As it likes, and with full voice, Till its head will spin and glow— That the world will never know. * Khelm is happy; rich and poor From the heder, safe and sure, From the needle, from the store, Young and old, out they pour.
Mani Leyb And the goats from all the yards, And the babies and the bards, And the cobbler with a lace— Run into the marketplace: Just to get to stick your nose To the wonder that arose, Pushing closer to the horse, Till the earth caves in of course. And the horse without pretense, Like a bridegroom, he grows tense, Twists his tail up low and high, Meaning: Know ye, who am I . . . And the rich lead him away— Ushers on a wedding day— To the sexton, to the hall, Choicest place shall be his stall. Here the horse will never fast, And they bring a case to last— Full and flowing to the brim, Yellow oats prepared for him. Chomp and chew and do not choose, And let all the Khelmite Jews Prosper now on your account: Khelmite oats you eat, dear mount! And the sexton pours the wine, Tasty brandy, big and fine, And the joy is almost spent, And they wait for the event. Blow their noses, yawn and poke, Waiting till the thirteenth stroke. Darkness comes in with the night And the sexton lights the light. And the horse—he chews the oats, Like three horses, chews and bloats. But you can see nothing new. Till they’re burning up with rue.
133
134
The Lyrical Turn But they do not go to bed, For their sleep this night has fled, But suspicion creeps up closer: Something here is not so kosher. Sitting till the morning glories, And their heads—they teem with worries, And the fear grows in their heart Like a stain upon a chart. Somber, grim and filled with fury, Noses down, an angry jury, Waiting endlessly in vain— Duped and fooled, they sit in pain. But when doves hummed once again Through the sexton’s windowpane, And the sun’s light shining rays Did the sexton’s hall embrace— Overjoyed was every Jew: Khelm has now been born anew, People lost their power of speech, Kissing, joyful, each with each. People dance and people leap; Coins will soon amass a heap! Don’t you see?—It cannot fail— While our horse lifts up his tail! And the horse fulfills his duty, Lifts his tail and—what a beauty!— He’s prepared to do a thing In the middle of the ring . . .
* Had the thing not struck the Jews, We would laugh at such strange news. But in Khelm’s bad state to be— We don’t wish our enemy.
*
Mani Leyb Yet, it didn’t take too long, Khelm recovered, shul and throng. With a head so clear and clever, They assembled just as ever. At the top the rich and famous, Everyman that not to blame is, At the door and at the side, Sit the poor who have no pride: How to catch the crook who fled, Crack the cross inside his head. Think and think, oh what a sight! Through the day and through the night. And they do not watch the day: What to do or what to say To the Litvak, who went sour . . . Thus they’re thinking to this hour.
* Lives a Jew in Lithuania, Steeped in his megalomania, Never leaves his Litvak quarters, Marries off his seven daughters.
135
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Illustrations to Mani Leyb, Yingl Tsingl Khvat (Funny Sonny Smart). Drawn by El Lissitzky in Moscow, 1918, published by the Cooperative Society “Yiddish People’s Publishers,” Kiev—Peterburg.
Mani Leyb
Funny Sonny Smart Here’s a pretty little tale For the children to regale. Quiet, children, make no noise, Listen now, you girls and boys: Long ago and far away— You can’t get there on a sleigh, On a horse, a ship, a train, Over sea and land and plain— Once there was a valley nice; There, spread out before your eyes, Like a thread or like a seam, Far and straight, a little stream. At the river, on its banks, Houses stood in crooked ranks. Houses, streets, a marketplace, And a mountain in its grace. And the Gentiles and the Jews Lived there happy, in a truce; Some in joy and some in need, Each had bread their kids to feed. Once it happened, by the way, That the summer fled away. Well, so what is there to fear, Should a summer disappear?—
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Mani Leyb After summer comes the winter, Came a spider and she spinned her Webs on houses, market, town— In a snowy snow-white gown. White and shiny in the snow, Wide and far, for sleighs to go, Stretches far the road to drive, Till the Pesach -days arrive. Peasants come dressed up and dry, Lead their sleighs filled up with rye, Geese and wood and straw and hay, Loaded to the brim their sleigh. Jews in all the hustle-bustle Haggle, buy, and sell and rustle; Every Jewish face is gay: What a market is today! Children sliding on the ice, Fool around, with squeaks and cries, And the ice is blue and soft, Like the heavens there aloft. And the Gentile boys with caps Run on sleds downhill, perhaps, With a whistle, scream and go, Rolling, rolling in the snow! Jewish boys, not really older, Roll the snow into a boulder, Shape a snowman till he grows, With a mouth and with a nose.
Passover (around Easter time).
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Mani Leyb Stands a boy beside a gate, Rubs his ear: You snowman, wait, Wait till Pesach and keep cool, Till we have to go to school. But this time it did occur That a winter with no fur, Came, dark, wet, as in a cave, Going outside, who would brave? And a rain poured over all— Not a winter but a fall! Not a snowflake to be seen, For no snow has ever been. Stands the market in a flood, And you walk and drive through mud; Walk and drive—how can it be, When the mud comes to your knee? Drives a peasant in the muck, In the mud his wagon stuck; And he curses, whips and stops— Pulls his horse until it drops. And a driver makes it worse, Gees and haws—with oath and curse, Or with coaxing: Horsey, love— But the horses will not move! And the boys there, as a rule, Study late at night in school, Fear to walk—it’s no disgrace— Through the muddy marketplace.
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Mani Leyb People saddened in a throng That the mud may last so long, Not a snowflake to be seen, For no snow has ever been. People scared, hide in their shells. Gentiles clanging with their bells, Jews are splashing in their shul, Till the shul is filled and full. And the schoolboys will not bow, Every boy, he takes a vow: —If the winter turns about, I’ll be good and be devout. Not a bagel will he buy— Like a jolly bird he’ll fly For a paper lantern bright, Red and shining in the night. But there was a boy with heart, And they called him Sonny Smart. Funny Sonny Smart is here, With no terror and no fear. He would laugh: a lantern bright! I don’t fear the bears at night, Will I fear to walk alone Through the market, brave and grown? And the boys they hear and hush. For they know that in a rush Funny Sonny Smart will never Lie like our old blacksmith clever!
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Mani Leyb Let them thrill throughout the land As they wish and understand, But they took it all to heart: Where is Funny Sonny Smart? Mama searches: “Sonny, Sonny!” Says a boy with words of honey: “Oh, your Sonny’s drowned in mire, And the snow put out his fire.” Mama starts to moan and cry, Clever people wander by: “Who would let a boy half grown walk at night in mud alone!” But a boy as smart as Sonny, With a magic ring so funny, And with such a fiery horse— And the earth is round of course— So he gallops sure and fast, Like wild winds that blow and blast, Over mountain, field and wood, For the world is broad and good. Like an arrow he is hurled, Sonny flies around the world, Far away from town and home, Through the spaces he does roam. But when from the roads again Comes the winter with a rain, And the snow has not been seen, As if snow has never been—
153
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Mani Leyb Then comes Sonny Smart in flight, Like an arrow in the night, Still unseen but yet on course, On his lord’s good, valiant horse. And he gallops sure and fast, Like wild winds that blow and blast, Gallops through the marketplace, To the mountain he does race, Reins his horse, and in a swing, He picks up the magic ring, Seven times he turns it round, Brings a snow down to the ground!
155
Y. Rolnik (1879–1955)
Yoysef ( Joseph) Rolnick
born in zhukovich, a village in Minsk province, Byelorussia (Jewish Lithuania), where his father rented a large water mill. Rolnik studied with a private tutor and in the Mir yeshiva. From 1895 to 1898, he lived in Minsk. Wrote poetry in Russian, Hebrew, and Yiddish. He immigrated to America in 1899, left in 1901 for England and Russia, and returned to the United States for good in 1906. For many years, the poet worked as a proofreader on the daily Der Tog (“The Day”). Often ill, he was in sanatoriums on several occasions. Published Yiddish poetry with poets of the Young Generation.
A Window to the South Like Tranquil Water I arrived on an old-time path, Off the side of the high road, I walk it all alone And am not bored. Along with me, in my memory, walk Yellow wheat and brown rye, Fragrant haystacks, And familiar warm snow.
156
Y. Rolnik Warriors walk on the high road, But I walk on the side. Their armor and sword clang— Like tranquil water flows my earth.
From the Window In our mill, on the third floor, Where the nooks are for wheat and rye, There is a window on the southern side. From it, you can see far and wide. Opposite—mown meadows of hay And pasture for the livestock: Pigs and cattle, sheep and horses, Strewn over the whole earth, And in the distance, a village here and there, And the spire of a Polish church in town. The whole area is traversed By a glimmering, fickle river. Not like a ruler, stiff and straight, But like a forest path, the water meandered Amid pasture and hay, For a while it went astray Among high banks, and soon Emerged again, gleaming. Near the mill, it spread out To left and right, open and wide. The number of cattle, sheep and horses Doubled in the water. ........................................ But on weeping winter days The water would be plowed up, And from the height of the third floor I could see waves born— Springing up at once, like newborn calves, And splintering On the stone bank.
157
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The Lyrical Turn
Shabbos The mill is dormant, as after a market day. On sleeping sacks of wheat and rye My mama set me to saying Psalms. The summer day is empty, quiet. Papa sleeps his Shabbos sleep. The shadow of the wall stretched out. The back aches, eyes fall shut. The thick Psalm book has no end. Mama takes pity on her little son, He is still young and does as she wants. She makes a cool drink of cherries And gives him a glass to drink.
Bread from the Pocket Shabbos after dinner, as you walk out, The road is like a desert, sandy and hot. But the first little bridge is right here. And although the bare ground burns like embers— The water is cool between peat walls, And smooth as molten lead. Little fish, their backs to the sun, Spin around In their round domain. We throw them bread crumbs from our pockets. They swallow it and— Spin around again, Have no fear of us. The grown-ups see in it the greatness of God. But for us it is a game— Between equals. And when the crumbs are done We turn our pockets inside out To show we have nothing more for the river.
Sabbath in Yiddish.
Y. Rolnik
The Abandoned Bridge
In the month of Teyves, field and river And all the ditches are covered flat With blue snow and cold. But from the vaulting bridge Winds blow back the snow; And wagons from the whole world Cut a road over the river— A fresh plowed-up furrow. The regular road over the bridge Is abandoned; Unless a pedestrian Can afford to walk over the dry boards And keep his city boots clean. Thus a once wealthy man sees How abundance turned away From his door and stopped At another’s tent.
Rest The hot day lies down a bit And the whole world rests. The wheels of the sky, like the wheels Of the mill, stop. (The millers get ready to whet the stones.) The road is white and empty. No wagon for miles around, Not even a passer-by, Gentile or Jew. Three in the afternoon. The sun leans To the west. The day’s brows are heavy.
A Winter Dawn The winter day has just begun. Morning still blue in the windowpanes, But the whole house, my sisters and mother
Hebrew: Tevet, a month equivalent to January.
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160 The Lyrical Turn Are awake. They heat water for the house. The Gentile woman brought a measure of bran from the mill To add taste to the buckets. In the corners of the house, still dark. It’s early. But from the blazing oven the glow Turns all hands and faces red as flame. Five buckets stand filled with fodder. Now, the water’s hot, poured into the buckets. Steam rises, spreads and overshadows Faces, benches around the walls. They pour water on hissing coals to soak laundry. The cock crows for the last time. A clanging, when hooks clutch the pots— Pulls the youngest child out of bed. Thus starts a morning in the mill.
A Morning The day spread out shining and calm. But in the old stone mill, The waterwheel kneaded the river With a broad, blurred pace; And from the village a mile away Came the squeak of a well, and a lonely wagon, Going to load hay, Clattered with rake and pitchfork— Every sound reaching up Was a sound unto itself, Not blending with any other. As on a white water, green islands Appear here and there, But each has its own place And around all—smooth and broad— Spreads the water.
Back from Prayer The air was still damp and cool When we dashed out of the house. Though the sun reflected on the roof of the mill—
Y. Rolnik Shadows were lying between house and house. In Shabbos clothes, galoshes folded down, With no road or path, we moved To the next village, to the Jewish yard, Where we gather for holiday prayer. Clods spread over the pasture And twisted our legs. We sang the whole prayer book And leaped like boys from clod to clod. On the way back, we took the longer road, Over hills and valleys, valleys and hills. And when we got home, With dusty feet and dried-out palates, We did not at first recognize Mill and house, barn and bridge. Maybe because we came from the other side And at such an unusual time.
A Winter Night The monotonous beat of the mill Drags on endlessly. It is the second week Since the stones began to chatter And never stopped. We love their prattle. We pray To God not to let them fall silent. In the entrance, the floor is covered With a dozen Gentiles. Their legs Reach almost to the door. They ate their fill of bread and pork And washed it down with water, Fresh from the ice. Simple villagers, Like a flock of sheep at night, They lay down on the ground. Their big, calloused hands, like fieldstones, Behind their heads. Sweet And sated is their sleep. And around the big, white table A circle of men sits, bent over, Listening for the hundredth time
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162 The Lyrical Turn To tales stretching out from the mill To the pub, from the pub to the lord’s yard And wherever Gentiles assemble. They came in from all the villages, Bringing wagons of rye. Now they wait for the miller To walk in and say: Take your sack and grind! The door opens— The flour-dusted miller enters, Lays a white hand On someone’s shoulder and whispers in his ear: “Your turn. Come on!” Around the table—a hollow of light.
The Fishing Rod When the king comes home from the war His pride and joy are not so grand As the tall Gentile’s, crossing the bridge With a ten-pound pike in his hand. Long and patient did he wait Through many a sunny, warm day. Plodded with barefoot, sly steps, Unmoving on the bank he lay. Lies quiet. Holding his breath. Just two senses: hearing and sight. A bird’s blue shadow hovered above, A jarring shadow in the light. The water’s face is smooth. The midday sun—a burning brand. His sight—an arrow through green reeds. He holds the rod stiff in his hand. And as he sighted the fish Passing by underneath, He threw out the hook With its sharp teeth. He holds the catch high In his rigid right hand.
Y. Rolnik A drop of blood on the pike’s belly, The hook drags behind in the sand. Toward him comes the miller. It is Sabbath Eve on the earth— He just haggles for the fun of it, And pays in cash what it is worth. We cut the fish into ten pieces. Each piece leaped up on the board. If fish could really speak, Each piece would have had its word. The miller put a copper pan Over a hopping flame that raced, And added sticks of wood, Salt and pepper for the taste. The women cook meat and broth; They prepare every dish, Chop up onions, steam the carrots; But the men—cook the fish.
Moab’s Daughters We dried hay on Sudnik’s land. Suddenly someone raised his hand To the road leading downhill Into the valley. We opened our eyes: On the yellow road, a long caravan Of wagons, endless wagons. From afar— Links of a long, heavy chain. Only the head came our way; But the tail still crawled on the other side. It was a day like all days, neither a market Nor a wedding accompanied by a whole village— Just an average day before the harvest. The chain moved slowly, Link after link, till it crept up To the place where we stood Watching in amazement: On high wagons, not like ours,
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164 The Lyrical Turn Loaded with field tools: spades, scythes, axes, And small domestic objects in big sacks, Women, old and young, holding little children, Shook on the cratered road. And at their side, along the smooth path, Men with suntanned faces Trudged with heavy, well-traveled feet. It was not a gypsy caravan, Its whole camp tearing away From some suburb and—gone! And not a community of Jews from a burned-down city Going into the world wherever God takes them With their rescued belongings. No, neither their clothing nor the color of their faces Revealed whence and where to The whole camp moved or what nation they were. But when they passed a mile or two From us, I remembered like a dream: These passers-by—I knew them well, From the Torah. Moab’s sons and daughters Going into captivity.
Ducks Mama talks into the dark: “Get up, my child, it’s late. Go drive the ducks into the river.” Bound by sleep—I jump up, Barely dressed, I leave the house. I open my eyes wide: The east is red, The earth is gold. Peasants lead their horses home from the pasture. Nearby, the ducks are dozing in the grass, Their beaks thrust in their warm feathers. A wave of my oar—I wake them up. Screeching, they rush into the water. I shove the boat with my knee, Outflank them and drive them out Into mid-river. I drive them farther, farther out,
Y. Rolnik To a promised green-gold land. They sit on the water like bulky biddies (All they need is a pearl necklace around their neck!) And with their little feet, they paddle the blue stuff That has no beginning and no end. Behind the boat, a path fanned out. The ducks come to a marshy shore. Ducks are silly but clever enough To eat their fill of frogs and worms. They stuff themselves all day long, Grow fat and heavy. At dusk, before the sun goes down, I shall sail and bring them home.
A Stain My three maternal uncles, Old, gray villagers, Like three brothers out of a storybook. The first was big and tall, Gentle as a child and good as a dove, Knew stories of the moon and stars And could explain God’s works, He flew with me over wide worlds And, flying, he opened my eyes: “In the pit of the fruit lies the whole tree, All voices of ancient times hover in space.” The second had a beard like combed flax, In his eyes the rising sun, on his lips God’s praise, He leased the landlord’s orchard— And smelled of fruit and beeswax. And at dawn—the squeak of a wagon Announced to us children: Uncle’s wagon stopped here. We would surround the back wheel And he, all smiling and beaming, From the sun upon him and in him, Filled our pockets and hands As much as we could bear. My third uncle was also old,
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166 The Lyrical Turn But not like his brothers—white as snow, And not as innocent as they. His beard was red, sharp as a wedge, And like his beard, he too was sharp and thin. He had prickly words, Like arrows shot from a hunter’s bow, When he quarreled with his neighbors Over a board in a fence, Over a bit of soil. And when his need grew, He dropped his house and patch of land, And went roaming over the world. The shame of his begging life Hardly reached me. Like the bite of a flea That pricks you and flies off, It flew out of my mind. But years later, A youth with a budding moustache, In a gentle, evening hour, Coming to a neighbor’s house In a village a dozen miles away, I saw my estranged uncle Sitting, his pack at his side And his stick in his right hand, As beggars usually sit. I recognized my uncle at once But I didn’t turn to him. Grudgingly, I thought The world is so big and wide, Why today of all days, and here of all places, Among these friendly walls, Did he have to descend for his ugly bread? Covered up, somewhere behind a lapel, the stain Of not reaching out my hand to him Did not disappear.
Y. Rolnik
Turets On the side of the broad highway Lies the town of Turets. Not far From Navaredok and Mir. It has one rich man And a hundred paupers. The town used to supply Kerchiefs and beads for the villages around And rabbis for half the world. The fathers travel To sell their wares And the sons sit in Torah yards. In Mir and Volozhin, Kletsk and Lublin, Scholars are grazing for Warsaw and Vienna. When a mama had four sons One took over his father’s horse and wagon, And three scattered over the Jewish earth. And if she had just three, They all anyway Became—rabbis.
Riverside Drive It’s hard to get out of bed at dawn. But as I walk out, the blue strokes my face, The wind ruffles my hair, And the stones in the street catch my steps. Empty and calm. On the whole earth— Just me and the milkman’s horse. The milkman is somewhere on an upper floor, Setting bottles in long corridors, And the horse himself knows where to go— When to stop and when to move on. I run with the newspapers under my arm, Not looking at the numbers on the doors. My feet, like the milkman’s horse, lead To the usual stairs. The sun rises On the east side of the city. But all its flames, all its grace,
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168 The Lyrical Turn It poured with full cans On the west side of the Hudson River. On Riverside three hundred and ten, In the shadows of a brownstone wall, Opposite me, I saw a man (He stood on a low porch). By his looks—he is not from here: Though young, he grows a moustache and a beard. And with his face turned straight To the mountains, he stretched out A hand, with a shout Shorter than a word— Meaning: See, there! And I, like him, amazed, Raised the newspapers, my offering To the brightness above. Was it the morning red Dripping from the rocks, Or was it that, with no premeditation, We found each other here— Two strange, mute people Met for the first time on this spot, Met and—understood.
Ruven Ayzland (1884–1955)
also: Reuben Iceland
born in radomysl, galicia, then part of Austria. Began writing poetry in Hebrew (published in Jerusalem, 1900). Came to America in 1903. Published poems and stories in Yiddish in the journals of the Young Generation. From 1918, on the staff of the daily Tog (later TogMorgen-Zhurnal). In 1919 he married Rosa Lebensboym (the poet and journalist Anna Margolin). Ayzland translated into Yiddish poetry and four volumes of prose by Heine, Richard Dehmel, Nietzsche, Robert Louis Stevenson, Chinese masters, and others. In his last years was ill; lived and died in Miami Beach.
Still Life 1 Bread and cheese and honey on a simple table. The tea beckons golden In two thin glasses. Green, cool and fresh, The water jug, veiled in dew. On the edge a woman’s handkerchief. Next to it, a small wise hand On a narrow book of poems In wine-colored silk. 2 Like cool, full breasts with a hidden fire, Heavy grapes lie next to brown, Virile long pears. Feminine passionate, with eroded redness, Two apples huddle up to a cold,
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170 The Lyrical Turn Shining, wisdom-filled orange. Like opaque dummies, two bananas ogle. Eager like a girl after her first kiss, A cherry bursts red off its stem.
Clouds Heavy and solemn, the horde floats by. Gray-black, gray-white and copper in a blue sea. In front, on a sailboat, the lord. His face dark, the broad skirts Of his heavy coat aflame. Behind him a headless rider, Galloping on a horse turned to stone, And behind them a host of climbers, Frozen stiff on the back of a mountain. A chunk of dark frost, torn out by the roots, Swimming by. Obliquely bent To the cold blue depths, A dark brown rock.— Torn off the procession yet mysteriously connected, Comes a giant with open wounds, Dragging a mountain. And on its peak, in dirty, frozen snow, Lies a narrow head of cold gold and two Threads of light, like bright riddles, Stream from his eyes, In half a bow, And pale away in mute pain.
Night Reflex From the soft, flowing evening gray, Skyscrapers thrust, like naked giants With dark foreheads and fiery eyes— A mighty scream of human will To create wonder in the wonder of the world. And wonderfully veiled, like a black giant bow, Spanning its stiff belly, a bridge from shore to shore Over a black river.
Ruven Ayzland And life, tense from the days, And dreams conjured up in the nights, Flow golden through steel veins From wonder to wonder, Where people have kindled windows in the sky.
Four Boys in White Shirts Four boys in white shirts Sit on a stone in the park, Their backs to the coming night. Four boys, white as swans, Gaze mute at the sky, Where a thin pink cloud Stretches like a wing. Four boys—white swans, Ride dreamily in the sky, On the back of a giant pink butterfly.
In the Port You strangers with the broad, thick-veined hands, Crooked legs and faces hard as leather, Smelling of sea and tar And of the rust of thick anchor chains; Oh, you, strangers to all nations and tongues, Yet bearing the filth and mold of everywhere With the longing for another sky; Oh, you, whose shoulders sprout spite, Take me in!
From My Summer 1 Midday. The ripe summer of my life. I am the heavy tree, loaded with sun and fruit. I am the broad field, blessed with full stalks, Shimmering golden to you, my sun.
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The Lyrical Turn Deep calm inside me, sated with harvest. And when I feel your breath, I bend in waves of joy From one shore to the other. 4 Water, smoke, giant white buildings. Hot hands and foggy eyes. —Let my love be big and bright, Big and joyous, Let its joy engulf us both. Big and dark the buildings move. Heavy with longing the fingers tremble. —Let my love be strong and mighty, As the heavy waves, Let its might break us both. Water, smoke, high-taut masts, —You hear, my love, Let your love become a huge fire Blown by a strong wind And scatter our ashes in the sea. Water, smoke and fog. —Bad boy, how can you be silent? I want nothing. Just let our ship forever cut Through the gray of the fog And just to feel the tremor of your hand, And just to feel the twitch of your brow. 5 My child undid her hair. —Let the sun kiss it. Let the wind kiss it. And the winy smell of wild cherry blossoms, And the bitter fragrance of first budding trees. No, you kiss me, love! We have no home. Our roof is the streetcar, the El, Our home is the park, Its wings to all four winds, Its trees like pillars to the sky.
Ruven Ayzland —Let the sun kiss me! No, you kiss me, love! Our home is the park, Where the wind sows harsh smells over grass And smooths a bed— Oh, love! 7 The fragrance of your hair. The cool smell of water. The quiet passing of ships. And blooming lights in the deep black river. And pale the evening afterglow dies down behind heavy buildings. And giant gates open and call. Your warm weary hand and pensive gaze Speak silently of happiness that was not to be, And the premonition of fears. 9 Now you smell of grass, of wind, of the hot breath of wishes. The depth of the dark forest peers out of your eyes, Among heavy trees fall dull sounds Of steps leaving behind Sadness, like echoes of songs. 12 Half green, half brown, The last leaves of a tree. And heavy clouds over shining wet roofs, And shining wet asphalt roads glimmering with cold. And cold through the whole body. But in my heart, your bright eyes glow warm. And from lips fall bright words Of the great Li Tai Po. 21 The sated calm of autumn in the wavy grass, And in the full juicy green oaks. Heavy elm branches bend, lost, Hazelnuts grow brown, And here and there, peeping through the bushes Like gelled fire, the first red leaves.
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The Lyrical Turn And you and I, ripe and mature, Meet the calm with calm. And calm, closed in ourselves, we walk to The noise of everyday, Screaming from streets and trains.
The Song of the Stupid Hosid and Other Fools
I shall sing the song of Henikh, the stupid Hosid . A plump Jew with a plump nose, An open heart and plump thick lips; A Jew with no Torah and no wisdom. But with a fiery red beard, And with a fiery heart, dancing and singing: Oy, God we must serve! Oy, God we must serve! And with a joyful spell— He Who redeems from death and frees from Hell. I shall sing the song of my friend Moyshe. A reincarnation of the holy fool, With limp hands and comically thin legs. But with childish eyes shining with joy And see the time, the great time, When East and West will be one, And from one end of the world to the other The holy, silly Yiddish word will ring. I shall sing the song of Nikolai Lenin. The greatest fool of them all, Who can laugh so ringing-sincere, And can dream so childish-prophetic, And so humanly silly-great See the end of all ends. Oy, great God, oy, good God! You, who punish me with lucid sobriety, Intoxicate my heart and spin my head, And let me at least once Reach the ankle of the smallest of all fools. A Hasidic, pious Jew.
Ruven Ayzland
David Elkin David Elkin, a half-legendary person, was a wandering preacher who was not stopped by any obstacles when he had to bring consolation to a despairing pioneer in a remote place when the distant Western states were beginning to be settled.
Some went to the West with saw and axe, Some with rifle and powder, some with barrels of whiskey, David Elkin went with God’s word on his lips And a good smile in his soft eyes. Some leaned their hips on a rock in Kentucky, Some built their fields in the prairies of Ohio, David Elkin builds no house, David Elkin measures no field. David Elkin builds a house for God in human hearts And sows his consolation on all the wild roads. David Elkin! David Elkin! All the waste traces in the old woods, All the twisted paths on the flanks of the mountains, All the steppes where your feet trod— All sing your praise, You, forgotten hero.
My Poems My thin, fine poems smell of death. Death, sensed in mating with a woman, And in the thinnest fibers of my own body In sunsets, And in the reddest of wishes. In the beautiful play of colors in women, And in the gray grief, Lurking In the delicate spiderwebs Of our life. Hence, the tremor hovering in the colors Of my poem. And dead tired Flow the rhythms, feverish And shift into
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For what remains in our heavy life, Except enchant yourself with pretty words And invented joy, And sometimes sink In a heavy thought Or in caressing eyes Leading like a rainbow From earth to sky.
B. Vladek (1886–1938)
Underground name of Borukh-Nakhman Tsharny, also: Barukh Charney Vladeck
born in dukor, minsk province, Byelorussia. His father owned a leather store and was an ardent Lubavich Hasid. He died in 1889 of consumption, leaving a widow and six children. Vladek’s brother Shmuel, under the pseudonym Sh. Nigger, became the most prominent Yiddish literary critic of his time, first in Europe, then in the United States; the youngest brother became the writer and cultural activist Daniel Charney; a nephew was the New-York born Israeli Hebrew poet T. Carmi (Karmi Charney). The mother was a learned woman, ran the leather store and sent her children to yeshiva in Minsk. BorukhNakhman studied Talmud and prepared for matriculation as an extern in a Russian Gimnazya. After the Kishinev pogrom in 1903, he joined the illegal Labor-Zionist movement and was arrested. In jail he taught other prisoners mathematics, geography, and literature, read widely in world literature, and became the leader of the political prisoners. There, he was attracted to the socialist Bund, which he joined after his release in 1904. During the revolution of 1905, Vladek was an organizer and was caught and severely beaten by the Cossacks. He fled, worked as a propagandist in small towns, became famous for his speeches as “the Second Lassalle.” From Vilna he moved to Warsaw and other cities, participated in the London Conference of the Russian SocialDemocratic Party in 1907. Concurrently wrote political and literary articles in the Bundist press, as well as poems and stories. He adopted his underground pseudonym Vladek as his public pseudonym. Vladek came to America in 1907 and published works of literature and criticism in Di Tsukunft and other journals. Wrote hundreds of articles for the daily Forverts and other periodicals, including English ones (The Nation, Herald Tribune). From 1911, worked for Forverts, first in Philadelphia (where he studied in the English Teachers College) and then as city editor in New York; from 1918 until his death, business manager of Forverts. Was manager of Meir London’s second campaign for Congress, and in 1917, B. Vladeck (as
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The Lyrical Turn he spelled it now) was elected on the Socialist ticket to the New York Board of Aldermen, representing the Williamsburg District of Brooklyn. In the twenties, Vladek was active in fighting the Communists among the Jewish left. He was an active leader in many Jewish socialist and relief organizations, president of ORT, chairman of the Jewish Labor Committee, member of the board of the Vilna YIVO, and an initiator and director of the cooperative houses of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers; was appointed by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to the New York Housing Authority. Hundreds of thousands of people attended his funeral.
The Voice that Spoke . . . The voice that spoke to Moses and Socrates In the desert at the mountain and in the marketplace of Athens— This voice speaks to me too. And I see the whole world and every separate thing, And know that all is clear and all is a miracle, And every door is open. And my woe is deeper for my sight goes further, And the crown does not tempt me and the scaffold does not scare me, For he who spoke to Moses and Socrates From high up in the desert sky and through thick bars, This voice speaks to me too. To the low cedars growing on the bills Of the desert— To the lonely eagles circling the abyss Of Grand Canyon— To the brown mountain lions roaring at night among The mountains of Montana— To the forest rangers of the west, waiting For the raging fires of the summer— I send my greetings. As the low cedars digging into the sand Of the desert, As the lonely eagles whose shadows Stain the Grand Canyon, As the brown mountain lions leaping among
B. Vladek The mountains of Montana, As the forest rangers of the west putting Their ear to the ground to hear the red Fires of summer— So is my heart, So am I.
The Badlands God had a monumental plan for the Dakotas. A plan for a masterpiece that would immortalize in color and line His thirst for wholeness, His craving for beauty. First, He created the pedestal—a thousand-mile plateau stretching from the mirror-waters of Wisconsin to the brown flat cold fields of Alberta. And on the plateau He began to build models of His future masterpiece—models of sand and clay. Fantastic palaces and mighty citadels; grand terraces and temple pillars; endless stairs and church spires. Under the blue, infinite sky of the prairie, they stretched from East to West, heralds of God’s dream, examples of God’s creative fantasy. He had to reinforce the models with stone and cement to endure, and to paint them in all colors for beauty. Cedar forests and colorful flowers were to grow on the slopes and peaks, and lively, laughing streams were to weave among them a flowing net of joy and life. The sun was to play a symphony of line and color which no human eye ever saw and no dream ever dreamed. It was all ready, all waiting for the artist’s brush and the last stroke of the palette knife. Everything breathed with the premonition of a realized masterpiece. When — — — When God’s artist’s temperament betrayed him. Right in the middle of the dream for Dakota, a new dream began to emerge in Him, the dream of contrasts, of sharp mountain peaks and steep valleys, of might instead of beauty. Like many artists after Him, right in the middle of the work, He cast off his brush and knife and left for the West, where now the rock and waterfall mountains stand.
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180 The Lyrical Turn And as soon as He left, came the wind and the burning sun, and with rage and vengeance, they pounced on God’s unfinished masterpiece. For thousands and thousands of years, they covered the pedestal and the marvelous models with ash and brown cold sand, and where temples and terraces spread, dark prisons and barracks now stretch, and where streams were to flow the mountains are surrounded with dried wounds of empty waterbeds, crumpled, broken and dirty gray, and where cedars and flowers were to grow, now sprout prairie thorns and the beaten roots of gray bushes. Evil, desperate lines with no living color, hundreds and hundreds of miles with no breath of life. But the road where God left is covered on both sides with jolly marigolds and wild sunflowers, and for endless miles on both sides of the Northern Pacific stretch the traces of God’s steps in the Devil’s land.
Zisho Landoy (1889–1937)
also: Zishe Landau, but the poet signed his name as above, in the Yiddish dialect of central Poland
born in plotsk (plock), poland. His father was a descendant of a distinguished Hasidic dynasty and of a wellknown religious author. He studied in heder and with private tutors; also studied Polish and secular culture as well as modern Hebrew. His Hebrew teacher implanted in him a love for Heine’s German poetry. His mother died in his childhood; at fifteen he went to work for relatives in Vilna and emigrated with them to America in 1906, where he published his first Yiddish poems. Landoy was one of the leading poets of the Young Generation; he declared: “With us begins the Yiddish poetry of the pure art poem.” In 1919 he published Antologye (Anthology: Yiddish Poetry in America until 1919), with a programmatic introduction. In his poetry, he drew on the Yiddish folk song and Heine’s ironic lyricism, as well as on German and Russian neo-Romantic poetry and the decadent mood at the beginning of the twentieth century; he expressed the individual’s alienation, boredom, and cynicism in New York’s atmosphere. He also wrote verse comedies, literary essays, and journalism and translated poetry from many languages into Yiddish. For many years, Landoy worked as the publicity director of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. After his early death, the only volume of Landoy’s poetry was published in New York, as well as a volume of translations, From World Poetry.
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1911–1915 Epilogue Because I was so thoroughly ignored by the press, And what I eat for lunch they never write— To this day I cannot get a maîtresse And my stock is falling every night. Day after day, sinking in debt, I fell and fell, In vain for patronage do I stretch out my hand— Fortunately, I can allow myself to drink “Martell” And black coffee costs just a nickel in this land. Were coffee more expensive—I would myself have hung, And poets like me you don’t find anymore! But at the going rate—for my people and my tongue I can make some splendid poems, as before.
I, the People, and the Waitresses Were I now young and rich, in restaurants I would spend day and night, in an endeavor To find pretty waitresses in those haunts— I would at once start loving them forever. And if her goddess-gaze would shine on me with love, Like Dante, I would write terzinas, up and down, And if the waitress ever wished to coo like a dove, My people!—I would leave you a sonnet crown. In our tongue—sonnet crowns, terzinas, Oh, what a terrible furor they would make! Would there not be a translator (who our kin is)? And you, my people, and I, in fame would wake! But I’m no longer young and money’s always a pain, I must get some dough in my pockets to ring— The beautiful waitresses wither in vain, And I and my poor people are languishing.
Zisho Landoy
Verses Half a world sinks in tears! The bourgeois—what a strife!— Dying to be virtuous, it appears, Faithful to God, children, and wife. And to spite them, I alone Live as careless as I choose— If I wish, I count each stone On New York streets and avenues.
Tuesday Two glasses of hot tea with milk I swallowed, I gnawed three or four rusks; Afterward I sat at the table a long time, Smoked, observed a nail in the wall, Translated four poems from German, Lay weary on the couch, Put my hands behind my head, And spat three times at the ceiling. My heart grew heavy For summer is past. I would have strolled alone in the park, Or caught flies at home. Again I spat three times at the ceiling, And all three times I missed, Afterward I dozed off.
August 28, 1915 Yesterday, Saturday night, August twenty-eighth, Nineteen hundred fifteen, when I sat Correcting my galley proofs, Suddenly, I grew sad. On my desk I saw a letter from a friend, Of July eighth, where he writes to me From his summer house in Middletown, New York: “Thank you for the few words You sent me, write me more often, your every letter
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184 The Lyrical Turn Gives me joy, Though you write so badly and cold.” I read his words several times over: “Though you write so badly and cold,” And I felt uncanny. I, who never care what people say About my poems or even about myself, Why am I so touchy About everything they say about my letters?
My Happiness I am put off by young girls, Sixteen-, eighteen-year-olds: Dancing, jumping, With eyes burning Like motorcycle lamps, Blouses with pink and blue bows And embroidered little shorts. Even boys don’t touch us anymore. What does attract us, Except: Chatting at night In the warm room over tea, Remembering all those who are No longer with us, Looking at old pictures, Slowly leafing through the classics— Is: Females, Around and over thirty, With a past. Knowing what it means to sleep with a man. They were in the movement, Are just beginning to get thick: Have trouble with corsets. Have doubts About prophylactics (So you get in trouble once),
Zisho Landoy Have good, virtuous husbands, Have children, Sunny, airy rooms, Eat only wholesome food, Read wise books, And are bored.
This Evening Evening at home. You sit inside and look out Of the window. Your wife sits on a chair and knits, Or maybe sews. I look around and see: she just sits, Doesn’t knit, doesn’t sew, Just listlessly holding in her hands Her needle, scissors, or yarn, Brooding about how day after day Passes in cares. We talk: We are out of something, And you can never get out Of the marked, boring circle. Every day that passes is regrettable, It won’t ever come back again. And just like it, the next one will pass too, And whatever you hoped or expected Led you astray. And thinking this, She raises her hopeful gaze to you. You had just turned away from the window And you look at her, And suddenly everything is clear. You get up, Walk over to your wife, your faithful wife, Put one hand lightly on her shoulder And caress her hair with the other one, And you want to tell her so many good things, Yet you don’t say a word,
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186 The Lyrical Turn Just walk back to your place And look again out the window. Night is deep, the stars are big, Your heart expands calmly.
My Dear Ruven Ayzland I too am weary, Body and soul weary Of gray days and long silly talk, Of empty lust, delusive joy, Of all I think and do, Like you. And my heart, like yours, is split in two, Half in the mud, half in the snow— And still I have so much joy In these gray days and long silly talk. And I love to walk around in the streets With somebody else or all by myself, To stop a moment at a window Where you find Imported caviar, cheese, sardines, Fine wine and liqueur. And I would have sat whole nights And not be tired of hearing again What I heard a thousand times: Of Jewish conscripts, the Crimean War, and what happened In eighteen sixty-three in Poland, And how Napoleon ran away from Russia. And see, with how much joy I keep repeating your words: Weary, yawning, your wife walks around, Her slippers clicking so mundane and gray, Everyday cares creep out of walls and corners. Yes, yes, so Weary, yawning, your wife walks around, Her slippers clicking so mundane and gray, Everyday cares creep out of walls and corners . . . Yiddish poet of the Young Generation (see in this anthology).
Zisho Landoy (These bored words, how much do they conceal: Confidence, hope and joy!) And just like you I feel like praying To dear God for rest, Eternal quiet rest.
In the El I hang on a strap in the El, The train goes fast. It’s hot, crowded. I feel at home in the crowd Of women and ads. My gaze runs all around: From thing to person and back again From person to thing. Like a dog, my nose is alert, Sniffs and sniffs, Takes in whatever comes to it. And whatever has been lying asleep In my heart for years Wakes up with a jolt. The train runs fast, buildings fly by. Thick women sit so openly, Spread their legs wide, Smile so sweetly, And chew, twirling their jaws, Sleepy, tired and lazy; Others—legs squeezed tight together And lips thin — — Just like that, legs squeezed tight together And lips so thin — — — ........................................ You almost choke on the heat. The train sways Back and forth, And what makes you weary as fresh mown hay, And alert as a child’s cry at night, Is the smell wafting from them.
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188 The Lyrical Turn
Of Course I Know . . . Of course I know today is Sunday And tomorrow will already be Monday And after spring comes summer And our system is bad And in New York lives Opatoshu And the pride of France is Jaurès. I also know many deep secrets: The count of Abruzzi is No count. He is like all the rest of us And strolls in the street On beautiful days: coat slung over his arm. I also know: Darwin guessed correctly, And Copernicus was right, But better than all that I know: I Am Forever lost.
1916–1918 A Sweaty German Helmet Walking past shop windows, I suddenly stopped: There, on a table, I saw A German helmet propped. The helmet lay there so That, looking from the street, you get The picture of its whole inside: It was stained with sweat. The helmet of a German soldier Who fell in battle’s fray,
Yoysef Opatoshu—major Yiddish novelist in New York.
Zisho Landoy 189 And for indifferent, cold eyes, It was brought here on display. And the people on the sidewalk Stroll right by the store. The mild evening grows milder And you think of it no more. And suddenly you understand it all. Your world, God, so beautiful and new! Wait a while—and in a window, I will be displayed somewhere too.
And Discussing in the Café . . . And discussing in the café at a table The role played in the war by airplanes, Tanks, submarines, and the situation of the Turks, And what changes will have to be made in the Balkans, In the heat of the discussion I felt How your eyes look at me mild and soft. I turned my head to you and saw In them a gleam I will never forget! And suddenly it was clear to me That airplanes fly high And submarines swim deep, That tanks are effective as everything England does, That in the end something will happen to the Turks, That there will be changes in the Balkans— But what will be with me, With me and you— With us? A corner of your mouth twitched constantly, Did you feel the same as me?
190 The Lyrical Turn
1919–1924 In the El Head buried in newspaper. The El flies fast and light. Morning. Your eyes still clear And so far, your heart still bright. But eagerly or not so eager, You lift your head. Across from you, Women sitting. Your heart grows dark Though it’s still the time of morning dew. Thick legs in white stockings, A thick lip, a trembling smile, A scared calf’s gaze— And your life is not worthwhile. You feel so-so—neither heavy, nor light. Head buried in the paper again. A hand falls down on your knee, Your heart sways with the train . . . Something begins to haunt you, Who knows what it is at all? Now you could obey anyone, You’re withered like grass in the fall.
Oh, How Many Smells . . . Oh, how many smells there are in the world! Smells of cities and villages, streets and factories; The smell of porcelain; the smell of souls; Every class has its smell and every generation; Smells of objects, bodies, concepts, Odors of wars, poems and feelings, Etc., etc., etc., etc. You can never get rid of The fragrance you were born with! It is stronger than all chains and prisons And more ruthless.
Zisho Landoy Oh, you— The barely noticed fragrance of my wonderful poems! Of the poems I wrote About her, for her, to her who I love and who Has weary, indolent, yielding limbs— Oh, you Will be perceived only by the one Who wanders absently through life And bears the burden from which Perhaps only death will redeem him. Oh, fragrance of my wonderful poems!
Limbs Oh, how much they tell us, a person’s limbs!— A hand, casually placed on a knee, A neck, a shoulder you came across In a noisy café, in a tram, in a theater. How lips stir up our heart sometimes, Lips coming toward us suddenly; Hair and bellies speak, gazes speak Things that words cannot! How legs make our heart tremble, Light women’s legs, hovering past! But I love only those that are coarse and clumsy: They remind you of good friends, old letters, And the one who gave us life.
Pine Hill Pine Hill, Ulster County, New York, Lies in a valley. Now it is night. Calm. A light breeze comes from the mountains. I keep my windows closed. My heart is light. My head carefree. My body—fresh. Papers, books, works (My own and others’) lie scattered on the desk. Everything in the room is tense: the work burns And flickers under my hands.
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192 The Lyrical Turn My hand is nimble and sure, my thought sharp as a knife. My every move is now pure song. But as the sky is sliced off the mountain, So every hour, no, every moment My heart leaps: Oh, you that I love! You that I love! Love! Love! Love!
I Have a Big Favor to Ask, Brothers . . . I have a big favor to ask, brothers . . . The issue, namely, lies therein that you With your profound wisdom and understanding Should explain to me if I am right.— You see, brothers, lately I have had a feeling: of all the lips That stand ready in the world to be kissed, The sweetest are those that are slightly withered, Pale, wrinkled and faded. In short, those That are kissed-out, kissed asunder, kissed through and through. To the extent that a person can understand his own heart, This feeling in me stems from the fact that I Stand by my opinion: in our state and years, Sixteen-year-old blood is nonsense: I’ve tried it more than once. Holding a sixteen-year-old by her chin, She trembled so under my hands That my hands began to shake As if I were holding a mouse by the tail. Oh, my brothers, your brother doesn’t want to flutter In the face of his daily bread! Hence I appeal to you now for advice, To your profound wisdom and understanding.
The Little Piggy The cute little piggy with the sawed-off mouth Grubbed around in the dung until steam arose. Then he turned on me Two mild, sweet almond-eyes. Warmth inundated me when I
Zisho Landoy Watched his thin, little tail Spinning and spinning into a corkscrew. Oh, how sweet are pigtails! How delicate! How charming and innocent! Seductive and sweet like the tress in my youth Which stole many an hour of my rest! And delicate it is and as innocent As your verses, divine Verlaine!
A Very Wonderful Tale of the Rebbe Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizhensk and the Rebbe Rabbi Naftoli of Ropshitz As is known throughout the world, And if you don’t know, you should know, As soon as the first star Greeted the town of Lizhensk, Our Rebbe Rabbi Elimelekh Closed himself in his Solitary Room.— A sweet mutter wafts from there, A joy flowing from the room. There, Rebbe Elimelekh prays for himself, There, Rebbe Elimelekh prays the evening prayer, But no one ever was chosen to see Him pray the evening prayer. You just hear a murmur, and he who hears The murmur feels the air grow bright And imagines he himself is the evening And he himself is the bright star, And he is the bird, the wind and the forest, And he is the birdsong; And singing, his heart goes out to the road— To reach the end of the world. And it is known to the whole world as well That Rabbi Naftoli of Ropshitz For years and years and years Would travel to the Rebbe Rabbi Elimelekh. And Rabbi Naftoli loves practical jokes And plays all sorts of tricks. Two dynastic leaders of Hasidic sects.
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194 The Lyrical Turn So one evening, stealthily He snuck into the Rebbe’s room. Rabbi Naftoli hides, under the bed. Minutes and hours go by. He already regrets the whole thing, Sorrow clouds his heart and his eye. The door opens, the Rebbe comes in, Strolls lightly around the room; And the Ropshitzer under the bed thinks: How do I crawl out of here? For a while, the Rebbe Elimelekh Strolls around the room, For a while, the Rebbe Elemelekh Stops at the window, And mumbling, takes in his hand the belt, The heavy, silver belt in his hand, And plays with it a while. And as he belted his belt For the first time, A shining bright brightness Lighted up the room, So your eyes start to swim. And as he belted his belt For the second time, Such a brightness flooded the room That Rabbi Naftoli lost his head And began screaming with a voice That split the sky. Then the Rebbe of Lizhensk comes to the bed And bends over: “Is it you, Naftoli?” softly, “If it is you, get the hell out! Because, the third time I wrap The belt around my loins Such a brightness will flood the room, That, out of sheer light, Your soul will go out, Naftoli.” Watch out, Reb Naftoli, your frivolity
May, God Forbid, lead you astray! With such tricks, Reb Naftoli, Lose this World and That World you may!—Z.L.
Zisho Landoy What Rabbi Naftoli answered, What Rabbi Naftoli did, I cannot tell you, I don’t know. I know only that blessed be I And blessed be you and all of us, That chosen art thou, Israel, That among you there were Once upon a time such Tsaddikim. And may we all live to see That God Blessed Be He Will bring us to live in joy, To tell all this in Zion, In the land of our Holy Fathers. And when you tell this tale Do not forget to mention the name Of he who told you this tale, And God will reward you. Amen.
The White Lamb 1 Last night with the marquise I was on Broadway, so was she; They were showing a new film, Later we went to drink tea. And the marquise spoke of women A long time into my ear, But what, I don’t recall; in gray My dreaming thought did disappear. One thing I do recall: when I Took her home in my auto, The moon strolled in the sky, Coolly, like a motto. And till the morning light Split the walls apart, The frozen light pricked me, Like ice, it seared my heart. Just and pious men, especially Rebbes (heads of Hasidic sects).
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196 The Lyrical Turn Around me, the gray grows deep, And pure lead is the sky. I am the unhappy pilot, You are my distant Lorelei. 2 The golden peacock flew From sea to sea above. Oh, golden peacock, bring To my shining lamb, my love.
My white lamb is Bas-Toyvim, The golden peacock—my heart, The sea, it is my life And of you, Bas-Toyvim, a part. Oh, white lamb, for you I wept as my life was spun, As Abraham wept for Isaac, His only begotten son. How is a love concluded? Through words and laughter and song. Our love was concluded by God Speaking in His own tongue. The golden peacock flew From sea to sea above. Oh, to my shining lamb, Golden peacock, bring my love. The white lamb—Bas-Toyvim, The golden peacock—my heart, The sea, it is my life And of you, Bas-Toyvim, a part. 3 “From young married women A white smell will waft, A seagull in pink-blue Morning air, aloft.” Bas-Toyvim is silent a while, Then she grows silent for good. A daughter of a well-to-do or philanthropic family.
Zisho Landoy She sees around her the autumn spaces With deep, light-copper wood. 4 The moon lies in the window, Bas-Toyvim lies in bed, Looks with misty eyes At her white legs. With painful sweetness She strokes her legs; Her naked body smells Of plowed-up earth. Oh, bridegroom, bridegroom, You, my golden heart; Not so much a bridegroom As your own husband. Not so much a bride As your own wife; The moon already lies Like a rising body, rife. 5 Had you only known, Bas-Toyvim, How much my heart loves you, You wouldn’t have said, Bas-Toyvim, That I do not love you. I brought you a gift Made of ivory, And what is the gift Made of ivory? It is a corset, Bas-Toyvim, The prettiest in the world, In it, you will be, Bas-Toyvim, The loveliest in the world. The queen’s heart will twitch When she gets close to you, The queen’s page will glance And try to run after you.
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198 The Lyrical Turn But at the last columns He turns to the bridge, The white columns won’t hear Him coming back from the ridge. At the marble stairs, the queen Drinks her poison like eau-de-vie. And he will carry me in a sack In dead of night to the sea.
1925–1937 The Poem of Tired Porcelain
Batovim, my golden heart, Beats click-clack, Light is in your heart But the night is black. Come, come, Batovim, Come out as light of day. What lies in my heart I’ll tell you right away. To be a bride-and-groom Doesn’t make much sense, Let us put up a Khupa, Right now let us commence. You ask, will you be happy Later on with me: Is the queen happy? You will happier be. You will eat your meals From tired porcelain, You will sleep your slumber On Holland’s finest linen.
Modern Hebrew construction of Bas-Toyvim. Wedding canopy.
Zisho Landoy 199 And the orange carpet Like a spear, thin and sweet, Tickles tongue and shoulder, Sweeps you off your feet. You fall, a ripe stalk— Hush, be mute, no more! Women are good anywhere, But better on the floor.
Leg in Space In the lap of dawn Batovim’s white knee, In the blue of morning Stings like the bite of a bee. A leg stretched out bright, Lost in outer space. Oh, copper-green wave, Oh, snow-white foam! Oh, grace! With eyes half laced, Her leg she strokes in play— The morning mist loses Its violet and gray.
The Poem of Green-Blue Beads I shall come to the queen, And open for her my heart: Oh, Queen, I came to ask Forgiveness from the start. Batovim’s green-blue beads Poisoned my heart with a fleck! Order her never more To wear her beads on her neck. The theater is dark as should be, Dim light in the mezzanine, And in the half-dark theater A neck of porcelain.
200 The Lyrical Turn And from the porcelain neck Cry the green-blue beads. I look at the porcelain neck And cry like the green-blue beads. The neck belonged to Batovim, And it’s she who wore the string. Oh, my queen, Batovim Stole my heart away. Farewell, my dear friends, Beloved friends, farewell! Farewell forever my bed, I shall nevermore sleep in you. Farewell, my bright wind, My summer, my winter, my spring, my fall. For our one and only queen I lay my head on the block.
Marquise Batovim My thin, fine songs Smell of death. —R. Ayzland
Death appeared in my blue-white calm For the first time last night, in a breeze: When at the shore of the sea a rendezvous I had with the marquise. My eyes looked half in love And stopped at her neck, glazed. Marquise is for me a manuscript, Faded and erased. Marquise laughs. Her skin grows yellowish-dull, For her yielding limbs my body longs, They bear that seductive aroma You feel in death and in my songs.
Avrom Reyzen (1876–1953)
also: Abraham Reisen/Reisin
born in koy’denev (koydanovo), Minsk province, Byelorussia (Jewish Lithuania). Elder brother of writers Zalman and Sara Reyzen (Rejzen). He studied in heder and with private tutors. His father, a minor Hebrew poet and Yiddish writer, taught him Hebrew, Russian, and German. At fourteen, he became a teacher in his home shtetl and in other towns. In 1895, he served in the Russian army as a musician and read Russian and world literature in translation. In 1899 he moved to Warsaw, where he became one of the active figures of the postclassical generation of Yiddish writers. In 1908 he played a leading role in organizing the Czernowitz Conference, which proclaimed Yiddish a Jewish “national language” beside Hebrew. Many of his poems were set to music and absorbed as folk songs. Reyzen founded and edited many literary periodicals and collections, publishing a new generation of Yiddish poets and story writers from around the world, generally vacillating between literary impressionism and impressionist socialism, and promoting a Yiddishist cultural ideology. In the prospectus to his early-modernist periodical Dos yudishe Vort (The Yiddish Word, published from 1905), he proclaims: “Yiddish is not just a means to educate the masses but a goal in its own right. It will serve the Jewish intelligentsia and will thus reflect all the trends and tendencies of the great world, so that the Jewish intellectual interested in higher questions will not have to resort to other literatures in other languages, a move which alienates him from the Jewish people.” His weekly, European Literature (thirty-nine issues appeared), included Yiddish translations from Byron, Thomas Mann, Baudelaire, Dickens, Knut Hamsun, Leonid Andreev, and many others. From 1900 to 1910, Reyzen lived in Warsaw but also spent periods of time in Vienna, Krakow, Paris, London, Geneva, and New York. In 1911 he came back to New York and immediately established a high-culture weekly, Dos naye Land (The New Country), where he published intellectual 201
202 The Lyrical Turn essays along with the poetry and prose of the Young Generation. He published a story and several poems in the daily newspapers every week. His poetry was influenced by the Yiddish folk song and the ironic, playful tone of Heine. In 1929, together with H. Leyvik and other writers, he left the Communist newspaper Frayhayt because of its pro-Arab position on the pogroms in Palestine and rejoined the daily Forward, where he collaborated till the end of his life. Several sets of his collected writings were published in New York, Vilna, and Moscow, beginning with a twelve-volume edition (New York, 1917).
Six Million People Six million people Live in the city. The statistics counted All precise and pretty. In the newspaper it takes Just one line, no more; To read it all Is no big chore. It’s just a statistic Dry and clear; In the six million, I also appear . . . And the poor Hyman And the rich Schiff— All the same idea, The account is stiff . . . When I go out strolling In the dark night: “Six million people”— Think about my plight. Quiet in the streets, Everything is calm; (Only in the distance Rattles now a tram . . . )
Avrom Reyzen 203 Six million people. What does each contain?— Each one with his joy, Each one with his pain. Six million griefs Night holds in her lap, Six million loves— Does the night enwrap. Six million people Woke me up all right: I bless them in the silence, Wish them all good night! . . .
My Home (An answer to the “seekers” of a home for Jews)
I am a small-town Jew, I’m not ashamed to say. I cannot stand it when They deny it all the way! I spent a lot of years In a clean, small house; When they call that Exile, I get mad and grouse! I love my old home, And I say it in every way That I played happily On the ledges of clay. “Milk and honey”—sure enough, We had everything to eat, Not just in the Bible read “Milk and honey”—oh, how sweet! “I have no land”—not so! It would have been a shame! Our house came from a grandpa Inherited in his name!
204 The Lyrical Turn In my small town, the synagogue— It will everyone impress!— Standing for seven hundred years And filled with holiness. You say “no traditions”—no! It’s a fairy tale, if you wish: Friday we consume white rolls, Sabbath—horseradish with fish!
H. Leyvik (1888–1962)
also: H. Leivick, pseudonym of Leyvik Halpern
h. leyvik was born in ihumen, a small town in Byelorussia. His first published work appeared in America, yet the experiences of his first twenty-four years in tsarist Russia made a profound imprint on Leyvik’s personality and poetic imagination. He was the oldest of nine children who lived in a hut with one small room separated for the parents. The father, “a cohen and a raging man” with “a fiery red beard,” used to beat his children. Though a descendant of a Minsk rabbi, he was reduced to being “a girls’ teacher,” the lowest possible rank in Jewish education; from an epistolary manual he taught servant girls how to write letters in the “servant language,” Yiddish. Beginning at age five, Leyvik received a traditional Jewish education in heder. When he was ten, he was sent to the yeshiva in a larger town, where he spent several years studying religious texts from early morning until late at night, sleeping on a hard bench, and “eating days”—that is, eating intermittently with host families in private Jewish houses. He was often hungry and ill, suffering from leg wounds caused by starvation, which he later described vividly in his play “The Chains of Messiah.” During the Revolution of 1905, Leyvik attended illegal assemblies in the forest and joined the Bund, the Jewish social-democratic underground party. The Bund promoted Yiddish as the national language of the masses, opposing the “clerical language,” Hebrew. Leyvik abandoned synagogue and switched from writing poems in Hebrew to Yiddish. In 1906 he was arrested by the tsarist police. He refused the services of a famous Russian defense lawyer and declared at his trial: “I will not defend myself. Everything that I have done I did in full consciousness. I am a member of the Jewish revolutionary party, the Bund, and I will do everything in my power to overthrow the tsarist auto cracy, its bloody henchmen, and you as well.” 207
208 Symbolism and Expressionism The sentence was four years of forced labor and exile for life to Siberia. Leyvik was chained and spent his four years in prison, experiencing hunger strikes and solitary confinement, and witnessing whippings and hangings of political prisoners. In March 1912, he was marched off to Siberia—a march from prison to prison that lasted four months; he then traveled for several more weeks on a prison ship up the river Lena, to the place of his exile, the village Vittim. With the help of comrades who fled to America, Leyvik escaped from Siberia. He bought a horse and sleigh and traveled for several months until he came to a train station; then, after crossing European Russia and Germany, he sailed for America in the summer of 1913. In America, Leyvik became the most Leyvik being walked in chains to Siberia prominent poetic figure in world Yiddish literature. Sublimated suffering, messianic fervor, a mystical tone, and a naïve humanism, combined with a Neoromantic musicality of harmonious verse lines, influenced by Russian Symbolism, all marked his poetic voice. He transformed his father’s humiliation and harshness into an apotheosis of a father figure. His childhood sufferings merged with the torments of his prison years and were translated into the language of traditional Jewish mythology. Job, Isaac’s sacrifice, the Golem of Prague, the Messiah in chains—all informed the language of his vision, particularly in his poetic dramas. For his readers, the details of Leyvik’s biography became part of a symbolic suffering personality. In his verse they could find echoes of Dostoyevsky, messianic yearnings, frustrated revolutionary dreams, and individual sensibilities in a harsh world. During the years when he achieved worldwide fame as a poet and his works were translated into many languages, Leyvik worked as a wallpaper hanger in New York. In 1932 he was forced to stop work and spent four years in the Spivak sanatorium for tuberculosis in Denver. There he created some of his best, almost untranslatable poems, achieving a certain lucid serenity and writing, among other things, a beautiful sequel of “Songs of Abélard to Héloïse” and a cycle of poems on Spinoza (the idol of Yiddish intellectuals). Leyvik’s poetic drama The Golem, published in 1921, in a period of revolution and messianic ferment, had an enormous impact on Yiddish literature.
H. Leyvik 209 World liberation and Jewish redemption, the role of matter and spirit in the process of redemption, the Jewish Messiah and the Christian Savior, Maharal and the Golem of Prague, the masses and the individual, creator and creation, Realism and Symbolism were all stirred up in the 1920s by Leyvik’s Golem. In that decade, Leyvik published poetry and drama in the Communist daily Frayhayt and monthly Der Hamer in New York. He visited the Soviet Union and his hometown of Ihumen, and a book of his poetry was published in Moscow, but he was criticized there for his “pessimism.” In 1929, when the Communists interpreted the pogroms against the Jews in Palestine as an expression of Arab revolution, Leyvik and other Yiddish writers broke with the Communist journals and were branded as traitors. Leyvik was active as an editor and journalist. Between 1936 and 1952, Leyvik and Yoysef Opatoshu edited eight thick volumes of Zamlbikher (Assemblies), bringing together the best Yiddish literature of the time. From 1936 to his death, he was a regular contributor to the New York daily Der Tog (The Day). In 1936, Leyvik represented the Yiddish P.E.N. Club at the international P.E.N. congress in Buenos Aires. In his address, he said: “The main problem of our literature in the twentieth century is how to find a synthesis between the national and the universal. Jew and world—this is the central drama of our lives and our literature.” In 1937, Leyvik participated in the World Yiddish Cultural Congress in Paris; he was among the leaders of the cultural organization founded there, YKUF. The highly influential YKUF was molded on the “Popular Front” model, bringing together writers and cultural leaders of the left and the liberal center from all over the world. In 1939, after the Hitler-Stalin Pact, Leyvik and other writers broke off relations with the left and resigned from YKUF. In 1958, Leyvik received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College and in 1961 an honorary medal from the National Jewish Welfare Board. For the last four years of his life, Leyvik was paralyzed and unable to speak. He became an object of pilgrimage for numerous writers and friends. As the Lexicon of Yiddish Literature describes it: “His looks, his behavior with his visitors, the way he hugged and kissed his friends—reminded one of the sufferings of Job, the agony of Isaac’s sacrifice; he reminded one of the elder Zosima in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov.”
210 Symbolism and Expressionism
Poems (1919) Somewhere Far Away Somewhere far, somewhere far away Lies the land, the forbidden land, Silvery blue the mountains Never trod by man; Somewhere deep, somewhere deep inside, Kneaded into the earth, Treasures are waiting for us, Treasures covered with dirt. Somewhere far, somewhere far away Lies a prisoner, lies alone, On his head, the glow is dying, The glow of the setting sun; Deeply covered in snow Somewhere wanders a man, He cannot find a road To the land, the forbidden land.
On the Roads of Siberia On the roads of Siberia Someone may still uncover a button, a lace Of my torn shoe, A leather belt, a shard of a clay mug, A page of the holy book. On the rivers of Siberia Someone may still uncover a sign, a splinter Of my raft that has drowned; In the forest, in snow—a ribbon with dried blood, Footsteps frozen in the ground.
H. Leyvik
In Snow (Fragments)
1 Long winter nights, White, radiant days, I harnessed my horse To go far away. I bought hay, bread, wine, I put on my fur, I sewed the money up, Covered mouth and ears. I didn’t touch a thing, Didn’t close the shutters, I bowed to the doorstep, Good night, I muttered. Last steps on foreign soil, Last steps in these parts. Again: Good night to all, And a lash at my horse. 2 Like a silver string unfolding For months, the road is long— I travel with the silver string, Murmuring a song. Nestled in my fur, Only eyes are free— I see the sun at dawn, The setting sun I see. The snow falls and falls— I cover up my eyes, I let my head drop, And the sleigh flies and flies. When the horse comes to a halt— I wake up from my nap, I crack the whip and whistle With chattering teeth, wrapped.
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Symbolism and Expressionism 3 A cold wind from the North Began to blow; My faithful horse dropped his head, Tired, to the snow. His sides—sunken to the ribs, His skin frozen. Who knows whether we’ll reach today Some place warm and cozy? The night grows darker and darker. The snow is hard and glazed. I walk, with eyes half-hidden, At the side of my sleigh. Like sharp stinging needles In darkness, the stars, Howling in the wilderness, Snowed-in wolves and bears. 5 Stars light up in the sky, The clouds are swimming away; The road is all covered in snow— No place to turn the sleigh. I harness myself with my horse, I help him to carry the weight; I pull, and I fall to the ground, My fingers—bleeding and frayed. The sky grows brighter and brighter, The moon—in full display; They watch how we drag and pull An empty, wooden sleigh. 8 At last, we get to a gate, I knock, and I freeze: —I am frozen, good people, Open, please. Dogs on chains jump and bark, People wake up.
H. Leyvik Steps. I hear someone whisper: —Open up! Another voice:—Wait, ask who, What and where? Every wanderer and roamer Comes here. Then the first:—Ask, don’t ask In the cold . . . That’s our luck: we’re living On the road. 9 People live in the middle of the world, Warm in the fire’s glow. They eat their game: deer and fish, They drink melted snow. They go to sleep when night falls, All in one bed, They sleep late into the day, With blankets over their head. And when the North wind roams outside, They take an axe, don a hood, And cut chunks and chunks for the oven, Logs from their own wood. They bake flat rolls, fry their fish, Boil tea before they go. People live in the middle of the world, Peaceful and warm in the snow.
In No-man’s-land (1923) The Yellow-White Glow Beyond New York the sun rolls down, The sun rolls down and lamps light up; When lamps light up, falls a yellow-white glow,
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Symbolism and Expressionism A yellow-white glow falls on all of us. People greet with curious joy The yellow-white glow; (Deep in their bones people know: The yellow-white glow is a reflection of light, Of light that never will dawn at night.) People watch with childish eyes The glow spreading over asphalt and stone— And it’s like a swelling river Flooding its banks. The footsteps of men carry The sound of the coming storm; The folds of velvet and silk On the limbs of women Open up to absorb The foam of the coming storm— The storm is coming; The storm is here. The flooding river of yellow-white glow Reaches the knees of the men and women, Reaches the shoulders of men and women, And higher, higher—over their heads. What do men and women do In the abyss of the yellow-white glow? They swim up and down like enchanted blind figures, Arm in arm, clinging to each other, Veiled in velvet and silk; And deep down they know: The yellow-white glow is a reflection of light, Of light that will never dawn at night.
Under the Tread of My Feet Under the tread of my feet, In the deep bowels of the earth, I hear the unceasing clamor of my life, In currents—in arteries.
H. Leyvik Sometimes, the thick layer of earth under my feet Is translucent like crystal glass, And the hues of seven times seven colors Are dazzling before my eyes. As a man looking into a river Sees his life swaying on the waves, Its shadowy reflection— So I stand, eyes piercing The thick layer of earth under my feet And I see: Labyrinths, burning With fires that you see only in dreams; And above them, and through them, In currents—in arteries, Life that you see only in dreams. I roam, the thick layer of earth Under my feet, And I carry in me the joy of underground depths In currents—in arteries.
Unsatiated Passions Unsatiated passions want to be satiated, Arms wish to be tired, Lips look for merging, Fingers long for cracking, Green fires in the eyes are greening greener, Like eyes of wolves in frozen fields, Green eyes in frozen fields. Where is he who should quell the passions? Why doesn’t he come? Why doesn’t he come? He promised, or didn’t he promise?— He did promise, he did promise. Strained eyes—like pointed knives, Strained eyes cut through all the windowpanes, Strained eyes roam over the roads: He who should come—why doesn’t he come? He did promise, he did promise.
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216 Symbolism and Expressionism Curtains in rooms—like wings torn apart, Like torn-apart wings of slaughtered birds— And the day is still bright, and the day is still gay— Why doesn’t it set? Why doesn’t it set? Thin fingers grow thinner, Thin fingers freeze in freezing fields— White beds—like freezing fields— Blue fingers in freezing fields.
The Sick Birds Do not wake the sick birds, Hold your breath, See, they are lying curled up in themselves, Their sharp beaks Buried up to their closed eyes In disheveled feathers. What do sick birds remind us of, Their beaks, Their disheveled feathers? They remind us That I and you, Close together, Who craved, Who dared, Sit with frozen looks, Numb, Ashamed, And no one comes to cover our gaze, To lower our head, To lull us— As they would sick birds Lying buried up to their closed eyes In disheveled feathers. Who would come to us? Who would hear us? We have locked our doors, We have curtained our windows, Our words, Dropping from our tongues,
H. Leyvik Hang over our heads A moment, two, and—see: They fall to the ground With sharp beaks up to the closed eyes Buried In disheveled feathers.
Over the Sleeping Eyes Over the sleeping eyes of all the people— Strange people in strange houses— Hovers the touch of my hand, Of my hand that covers my eyes— Glowing rings of fire Are wheeling around, And my eyes are not tired From gazing spellbound. See, people lie in their houses and sleep. I am jealous of the calm of all the people, Of the rhythmical breathing, swelling from their hearts, Of the idyllic precision Of their measured, exact hours— When over their heads, With no order and no reckoning, With a whistle and a whimper, Spilled thunders are roaring— Desolation and death and destruction. See, people lie in their houses and sleep. Could it be, that I have loosed it myself, The whistling and roaring, The desolation and destruction—the chaos— Brought it down on everyone’s heads? Sometimes, when a shadow of rest Spreads over me too— I hear the whisper of a weary, unsettled voice: —Enough, no more. Do not incite me against myself, Against me and against you.
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Symbolism and Expressionism Take your hand off your eyes, Extinguish all the rings of fire. The passion for unrest—is in you, Chaos and death and destruction—are you, You yourself. See, people lie in their houses and sleep.
Here Lives the Jewish People The towering life of the towering city Is burning in white fires. And in the streets of the Jewish East Side The whiteness of the fires burns even whiter. I like to stroll in the burning frenzy of the Jewish East Side, Squeezing through the crammed stands and pushcarts, Breathing the smell and saltiness Of a hot naked life. And whenever, in the whiteness, before my eyes emerge Bearded Jews, covered from head to toe With long hanging gowns for girls and women; Men or women with sick birds, Looking up with craving, begging eyes For a buyer, to offer him a lucky ticket; Jews in wheelchairs, Blind cripples, sunk deep in their own shoulders, Who can see with their shoulders the color and size Of a flung coin— Then a hidden nostalgia awakens in me, A nostalgia buried since childhood: To be transformed into the limping beggar Who used to hop from street to street in my hometown (Luria was his name) And knock with his crutch on sidewalks and thresholds. Who knows, whether in this wheelchair before my eyes Does not sit the beggar of my childhood nostalgia Watching my amazement through blind eyelids?— Then the world had no towers, Yet was white as now, Fiery and white as now.
H. Leyvik I walk for hours in the streets of the Jewish East Side And imagine in the fiery whiteness before my eyes Fantastic gates, soaring columns, Rising from all the dilapidated stands Upward, to the far and empty New York sky. Gates—on all their cornices Glowing, sparkling signs, inscribed: Here lives the Jewish people. ........................................ Silence. Midnight. My childhood nostalgia cries in me.
The Wolf
A Chronicle (1920)
1 . . . And it was on the third day in the morning, When the sun rose in the East, Not a trace was left of the city. And the sun rose higher and higher, Till it reached the center of the sky, And its rays met the eyes of the Rov. And the Rov lay on a mountain of ashes and stone, His mouth clenched and his eyes glazed, And in his soul, silence and darkness and nothing more. And when his eyes were touched by the hot rays, They opened wide, peering and probing, Till his body began to stir and rise. And when the Rov stood up and saw That he remained alone in a slaughtered city With no synagogues, no Jews, no women or children— Then the Rov did not know what to do. He stood there and pondered and was amazed That he alone was excluded and left alive.
Abridged version of the long poem. The spiritual leader of a Jewish community.
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220 Symbolism and Expressionism And he strained his eyes and his ears To see: perhaps someone would crawl out from under the ruins, Perhaps a shot would echo so he could go toward it. But he strained his eyes and his ears in vain, For no one appeared from under the ruins And no shot sounded from anywhere. And he strained his eyes even more to see At least one of the victors— But the victors, too, were nowhere to be seen. Heaps of ashes, chimneys, smoldering flames, Silence—and nothing more. So he stood there, puzzled by it all, And once again he did not know what to do. Then the Rov stirred from his place and went ahead, Searching and shuffling with his hands in the heaps, To find at least the limbs of the slaughtered people And bury them in a Jewish grave. But he searched and shuffled in the heaps in vain, For no trace of a corpse could be found, For all was ashes and coals and nothing more. Then the Rov sat down on an overturned chimney, Took off his shoes, prepared to recite laments— But he had forgotten the words of the laments. And when it dawned on him that he had forgotten all the words, A tide rose from the pit of his stomach; And as the tide could not reach his eyes And got stuck in his cramped throat— Once again the Rov did not know what to do. When the night descended and covered The ruined city with a great darkness, The Rov got up from the chimney, Turned his face to the west, And with socks on his feet he abandoned himself To the wide highway leading to the forest. The wide highway was covered with a multitude of things, Rifles and hats and broken wheels, And the soil was plowed open and trampled
H. Leyvik By shells and grenades, By horses’ hooves and soldiers’ feet, And around the highway and over the highway— Darkness and silence and nothing more. And when the Rov had walked several miles, A cold wind started to blow from the north, And the Rov sensed a great weariness in his body And cold in all his bones. Then the Rov sat down on the earth to rest, And he prostrated his body on the highway, His eyes open to the sky. And the sky was high and deep and full of stars, Myriads of stars. And as the Rov watched with open eyes, Myriads of stars began Tearing loose from their places and turning and circling, And cutting and striking each other, And splitting each other apart, Until they were swallowed up by the dark. And when the Rov saw that the stars had gone out, He did not care and looked on. And as the last star grew stubborn And did not want to be extinguished, The Rov stretched out his right hand And pointed with a finger, until the star Became green and yellow and red And still did not want to disappear. Then the Rov lowered his right hand And laid it on both his eyes, For he did not care anymore about the last star. And the hand lay on his eyes, Till it dropped to the earth, For his brows were falling asleep. And as he was about to fall asleep, He realized that he had not yet prayed The Afternoon Prayer and the Evening Prayer Afternoon Prayer, Evening prayer (Minha, Ma’ariv)—two of the three daily prayers.
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And had not said the Shema on going to bed: So he sat up and prepared to pray— But he had forgotten the words of the prayers. And as he saw that he had forgotten even the prayers, A second tide rose from the pit of his stomach, And as the tide again could not reach his eyes And got stuck in his throat— Then the Rov could not stand it anymore, And jumped up and darted away, running Farther and farther on the wide highway. The tails of his rabbinical coat Fluttered like two black birds, And the wind tore the fur hat off his head, And the sand pulled the socks off his feet. And thus, with naked head and bare feet, He suddenly smashed against the blackness Of the great, forty-mile forest. And his brain lit up all at once And gaped open in two gates, And a great light flooded his eyes, And he saw the forty-mile forest Through and through, from one end to the other. And as he saw the forest through and through, His eyes could not bear anymore The great light of the forty-mile expanse, And his breath beat its last beats, And in longing, his body was drawn to the earth. And for the first time that day From his stifled throat burst out A hoarse growl, a vestige of a sound, And it seemed to him that in another minute The real shriek would come. And he fell with his forehead to a tree, And he beat with both hands at his naked breast, And shook and tried to tear from his entrails The muted shrieks of his longing.
(Hebrew: Kri’at Shema)—the declaration of God’s oneness, uttered daily before retiring and at the time
of one’s death.
H. Leyvik 223 And he wanted to run deeper into the forest, And as soon as he crossed the borderline He sensed that his legs were caught And entangled in dense barbed wire. And he had no time to pull his legs free— For the nets engulfed his whole body And threw him down on all fours, And pulled him and dragged him and rolled him Up and down over holes and upturned roots, And ripped swatches off his clothing, And when his clothes were all torn off— Strips of skin from his naked body. And when the Rov saw that he was naked As a newborn babe, A strange smile suffused his face, And a sharpness ran over his teeth, And salty saliva over his tongue, And his lower lip hung down. And as he spat the salt out of his mouth— Thin hair began to sting and spring up All over his skin, sprout and grow, And lay in row upon row, In one place flat and fallen thick, In another—standing on end and disheveled. And when the Rov, in his fear, wanted To cover his eyes with his hands— He saw his fingers merge with each other And bend and grow pointed With long, crooked, hard claws; And over his back he felt as if someone had clasped An iron hoop and forged together His neck and his stooped shoulders. And his ears grew long and hung down, And his tongue was loosed from his palate, And curled and pushed between his teeth, And lolled out and stretched longer and longer, And his eyes swelled And rolled under his brows like round wheels, And ignited in frosty green fires.
224 Symbolism and Expressionism And again he saw the forty-mile forest Through and through from one end to the other, And his breath began beating With new, hot, fresh-born beats, And he jumped up on all fours, With a pointed, disheveled back, And sank his eyes into the darkness. And as if his entrails were tearing loose from his belly, A third tide rose in his throat And this time did not get stuck in his gullet, And a wild roar spread in the forest, Louder and louder and howlier, And a swift leap followed the roar— A high, arching leap. And as the forest heard the wild howl And saw the swift leap of a beast— It held for a moment its stormy breath; And a moment later the forest Swung its storm ever wider And sucked in deeper and deeper, And tore to pieces and scattered, And engulfed and buried in its depths The wild roaring howl. And there was storm and darkness and nothing more. 2 And Jews expelled from other places Began moving into the city, And started rebuilding the ruined houses, And first of all—the Cold Synagogue, For some walls still remained of the Cold Synagogue, And since the number of the new Jews was still small They did not need more than one synagogue. And when the synagogue was finished with windows and doors, They put the Torah Scroll into the Holy Ark, The only Torah Scroll that they had salvaged And brought here from their own places.
The official, solemn synagogue of a community.
H. Leyvik 225 And they stayed together in the synagogue and rejoiced. Till late into the night after the Evening Prayer, And their joy was mingled with sorrow, For they did not yet have their own Rov, And even greater was their sorrow, That no single Jew from the old town Had returned home. And it was in the midst of their rejoicing— All of a sudden they froze in fear For they imagined that they heard A distant, strange wailing. And as they fell silent and listened to the dark— Their fear grew even larger, For they could hear, from far, far away A long drawn-out howl of a beast Reaching and penetrating the synagogue. At first, angry and roaring, as in a moment of devouring prey, Then thin and desperate, as the wailing Of a dog baring his heart to the moon, And finally, quieter and quieter and whining, Like the cry of a human being. And as the Jews ran out of the synagogue And listened to the midnight darkness— They could not hear a thing anymore, Except for the beating of their own hearts And the rustling of the scorched trees Protruding from the ruins, Scattering their last leaves into the night— As Autumn descended upon the earth. And the Jews went silently to their homes. And it seemed to them that the one who howled so Was lying hidden under a wall or a chimney, Lurking, holding his breath, And soon he would leap out and attack . . . And when the Jews saw that in the sky The moon suddenly climbed out, as from a cellar, And exposed the expanses stretching beyond the ruins Up to the walls of the enclosing forests
226 Symbolism and Expressionism Which encircled the city from all sides— Then they sensed anew the nakedness of the streets, And that these were not their ruins, And here they were strangers. And as they came back to their own homes, They stood for a long time in the darkness, And looked out in fear through the windowpanes, Watching the white glow of the moon getting whiter and whiter, And all the cracks in the ruins opening up. And so in fear they fell asleep. 3 And it was in the morning when the Jews Left the synagogue after prayer, And in their hearts still resounded The Autmun shofar of Elul and their eyes Still projected the night’s fear— Then they saw a Jew coming from the wide highway Approaching the synagogue with swift steps, And they all flocked to greet him. And as they saw that the stranger was wearing A silk coat and a rabbinical fur hat, There were no bounds to their joy, And they all stretched out their hands to welcome him. And when the stranger did not answer their greeting, And walked on to the synagogue as before And did not pause for a moment, And his mouth did not utter a single word— Then the Jews realized that the stranger’s feet Had no shoes, but only a pair of torn socks, And his fur hat was dirty and worn, And his coat was slashed in several places, And his hairy, blood-covered chest was bare, And his entire face seemed to be sunk In the tangles of a bizarre disheveled beard. And the Jews sensed mourning in the stranger,
The Hebrew month preceding the High Holy Days. In this period, Jews prepare for the Day of Atonement, pray for forgiveness, and practice blowing the shofar; the period is marked by an autumnal atmosphere.
H. Leyvik 227 And they remembered that they too were mourners, And they looked at each other and did not say a word. Mystified, they followed the stranger to the synagogue yard, And they hoped that soon he would start talking And they would hear from his mouth sad but weighty words. But the stranger still turned his eyes away from the Jews, And not looking at anyone, he approached the door of the synagogue And seemed to push it aside, and stepped inside, And sat on an Eastern Seat, close to the Holy Ark, And still did not open his mouth to utter a word. And the Jews stood around him, and with each passing moment They felt more and more the awe of his silence, For only now did they observe the color of his eyes And hear the heavy breathing in his naked chest. And in the face of his silence, the people of the synagogue Saw before their eyes its cold uncanniness. And it was as if they bent their heads And were ashamed to look at the naked walls And at the simple cabinet that served as a Holy Ark. And all of a sudden the stranger stood up and said: —What do you want? Go away. It is my Eastern Seat, the Rov’s seat. And the Jews understood that the man was not in his right mind, And they looked at each other and did not know what to do. And the stranger caught their glances at each other, And he shed the coat from his body, And hammered with both fists at his heart, And wheezing words growled through his teeth: —Who told you to rebuild the ruins? Once ruined, it should remain ruined. And who told you to become my heirs? Go, bring an axe or a knife and give me my just desserts, My just desserts, Jews, I beg you. And the stranger fell on the bench and was dizzy, For many weeks had passed since he had spoken a human word, And he did not know himself where the words came from, And it was as if something had been torn inside him And had fallen into a pit and pulled him with it.
A place of honor in the synagogue.
228 Symbolism and Expressionism And the Jews thought that he had fainted, And they held his hands and tried to revive him; But the stranger soon recovered and began talking With a whimpering voice, as if crying: —I beg you, Jews, give me my just desserts, what is due me— A terrible death is my due, a death by alien hands. I could have cut my own throat, And pierced both my eyes with thorns, And cut off my arms and thrown them to the dogs— But I must not do it to myself—a stranger must do it for me! I beg you, bring an axe and give me my just desserts. And speaking thus, he fell to the ground, And clung to the feet of the Jews, Till his crying stopped abruptly, And his throat choked on very different sounds. And the Jews did not hear those different sounds, And they stooped over him and wanted to raise him, But the stranger lay there heavy and sunken, And nobody could move him from his place. And suddenly one of the Jews jumped up And ran around the synagogue screaming terribly, For the stranger had plunged his teeth into the man’s hand. And when the Jews saw the bitten hand, One after the other they fled the synagogue, And left the stranger alone, lying on the floor. And the stranger lay for a long time facedown, His legs curled, his arms stretched out, And his eyes were open, and his ears pricked up, And his shoulders still twitched quietly And the smile of his bite rested on his lips. ........................................ And as his head twisted and hung down, And his palate was parching with heat and dryness, He lurched onto all fours and crawled And crept and tumbled over onto his back, And banged his forehead on the walls and floor.
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And so crawling, he climbed up to the Bimah, And then climbed onto the table that was on the Bimah, And stretched his body over it, And his head and his shoulders hung down in the air. And his eyes turned to the side, And his looks struck the Holy Ark opposite him, And a light of a distant memory passed through his eyes. And as the light faded out in an instant, His eyes still could not turn away from the Poroykhes And they stung like needles in the depths of his marrow. And the stranger raised himself, and crept down from the table, Heavily, as under compulsion, slid down from the Bimah, And with bent knees dragged his body to the steps of the Holy Ark. For a few moments he stood at the steps, and then Climbed up and buried his face in the Poroykhes, And for a long while he stood there transfixed, And he sensed a stinging in his temples, and nothing more, For inside him, too, everything was congealed. And little by little the stinging overran his whole body, And—like two braces—his hands clasped the Holy Ark And his head began digging and twisting And wrapping itself in the folds of the Poroykhes. And with the upper part of his skull, like an ox with his horns, He pushed and gored the doors of the Ark, Till the skin of his skull swelled with blisters And burst open and spilled blood over his face. And as his nostrils inhaled the smell of his own blood, The voices that lay hidden in his entrails Jolted and surged up to his gullet. ........................................ And later, when he leaped out of the synagogue, Over all the upturned benches and lecterns There still hovered the scattered storm of his howl. 4 And it was just before the Afternoon Prayer when the stranger Ran from the synagogue to the highway leading to the forest.
The raised platform from which the Torah is read. Embroidered curtains covering the Holy Ark that contains the Torah scrolls.
230 Symbolism and Expressionism And as the Jews entered and saw the desolation, And the broken doors of the Holy Ark, And the Poroykhes shredded and covered with blood, They all broke out in a cry. And when they saw the stranger’s coat on the floor, And that he himself was gone, they did not understand a thing, And their hearts were filled with premonitions of disaster. And they prayed the Afternoon Prayer and the Evening Prayer, and went home, And at home they were afraid to talk about it, Lest they frighten the women and the little children. And at midnight, when all were asleep, And a thin Autumn drizzle sifted down from the sky, And in the darkness, the surrounding forests Moved in closer to the darkened huts— In their sleep, they suddenly heard under their windows The same howling they had heard the day before. And as several minutes passed and the howling Grew larger and stronger and closer, They understood that it was the howling of a real beast, And not somewhere in the forest, but here in the city, And everyone thought that the danger was under his own windows, And tried to curtain and shutter the windowpanes. And the mothers huddled their children in their laps, So the beast would not hear their voices; For they all thought that the beast was roaming From one street to another and from one yard to the next. And holding their breath, they listened To sense in the quiet the prowling footsteps of the beast. But no one could hear its prowling, For the beast was not roaming about the yards But standing in the middle of the marketplace, on the walls of the well, Its throat stretched out to the darkened huts And it hauled up from its guts the uncanny howl. And there was no rest and no break in the howling. Hour after hour, from midnight till dawn, All over the city, through rain and through wind, Rolled the indefatigable, shapeless cries.
H. Leyvik And it was a mixture of roaring and barking, Of drawn-out screeching and stormy bellowing, And in each turn of the voice was heard A hidden challenge, an appeal, and above all, a pleading; Which chilled their hearts more than anything, For it reminded them of the cry of a human being. And those with windows facing the marketplace Tried to put their heads out and look into the dark, But they soon pulled their heads back, For they sensed through the dark The green fire of two wolf’s eyes. And when the wolf saw the heads thrust out, His whole body trembled, And his throat stretched even more And convulsed in a growling wail. And the wailing lasted till dawn. And as the day began to crawl out, Blind and trembling from its hiding place, And the wolf’s heart, emptied in howling, Still did not see anybody coming to greet him— He grew silent all at once and jumped down from the well And shot like an arrow from a bow into the ruins. ........................................ 6 And on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, 10 After Kol Nidrey, the Jews did not go home at all. And they remained all night in the synagogue, Surrounded by candles, dressed in white robes, They stood and prayed to God. And as the twelfth hour approached, Their cries became louder and stronger, And their hearts beat in impatient waiting, For every minute lasted an eternity. And without knowing why, they sensed That on this night a mystery would be solved, And something uncanny would happen to them. 10 The solemn prayer opening the Day of Atonement.
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232 Symbolism and Expressionism And they wrapped their bodies deeper in the tallises As if they wanted to take refuge there. And when the first sounds of midnight resounded, Their crying was transformed into a veritable storm, As if they wished to chase away with their voices, To bar the coming howl from approaching the synagogue. And so, buried in their tallises, suffused in waxen light, They themselves looked like pieces of burning wax— One move, and they’d spatter and melt. And suddenly, they all became still, And poking their heads out from under the tallises, With their eyes they clung to the silence That hung on the walls and ceiling of the synagogue. And when a minute passed, and two and three and the silence Was still not interrupted by anyone, A tide of joy washed over them all, And they stood there, as awakened from a terrible dream, And still did not believe their own ears. But the hands of the clock were far past twelve, And the howl of the beast did not come. ........................................ 11
And the next day the fasting was easy And passed quickly, almost unnoticed. And when time for Ne’ile came, and the evening shadows Veiled the synagogue in a deep and joyful darkness, The Jews felt light and purified, And they looked at each other’s faces as at mirrors, And with fresh strength they prayed the Ne’ile prayers. ........................................ 7 And it was when the blower of the horn put the shofar 12 To his lips, and sounded the blasts of Ne’ile, Then the door of the synagogue burst open, And a thin, protracted howl Cut into the heart of the horn’s blowing. 11 Yom Kippur is observed by a full-day fasting. 12 The closing prayer marking the end of Yom Kippur.
H. Leyvik And before the Jews could look around, There stood the wolf on the steps of the Bimah, And he pierced the congregation with his large, burning eyes. And the congregation crowded like a flock of sheep 13 Around the pulpit where the Reader stood, And could not shout because their tongues were frozen, And could not move a limb to flee. And the wolf stood silent and waiting. And suddenly he tore away from the steps, And over everyone’s heads jumped onto the Reader, And with his front paws, gripped his throat, And threw him to the floor and began choking him. And in fear, the congregation ran to the door, And almost left the Reader alone To suffer certain death in the wolf’s clutches— But one of them suddenly grasped a lectern And with one blow of a sharp corner He struck the wolf’s head and smashed his skull. And the wolf rolled off his victim. And fell to the floor, covered with blood. And then the entire congregation, in uproar and commotion, Grasped anything that came to hand, And struck the wolf in his neck and his back, And trod on his belly and knees. And suddenly, as if from under the ground, burst a sigh, And everybody’s hands froze in mid-torture And remained stretched out in the air, as if paralyzed, For all at once the piece of darkness started moving And rolled over, turning an open face upward. And two human eyes shone through the darkness And their calm and bright gaze embraced them all. And the congregation burst into great weeping, For on the floor, tortured, in a river of blood, Lay not a wolf but a Jew in a rabbinical fur hat, And they recognized in him the strange visitor. And the tormented man gathered his last strength And moved his dying lips. 13 The official reader of the Torah scroll in the synagogue.
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234 Symbolism and Expressionism And they heard his consoling words: “Now I feel good, very good,—don’t weep, Jews,” And he breathed his last breath.
Poems (1932–1940) The Sturdy in Me The sturdy in me—song of ancient white bones, I am in the thrall of the bony whiteness. Smaller than the smallest I am, but older—eternal, Intimate with the lord of hidden life. Where is my beginning that I began? Where is my end that I will end? Yet, see: my eyes stray over Hester Park And my heart rises in a great light. What am I doing here, in New York’s Hester Park? I shall come again, I shall come again. To look into the radiant eyes of the poor And to hear the song of ancient white bones. My father’s grave—near an old mill In a small town in a Russian field, My mother’s grave—near the same mill— Old mill, Old mill— Light up in the glow of New York’s Hester Park. Hester Park is full of hands, toiling trusting hands, And toiling hands carry on their palms Measure and weight, judgment and verdict, and final destiny. What am I doing here, in New York’s Hester Park— I shall come again and come again— To look into the fiery eyes of the poor And to hear the song of ancient white bones.
H. Leyvik
The Holy Song of the Holy Grocer The holy store is abandoned, The holy grocer is dead, The holy sponge grows moldy, The holy bucket is rusty. The holy herrings in a barrel Cry in the holy brine, The holy kerosene, in vain, Runs out of the holy faucets. And the holy balance Of the holy scale— Woe, woe, woe, Slumbers by night And slumbers by day, Woe, woe, woe. Through holes in the holy floor On holy plates and platters, Legs of holy rats Dance a holy quadrille. The holy dance of the rats Echoes in the holy attic; Suddenly, in the holy calm— Holy voices—a eulogy: Oh, the holy Buyer 14 Of the holy World— Woe, woe, woe— Where will he spend His holy money— Woe, woe, woe. Over the holy day Hovers God’s holy watch; In sorrow of holy lament They go after the holy coffin. The holy alms box beats To the holy rhythm of weeping— They are taking to his holy rest The body of the holy grocer.
14 The Buyer of the World—an epithet for God, also meaning the creator of the world.
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236 Symbolism and Expressionism And the holy shovel In the holy hand— Woe, woe, woe— Digs deeper and deeper In the holy sand— Woe, woe, woe.
White Moon (From “Negro Poems”)
We, Negroes, will go out with knives In the streets, open and deep, We shall watch for the late moments When the white moon goes to sleep. We shall cut with a sharp stab And grab the moon that is bright; If not us, who else would need To suck the refreshing white? The blond beasts are withering, They crawl on all fours ahead— To the breasts of the moon, to milk Some whiteness for dry bald heads. And we have teeth like the tigers, Lips—ripe mushrooms, take heed! And we howl and hail the winner That we carry in our seed. We, Negroes, will go out with knives To the last danger. And soon We shall watch the late moments And carry off the white moon.
Clouds Behind the Forest Clouds behind the forest come close to the tops of the trees, Are impaled on them, like bellies on sharpened spears. Red fills the sky and the Creator himself descends, His body torn open, his entrails hanging out. He smells of salty heat and the scream of his wound is searing.
H. Leyvik —Creator, I say, your blood is running out. Are you dying, Creator? But I do not see on His face an expression of twisted pain, I see soft and quiet goodness. Instead of answering— He lowers Himself to the very earth. I leap to Him, I want to grasp Him by His fingertips— —Creator, I say, you are covering me with blood—am I dying, Creator? And again, instead of answering, He stretches over me, His face covers my face, like a woman, And his lips begin to move over my whole body, And I feel the hot breath, like a licking tongue, over my body, The tongue moves and laps up the blood, like a mother animal, Like a woman after childbirth lapping up the blood of her newborn infant. I open my eyes, I see: the sun left a while ago, and the forest Has moved closer to me, like a guard, and shouts with winged voices.— The odor of God’s torn-open body steams from me and from the earth around, Odor of womb, of birth.—Here, in the middle of the world At the shore of a forest, you created me once again, Creator, For a second time—a second time you bore me, Bore me and left me lying with traces of blood on my face.— — —Creator—Creator!—
Poems from Paradise (1932–1936) Denver Sanatorium –New York Open Up, Gate Open up, gate, Threshold, you tell— I am coming again To an intimate cell. My body—fire, My head—snow; And on my shoulders A bag of woe.
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238 Symbolism and Expressionism Farewell. Farewell. Hands. Eyes. Bowed. A goodbye on the lips Flared—burnt out. From whom did I part? Farewell to what past?— Perennial questions This time don’t ask. In fire, in flame The prairie spreads, And snow in the glare On mountainous heads. I bring to your feet My bag of woe, Land Colorado Of fire and snow.
Again a Neighbor Died Simple, naked words. The world in winter’s labor; I am not afraid of my death— I am scared of the death of my neighbor. I am busy with all I can do, I invent rhymes, bad or good; Just like this, I am asking my pen— Does it know our roots? Does it know what it means: in the hospital A neighbor is dying nearby? Is not death, perhaps, a step To new life, a lullaby? My pen has no answer for me— How could it? Its face is grave. Meantime—till we think—what?—and when?— My neighbor is carried to his grave. They carry him over the threshold, And he disappears, in gloom,
H. Leyvik 239 The hospital has a tunnel 15 Direct to the Cleansing Room. To that room, through a black tunnel, Through zigzags far below, They carry my neighbor on wheels Swifter than I can know. And before we can think—what?—and when?— My neighbor is in that room; And I am still writing with my pen, Rhyming: room—gloom—doom. Dawn. The world snowed in. The world in winter’s labor; I am not afraid of my death, But of the empty bed of my neighbor.
Yiddish Poets When I think of us—Yiddish poets, A sorrow grabs me—sharp, acute; I want to scream to myself, to pray— And just then the words grow mute. So outlandish is the look of our poems— Like stalks the locusts have possessed; One comfort: get disgusted with yourself, Slink on God’s earth, an alien guest! The blood of our word on cold fingers, From fingers—to cement, hard and cold; Oh, ashamed, ridiculous singers, Squeezed between four disgraced walls! And if one like us comes, a brother From a cellar, a sweatshop—he’s cursed: He finds in us his own mute tongue And avoids our solemn verse. And we, like children, like knights in love, Like Quixote, doing things unheard, 15 A room where corpses are ritually cleansed before burial.
240 Symbolism and Expressionism In loneliness as ever we tremble Over every letter and word. Sometimes, like frazzled cats, dragging Their kittens around, distraught, We drag our poems between our teeth By the neck through the streets of New York. When I think of us, Yiddish poets, A sorrow grabs me—sharp, acute; I want to shout to a brother, to pray— And just then the words grow mute.
Mima’amakim16 Mima’amakim— What a word. What a word: Fromthedepths. What do you mean, Fromthedepths? What do you mean to me, Fromthedepths? Why are you chasing me, Why are you racing after me From childhood, From heder-school, From white midnights— Fromthedepths? Mima’amakim— I am calling to you Fromthedepths; I am praying to you, I am stretching my hands to you Fromthedepths; I want to be known to you, I want to be near to you, I want to touch you, I want to reach you, 16 An allusion to Psalm 130:1: “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.”
H. Leyvik 241 I want to raise myself up to you— Fromthedepths. Mima’amakim— What sound are you? What do you bring with you— Fromthedepths? What do you possess in you— Fromthedepths? You’re saying it once— Say it again, Sing it again, And then again: Mi‑ ma‑ a‑ ma‑ kim— Whose cry is it? Who convulses in it? Whose song is it Fromthedepths? You’re saying it once— Say it again, And then again— Out‑ of‑ the‑ depths.
Song of the Yellow Patch How does it look, the yellow patch With a read or black Star of David On the arm of a Jew in Naziland— Against the white ground of a December snow? How would it look, a yellow patch With a red or black Star of David On the arms of my wife and my sons,
242 Symbolism and Expressionism On my own arm— On the white ground of a New York snow? Truly— The question gnaws like a gnat in my brain, The question eats at my heart like a worm. And why should we escape with mere words? Why not share in full unity And wear on our own arms The destined yellow patch with the Star of David Openly, in New York as in Berlin, In Paris, in London, in Moscow as in Vienna? Truly— The question gnaws like a gnat in my brain, The question eats at my heart like a worm. Today the first snow descended, Children are gliding on sleds in the park, The air is filled with clamor of joy.— Like the children, I love the white snow, And I have a special love for the month of December. (Somewhere far, somewhere far away 17 lies a prisoner, lies alone.) O dear God, God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, Chide me not for this love of mine— Chide me for something else— Chide me for not kneading This wonderful snow of New York into a Moses, For not building a Mount Sinai of snow. As I used to in my childhood.— (Somewhere wanders a man, Deeply covered in snow.) Chide me for not really wearing The six-towered Star of David And the infinite circle of the yellow patch— To hearten the sons of Israel in Hangman’s-Land And to praise and raise our arm With the pride of our ancestral emblem 17 Allusion to Leyvik’s early poem “Somewhere Far Away” (see p. 210).
H. Leyvik 243 In all the lands of the wide world. Truly— The question gnaws like a gnat in my brain, The question eats at my heart like a worm. (Somewhere far, somewhere far away Lies the land, the forbidden land.)
A Leaf on an Apple Tree (1955) In Fire The long, dark night is fire. My head on a pillow of flaming fire. I inhale and exhale fire Through open doors and windows of fire. My hand reaches out and makes signs in fire, Writing in fire with fire on fire. I ask for mercy, seek defense in fire, I pray: Oh, save me, save me, fire! And I hear voices blazing in fire: I am your father—your father of fire, I am your mother—your mother of fire, Your father who made you a Jew in fire, Your mother who nursed you, an infant, with fire. Remember your cradle, hung on ropes of fire Once, in a hut, at the dawn of fire; Remember, how the ropes fluttered in fire, The ropes reaching the ceiling of fire, Remember how we caught you in fire And ran with you between fire and fire, Ran from fire, through fire, in fire. Now we return to hug you with fire, To swaddle you again in diapers of fire, To raise you again, to carry you in fire From fire, through fire, to fire — — —
244 Symbolism and Expressionism I hear the voices in nightly fire, Until the beginning of dawn in fire, And what will come—no one knows but the fire, Drawing with fire in fire on fire.
When We Let Ourselves Run Downhill When we let ourselves run downhill To the water of the deep well, Seven bright and festive suns Shone above our heads. They warmed us and caressed us, They kept our eyes awake, Till far in the night, till late as late, When we bowed to the water deep. When we touched the water with our lips, When we reveled in its delight, When all at once we savored the taste Of Eden on our palate. And when later, on our way, We began to climb uphill— The flaming suns before our eyes Hung overhead no more. A blue-thick night spread over all— East, West, South, North. And the seven suns, exhausted, All lay concealed, and asleep. On the mountain peaks they lay gasping Breathing down on us, Till a whiteness, sifted like snow, Covered us all on the road.
First Grass First silent grass Has no fear of a storm. Let us be like first grass.
H. Leyvik 245 Someone lies abandoned, Curled in hoops of pain. We come to one lying abandoned. We come and say: First, low grass knows better How to say soothing words. For first grass has calm Not yet tried by a knife. Could one have anything better? We raise and carry him To first, low, silent grass, Till we bring him there. Night. Then the day dawns. The calmed man lies in pink light With the first grass, when the day dawns.
Holiday (From “Remembrances”)
My father leads me by the hand to Synagogue, The day is sunny with dawn, The day is—holiday. My hand—in my father’s right hand; My hand—a little palm, My father’s—big, warm, Secure in the holiness of rest, Watched over by God Almighty. The day is—Passover. We stride over the open, empty marketplace, My father walks, and I hop on. His narrow shoulders lifted to the sky, His red beard smiles to the sun. My father walks, and I dance along, My small shadow dances into his, My small shadow reaches to his knees. Today father is gentle like a holiday. All the stores in town are closed,
246 Symbolism and Expressionism But the marketplace is wide open To all four sides of the wind. All the huts stand, lighted like equals, Blessed in graceful rest, Confided in the hand of God Almighty As my little palm in the hand of my father. I was five years old. My father was—an eternity.
Bullfight They were six— Six perplexed heroic bulls. Six silly bulls, Or perhaps not so silly. After all, How could they have known What it means: an arena And a crowd of forty-thousand heads? How could they have known what it means: Toreadors, And riders, And spears, And swords, And deceitful clothes? Even a man would not have been wiser If they had kept him for days in the dark, And then chased him out into the arena Flooded with tropical sun-blaze, And then attacked him with arrows and pikes, And teased him with red, And the crowd laughs, howls, gasps— What would he have done, a man? Really, admit it: What else could he have done, If not jump and leap as on red-hot coals, If not circle around his own body And strike with his forehead at fences, And strike his own dizzy shadow,
H. Leyvik 247 His own fleeing delusion. ........................................ Six they were— Six dumbfounded, heroic bulls, Dashing, foaming, bleeding— And now a chain hauls them by the legs Down from the arena, And their vain horns drag on; And the sharp sword is dangling, Spent in the hands of the toreador, And the crowd sits howled out, Crumpled like the traitor—the cape. And the sun, too, is spent behind the arena, The sun, too, is being dragged by a chain From the sky down, From the sky down, Down, down.
Kabbalists in Safed18 Kabbalists Awakened in a dream Stroll through Safed. Half night In a white fog. A passage. A street. A cellar. A step. Sink down And rise And fall To a newly whited threshold— And rest. Kabbalists Hug each other in a dream, And abandon themselves 18 Hebrew: Tsfat or Zefat—a city in the Galilee and major center of the Kabbalah, especially in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
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To a step of Lekha dodi 19 Likrat kala: Go Lover Toward your Bride. Who is the bride?— All know. But where is she?— Where?— They all say: Go, find her, Go, find the bride, Go and tell her That the bridegroom has arrived— Has risen. From an abyss of a deep cave He appeared— Is revealed. He is waiting Right here, On a step 20 Painted sky blue— Right here. Kabbalists Awakened in a dream 21 Dance a hit’oreri dance— An Awakening Dance Likrat kala— Toward the bride, The desired bride. And with them Dances the bridegroom, Her destined man. Here she comes, Covered in white, Her arms— Two wings outstretched. 19 Lekha dodi likrat kala—a Kabbalist love song to greet the Queen Sabbath, as a lover greets his bride,
sung in the Sabbath eve service. The Hebrew words are given here in the Sephardic (and modern Israeli) pronunciation. 20 The characteristic color of the walls in old Safed. 21 Hit’oreri— awakening.
H. Leyvik 249 And all, and all, 22 Locked in a Crown-ring, Bring the destined Sabbath bridegroom To the arms of the bride. 23
Uri, Uri— Awake, awake— All sing, All dance Likrat kala— Toward the bride; From high above—to the lowest low, To the depths of pits, And upward again, Higher. Kabbalists Awakened in a dream Stride over tower and tent, Over roof and spire— Higher, higher, higher.
With Exultation, as We Can! A fellow poet spoke thus to me: Let us all write our last song. Let us put the song in a coffin and carry it Through streets where he lives, the American Jew. We shall fold the song in blue kerchiefs, And wrap it, perhaps, in simple white, In the white of leaves from all poets’ books That lie in cellars—food for mice. And in the red of leaves from purged poets 24 Who languish in prisons, or by the North Sea, Or perhaps were slaughtered for the glory of destroyers, For every Cain disguised as a sheep.
22 Crown (Hebrew: keter)—in the Kabbalah, the highest of the ten sefirot or emanations of God. 23 Uri, uri . . . likrat kala—wake up, wake up . . . towards the bride. 24 Allusion to the Soviet Yiddish poets exiled to camps by Stalin in 1948, whose fate was not yet clear
when the poem was written (the major writers were shot in August 1952).
250 Symbolism and Expressionism And anyone who’s written a line of verse Will raise the covered coffin with his hands, And then, through streets selected for processions, Proudly go to the last shore of the land. At the head—the youngest, with pen in hand, He will solemnly smash it to pieces and throw it To the hard asphalt, and in his wake, the rest,— — Marching from East Broadway to Brooklyn Bridge. From the Bridge—to Brownsville, to Flatbush, to Brighton, To Coney Island, to Seagate—to the Atlantic Sea, And to the white waves, to the distant winds, Throw into the whirlpool our last rhyme. Then we will stand at the shore of the Atlantic And watch the waves tower in foam— In rage, or in praise for the poets who themselves Gave to the abyss the flutter of their dream. And then?—Then, faithful to our dream, We’ll separate and seek a splinter of a pen, And write a new song—an elegy on the funeral, And write the song in exultation, as we can!
To America For forty-one years I have lived in your borders, America, Carrying within me the bounty of your freedom—that freedom, Sanctified and blessed by the blood of Lincoln’s sacrifice And in the hymns of Walt Whitman. See, how strange it is: to this day I seek an answer to the contradictions, to the unrest of my life, I wonder, why haven’t I sung you, to this day, With joy, with praise, with pure admiration— To match your vast expanses, your cities, your roads, Your prairies, your mountains and valleys. Even more: For my own small world—in Brownsville, or on Clinton Street, In Borough Park, in the Bronx, or on the Heights, And above all: for all my walks on East Broadway— That East Broadway which fills me even now with stirring vitality, With intimate hominess, as soon as I set foot in her streets.
H. Leyvik For forty-one years I have lived under your skies, For over thirty years I have been your citizen, And until now I have not found in me the word, the mode For painting my arrival and my rise on your earth With strokes as broad and revealing as you are yourself, America. As soon as speech would shift toward you, I would curb My words, rein them in with austere restraint, Bind them in knots of understatement. My whole world and my whole life I held under secret locks, far from your wide-open breadth. I shall disclose it now: when I got off the ship Forty-one years ago, and touched your earth—I wanted to Fall prostrate upon it, kiss it with my lips. Yes, yes, I wanted to, should have, And—I didn’t . . . And later, on your blessed earth I wrote, in memory of my father’s image, songs of guilt and longing. And I said to that image: accept, though late, the kisses That I wanted to give—should have given—as a child And ever was ashamed to give you . . . In all your greatness, America, you surely will not bring yourself to say That you are more, that you are privileged above my father. And maybe you will say: I am not more, but am I less?— Indeed, I would have liked to hear you say that. Had I heard this, it would have been a balm to my heart; Even at the sunset of my life, I could have opened for you. The still sealed confessions about you, America. I say again—I tried to do it in hundreds of hints In verse and rhyme, in the tempests of tragic dialogues, In raised and fallen curtains. Often I sought a way To tear down the curtain covering my own heart, To be open, intimate with you, America, at least half 25 As intimate as I am with the little cemetery in small Ihumen, Where my father-mother rest, passed away in those far-off days, In those far-off days of World War One, before the flood; 26 As I am intimate with the glowing snows in the village Vittim On the godforsaken Irkutsk-Yakutsk expanses of Siberia; As I am intimate with Isaac’s walk to Mount Moriah and with mother Rachel’s grave, With David’s prayers and with the bright prophecy of Isaiah,
25 Leyvik’s tiny hometown in Byelorussia. 26 The place of Leyvik’s exile in Siberia.
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With Lekert’s rise upon the gallows and with the dance-of-dawn in Eyn28 Harod. — I tried,—and it is clear: the fault is mine, not yours, 29 That thirty years ago I mourned under your skies Deep inside me, lamented that I carry my Yiddish song In fear, through your streets and through your squares, Clenched in my teeth, as a forsaken cat might carry Her kittens, in search of a cellar, a place of rest;— That when I think of my brothers—Yiddish poets—their destiny Embraces me like a clamp, I want to pray for them, For their lot—and then all words grow mute. Certainly, it is my fault, not yours, when even now After thirty years have passed my heart mourns again, An elegy on how, now more than ever, the evil lot Has scattered all Yiddish poets over New Siberias, And chased our trembling poets’ ship into an abyss of storms, Into an abyss of storms on your waters too, America, In death-danger; and in that death-danger I search for the brave song 30 Of the brave captain. The brave captain shall not betray His song-of-destiny today. — — — You see—I am cruel to myself when I say: It is certainly my fault, If instead of “certainly” I could say “maybe,” or “perhaps.” I am trying not to cast part of the blame on you, America. And may God in Heaven witness that you are not yet worthy To feel free of guilt, as white as snow— You see—you yourself should have come to my aid right now, To ease my task of finding proper words Expressing intimacy and fusion and farewell. Fusion with your beauty and your expansive breath; Farewell?—the stronger the fusion, the closer I can see The moment of farewell. It may occur within your boundaries, And it may happen far away, beyond your borders: It may uplift me and carry me to those wonder-places, Where as a boy I walked with Father Abraham near 27 Hirsh Lekert (1879-1902), a shoemaker and Bund activist in Vilna who organized an armed attack to
liberate political prisoners. He assassinated the Russian governor of Vilna for flogging Socialists after a May Day demonstration and was hanged. Lekert became a hero of the Jewish labor movement and self-defense. 28 The first kibbutz in the swamps of the Jezreel Valley, famous for its pioneering spirit and collective dances into the night. 29 Thirty years ago . . . all words grow mute—an allusion to the poem “Yiddish Poets.” 30 An allusion to Whitman’s “O, Captain, My Captain.”
H. Leyvik Beersheba, and with David around the gates of Jerusalem, It may bring me, too, to today’s climbing road to New Jerusalem. You too, America, walked close with them, You too, have absorbed in your heart God’s commandment and blessing: To be a land flowing with milk and honey, To be numerous as the sands of the sea and the stars in the sky, To be prophetic and free, as your Founders dreamed you.— Oh, let the dream of Lincoln and Walt Whitman be your dream today! In days of old age, when I stand in the bright vision Of one or another shining farewell, I recall again The moment, forty-one years ago, when I reached Your shore, America, and I wanted to and should have Fallen prostrate to your earth and touched it with my lips, And in confused embarrassment I did not do it,— Let me do it now—as I stand here truthfully, Embracing the glare of intimacy and farewell, America.
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Moyshe-Layb Halpern (1886–1932)
halpern’s first book, in new york (1919), established him as a major Yiddish American poet. The poet’s persona, “Moyshe-Layb,” beloved among Yiddish readers around the world, embodied the alienation of the new immigrant in “the Golden Land.” His was a pessimistic worldview, transforming traces of a European fin-de-siècle decadence into Moyshe-Layb’s whimsical, bitter, or cynical existentialism. The book was reprinted in 1927 in Warsaw, then the world center of Yiddish literature, and in New York in 1954. Halpern was born in (or near) Zlochov in eastern Galicia, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He attended only heder. At twelve, his father sent him to Vienna, where he spent ten years, lived among non-Jews, devoted himself to sport, and became interested in German literature, Nietzsche, and Socialism. His first poems were written and published in German. In 1908 Halpern attended the first international Yiddish Language Conference in Czernowitz and, in the same year, arrived in New York. He wrote profusely for several humoristic-satirical Yiddish weeklies: The Kibbitzer, The Jewish Bandit, The Clown; published poetry in the journals of the Young Generation; and co-edited a number of them (From Man to Man, 1915; East Broadway, 1916). In 1919, after a courtship of ten years, Halpern married Royzele Baron, who became a frequent addressee of his poems. In 1921, the Yiddish Communist newspaper Frayhayt was founded in New York. Halpern was a permanent contributor, writing and traveling on lecture and reading tours all over the United States. He reached a wide audience and was hailed as “the great proletarian poet.” Halpern shared the Communists’ criticism of the injustices of capitalist America. The Decadent introvert became a poet of social protest, taking up such causes as poverty, exploitation of the masses, and racial discrimination. He was, however, never carried away by the Communists’ utopian idealism or party discipline. He felt more sym254
Moyshe-Layb Halpern pathy for the real people of New York’s underworld than for the labor “leaders.” A pacifist, he mocked both the symbol of power (the president) as well as those who justified “a just murder” (that is, the Communists), grotesquely deriding their hero worship. His vision was one of an anarchist existentialist, bitter about the human condition and sarcastic about the world’s rulers. While on a lecture tour in Chicago in 1924, he quarreled with his editors and left Frayhayt. He lived for a time in Detroit, Cleveland, and Los Angeles. He was poor, depressed, and often ill. In 1929, Halpern returned to New York, living with his wife and son in a tiny apartment in the Bronx. When a group of Yiddish writers left Frayhayt in the same year in protest over Communist support for the Arab pogroms in Palestine, Halpern joined them in forming a new weekly, Di Vokh (The Week). Once again he took an active role in literature, until his sudden death of a heart attack at the age of forty-six. Two posthumous volumes included some of his best poetry. This volume contains an expanded and corrected selection of Halpern’s work as published in American Yiddish Poetry. We restored his first name, as in Halpern’s native Galician Yiddish: “Layb” (rhymes with “describe”).
In New York (1919) Memento Mori And if Moyshe-Layb, the poet, describes How he saw Death on the waves, without warning, As you see your own self in a mirror— And it was about ten o’clock in the morning— Will they believe what you describe, Moyshe-Layb? And if Moyshe-Layb greeted Death on the water, Waved his hand from afar, and asked: How are things?— And it was as thousands of people were having The time of their lives in watery flings— Moyshe-Layb (pronounced as one word with the stress on the last syllable)—the convention of using
double names, carried over in Yiddish from medieval France, was ridiculed as “primitive” or lower class by Europeanizing modern Jews, influenced by the contemporary mores of their neighbors. Halpern’s challenging return to such simple popular names (“Moyshe” rather than “Morris,” “Layb” rather than “Leon”) in their hyphenated form has a popular and intimate overtone.
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256 Symbolism and Expressionism Will they believe what you describe, Moyshe-Layb? And if Moyshe-Layb were to swear with tears That he was drawn to Death as if by oars, As a longing man is drawn in the evening To the window of a woman he adores— Will they believe what you describe, Moyshe-Layb? And if Moyshe-Layb paints Death for them Not gray and dark, but in rainbow hue— Just as he appeared about ten in the morning Alone, between sky and waves all in blue— Will they believe what you describe, Moyshe-Layb?
Why Not Moyshe-Layb stops in the middle of the night— To ponder whether the world is right. He stops and listens as his thoughts appear— Someone whispers in his ears That everything is straight and everything is crooked And the world spins around everything. Moyshe-Layb plucks a straw with his nails And smiles. Why?— Why not. Just so, he plucks a straw, at night— And once again a thought arrives. Again he listens—a thought appears— Someone whispers in his ear That nothing is straight and nothing is crooked And the world spins around nothing. Moyshe-Layb plucks a straw with his nails And smiles. Why?— Why not.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern
The Street Drummer Joyous, free, the bird will sing, Trembles on his throne the king, Trembling is not good for me— Like a bird I sing so free, As winds prance, In a trance, Wild and blind, I roam and dance, One street in and one street out!— Sick and gray and old, I go— But who gives a damn, ho-ho!— For a penny, thereabout, Drumming till the drum will burst, Clanging on the cymbals first, I spin all around and drum— Djinn, Djinn, boom-boom-bum, Djinn, Djinn, bum! Comes a girl, a witch for hire, And ignites in me a fire, Spinning faster, wild and bright, And I clench my jaws so tight, And I drum: Girlie, come, Give your hands and hug your bum, Two together hotter dance! One like you, an ardent snake, Left me weeping in her wake. Breaks my heart, but in the trance— Drumming till the drum will break, Clanging on the cymbals first, I spin all around and drum— Djinn, djinn, boom-boom-bum, Djinn, djinn, bum! Children laugh at me in town— I go on, will not be down: Move along! It’s done and said! Once again I bang my head. And I spit! That’s just it!
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258 Symbolism and Expressionism With a jump I do my bit. Used to evil, will not fret, Pinch your bread and do not ask. Guzzle from your pocket flask. Burns the blood and runs the sweat— Drumming till the drum will burst, Clanging on the cymbals first, I spin all around and drum— Djinn, djinn, boom-boom-bum, Djinn, djinn, bum! And in hunger and in thirst, Thus I bit and thus I burst With my head through every wall, Every path and road and all! Teeth and bone— Strike the stone! Strike the stone, remain alone! Bum and vagabond, run wild, Alien, dragging through the dirt! Not a jacket, not a shirt, Not a wife and not a child— Drumming till the drum will burst, Clanging on the cymbals first, I spin all around and drum— Djinn, djinn, boom-boom-bum, Djinn, djinn, bum!
Our Garden What a garden, where the tree is Bare, but for its seven leaves, And it seems it is amazed: “Who has set me in this place?” What a garden, what a garden— It takes a magnifying glass Just to see a little grass. Is this garden here our own, As it is, in light of dawn? Sure, it’s our garden. What, not our garden?
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 259 What a watchman, brusque and quick, Walks the garden with a stick, Wakes the people on the lawn And to hell he drives them on. What a watchman, what a watchman— Grabs a collar or an arm Of some guy who’s done no harm. Is this watchman here our own, One like him, in light of dawn? Sure, it’s our watchman. What, not our watchman? What a bird, which soon forgets The small fledglings in its nest, Doesn’t carry food along, Doesn’t sing their morning song. What a bird, oh, what a bird— Doesn’t lift a single wing, Try to fly, or anything. Is this lazy bird our own, As it is, in light of dawn? Sure, it’s our bird. What, not our bird?
This Is Our Lot Young fisherboys sing like the open sea. Young healthy blacksmiths sing like raging fire. And we, we are like ruins in a wasteland, We sing like desolation in pouring rain. When children in a yard play all together, Their song betrays the love of a good mother. Us—we imagine so—no mother bore, Misfortune, singing, lost us on the road, We sing unhappy songs for no good reason. Maybe like parrots somewhere in a cage, Maybe like frogs at dusk, in swamp and grass, Like laundry hanging when the wild wind blows, Like scarecrows, still forgotten in a field When autumn has devoured all living things.
260 Symbolism and Expressionism
Ghingeli Oh, Ghingeli, my bleeding heart, Who is this guy who dreams in snow And drags his feet like a pair of logs In the middle of the street at night? It’s the rascal Moyshe-Layb, Who will freeze to death someday, In his fantasies of flowers And blossoms in the spring; And while lying in the snow And not stirring anymore, To his dreams he still will yield, Strolling through a cornfield. Dreams the rascal Moyshe-Layb, Sings the watchman dum-dee-dee, Answers the bum ah-ah-choo, Barks the dog bow-wow, Mews the cat me-ow. Oh, Ghingeli, my bleeding heart, Who, in the snow, plods to and fro, And thinks he sits by a fireplace In the middle of the street at night? It is the rascal Moyshe-Layb Who is too lazy here to think. He freezes in the snow and sees A palace, closed on every wing, And, guarded by the sentries, He is himself the King, And all his years are passing by Like setting suns at evening. Yearns the rascal Moyshe-Layb, Sings the watchman dum-dee-dee, Answers the bum ah-ah-choo, Barks the dog bow-wow, Mews the cat me-ow.
Ghingeli (pronounced with two hard “g”s)—a romantic feminine figure invented by Moyshe-Layb, the addressee of many of his poems.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 261 Oh, Ghingeli, my bleeding heart, Who curls threefold on himself And hops in snow by streetlamp-light In the middle of the street at night? It is the rascal Moyshe-Layb Who stops in snow for a dance— To keep his feet from freezing Completely, in the trance; He sees the snowflakes on his clothes Like blossoms in the sunshine breathe, And girls with their hair let loose Adorned all with fire-wreaths. Dances the rascal Moyshe-Layb, Sings the watchman dum-dee-dee, Answers the bum ah-ah-choo, Barks the dog bow-wow, Mews the cat me-ow. Oh, Ghingeli, my bleeding heart, Is there a rooster still around? Who was it crowing in the city In the middle of the street at night? It is the rascal Moyshe-Layb Who has no worry, has no care, And because he thinks the day Has hidden itself somewhere, And because he thinks the last Rooster has been strangled, He crows himself and says Good Morning to himself. Crows the rascal Moyshe-Layb, Sings the watchman dum-dee-dee, Answers the bum ah-ah-choo, Barks the dog bow-wow, Mews the cat me-ow.
262 Symbolism and Expressionism
My Restlessness Is of a Wolf My restlessness is of a wolf, and of a bear my rest, Riot shouts in me, and boredom listens. I am not what I want, I am not what I think, I am the magician and I’m the magic-trick. I am an ancient riddle that ponders on its own, Swifter than the wind, bound tightly to a stone. I am the summer sun, I am the winter cold, I am the rich dandy, spendthrift with gold. I am the strolling guy, hat cocked to a side, Who steals his own time, whistling with pride. I am the fiddle, the bass and the flute Of three old musicians who play in the street. I am the children’s dance and, on a moonlit strand, I am the fool who’s longing for a far blue land. And, as I walk past a tumbledown house, I am its emptiness peering out. Now, outside my door, I am myself the fear, The open grave waiting for me in the field. Now I am a candle for a dead soul, A useless old picture on dusty gray walls. Now I am the heart—the sadness in eye’s glow— That longed for me a hundred years ago. Now I am the night that makes me weary soon, The thick night-fog, the quiet evening-tune. The star above my head, lost in night’s dark cloak, The rustle of a tree, a clanging bell, smoke.—
Tuesday In the middle of the room stands a table, On top of it, half-finished dresses, Pins and hair and whalebone Mixed with fashion journals And herring bones, On the table. On the wall hangs Marx, Next to him an old grandma— On her head a kerchief. Both are swathed in spiderweb.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 263 And the girls— Here and there at the machines. Who will call a fortune-teller To lay out the cards? For that girl, over there in the corner— Will tailor Jack be a match Made in heaven? And for the other one— Will the great prince of Yama, The one she dreams about—will he come? And for the one who doesn’t dream anymore— Will she sit like this In her yellow flowered dress Till her braids turn gray, Crouched over her sewing. — — —
“Watch Your Step!” Time is gold in the Golden Land. The ring of a bell and the wave of a hand, And doors snap shut, express trains fly Through black tunnels, quick as the eye. Walls fly backwards, like a screen With star after star in red and in green— Life is green and death is red. Once a signal is sent out ahead It hurls everything out of its way, Wheels whirl in a wild hurray, Trains swing up, swing down, swing fast, Birds of gold and greed zip past, Desire ignites in my blood, behold: Hotter than greed and brighter than gold. Hey!—If only I could grab in my hand Such a bird! Oh-ho, how grand!— Like lightning flashing in the night. Birds race and dart and soar in flight, Brilliant as lightning, flash and expand— Golden birds in the Golden Land. English title in the original: the immigrant’s identifying signal of the subway.
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In the Golden Land Would you, mama, believe me if I told That everything here is changed into gold, That gold is made from iron and blood, Day and night, from iron and blood? —My son, from a mother you cannot hide— A mother can see, she is at your side. I can feel from here, you have not enough bread— In the Golden Land you aren’t properly fed. —Mama, oh mama, can you not see That here they throw bread into the sea, Because, when too bountiful is the earth, It begins to lose its golden worth? —I don’t know, my son, but my heart cries: Your face looks dark as the night’s skies, Your eyelids close, your head on your chest, Like the eyes of a man dying for rest. —Mama, oh mama, haven’t you heard Of trains racing under the earth, That drag us from bed at break of dawn And late at night bring us back home. —I don’t know, my son, but my heart is wrung: I sent you away healthy and young— It seems it was just yesterday! And I want to see you like that today. —Why do you, mama, sap the blood of my heart? Can you not feel how it pulls me apart? Why are you crying? Do you see at all What I see here—a high and dark wall? —Why shouldn’t I cry, my son? You see: You’ve forgotten God and forgotten me. Now your own life is a wall that will stand Blocking your way in the Golden Land. “Golden” is a Yiddish positive adjective, meaning: endearing, warm, good (“He has a golden heart”:
altruistic, helping other people; “a golden child”: smiling, devoted, peaceful; “a golden idea”: a brilliant idea). Here it interacts ironically with the general European image of America as the “Golden Land” (especially after the Gold Rush), where gold was “rolling in the streets.”
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 265 —Mama, you’re right. We’re divided in pain. A golden chain . . . and an iron chain .. . A golden throne—in heaven for thee, In the Golden Land—a gallows for me.
Not His Blood Moyshe Layb, Moyshe Layb, It is not the blonde of Grandpa’s field you see, But from where? From here. Is she a bird from a Broadway nest, From near? — — — Maybe. Or perhaps She is one who dances a Honolulu-dance On Coney Island spit. And every night she’s heaped with gold and wreathes— Isn’t it? — — — Maybe. Or perhaps She has a lord for a husband, a lord with a white beard, Who lives in a hotel Where servants stand stiff like figures of wax And all is well? — — — Maybe. If that’s the case, Why doesn’t the lord come here Out of the blue? Is he alone too, Moyshe Layb? Alone Like you? — — — Maybe.
Go Throw Them Out . . . When they walk in with heavy, muddy feet, Don’t ask your leave and open all the doors And walk around your house on all the floors An image of tradition, linking the generations (as in Peretz’s drama The Golden Chain).
266 Symbolism and Expressionism As in a brothel in some dark back street— Then surely it’s your heart’s sweetest delight To take a whip in hand and, like a lord Teaching his slave to say a morning word, Like dogs to throw them out into the night! But what will a whip do when in they come With hair as blond as wheat and sky-blue eyes, And like a swiftly soaring bird that flies They rock you in a beautiful dream, and hum, And steal into your heart, still caked with mud, And singing, they take off their little shoes, And bathe, like children in the summer dews, Their pretty little feet in your heart’s blood?
The Golden Peacock (1924) The Story of the World I command that the world be conquered, Thus spoke the king. When this became known in the land, The mother mourned her living son As if he were dead. But the plowshare in the field, And the sole under the shoemaker’s hammer, And the mouse in the closet Quietly laughed in their fists When the news was brought to them— The dire news. So now the world has been conquered. What shall be done with it? It can’t fit into the king’s castle. They forgot to measure the world When they made the door. But the plowshare in the field, And the sole under the shoemaker’s hammer, And the mouse in the closet
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 267 Are laughing their heads off. The king’s crown trembles From their frivolous laughter. The courtiers think that the world, meanwhile, Should stand under guard outside. But the king is pale as death. He fears that the world will get wet When the rains come down. But the plowshare in the field, And the sole under the shoemaker’s hammer, And the mouse in the closet Laugh so much it’s scary. They almost die laughing That the world is still outside.
Zlochov, My Home
Oh, Zlochov, you my home, my town With the church spires, synagogue, and bath, Your women sitting in the marketplace, Your little Jews, breaking loose Like dogs at a peasant coming down With a basket of eggs from the Sassov mountain— Like life in spring awakens in me My poor bit of longing for you— My home, my Zlochov. But when, steeped in longing, I recall The rich man Rappeport, how he walks With his big belly to the synagogue, And Shaye Hillel’s, the pious Jew, Who could sell like a pig in a sack Even the sun with all its glowing— Then it’s enough to extinguish in me Like a candle, my longing for you— My home, my Zlochov. By breaking up the hackneyed compound word “my hometown” (i.e., the town where I was born),
he seems to return the full, positive meaning to “home”—which is immediately rendered ironic and defeated. Jews are not supposed to deal with pigs; the sack covers up for it. The Yiddish idiom alluded to here is: “to sell a cat in a sack.”
268 Symbolism and Expressionism How goes the story about that dandy: Once in an evening he watched for so long The angels roaming about the sun, Till a drunken peasant with an axe Cut him down under his dress-coat, Poor man: he almost died from that— The peasant with the axe is my hatred in me For my grandfather, and through him—for you— My home, my Zlochov. Your earth may witness, I’m not making it up. When my grandfather called in the police To chase my mother from his house, My grandmother, her legs spread wide, Smiled almost as honey-sweet As a girl standing between two soldiers— Cursed be my hatred inside me Which reminds me of her and of you— My home, my Zlochov. Like a bunch of naked Jews in a bath Surrounding a man who’d been scalded, They nodded their heads and stroked their beards Around the evicted packs and junk, Thrown-out pillows-and-blankets in sacks, And around the bit of broken bed— To this day my mother is crying in me, As then, under your sky, in you— My home, my Zlochov. But our world is full of wonders. A horse and a cart over the fields Will carry you out to a railway train, Which flies like a demon over the fields Till it brings you to a ship with a lower deck, Which takes you away to Newyorkdowntown— And this, indeed, is my only consolation That they will not bury me in you— My home, my Zlochov.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 269
The Bird A bird came with a crutch under his wing And asked me why I bolted my door. I answered him that before my gate Robbers are lurking, on the wait: They want to grab the piece of cheese That I am hiding under my ass. At this, the bird wept through the keyhole And told me that he is my brother Mikhl, And said that I cannot imagine at all How he suffered on board the ship That brought him over to this shore. On the chimney—he says—he made the trip. So, I can see what the bird intends, And I leave him, indeed, outside to stand. But in the meantime I make up my mind To be on guard: Who knows what may pass, And I push my piece of cheese Further under my ass. At this, the bird, like my brother Mikhl, Puts a wing over his eyes like a shade And shouts again into the keyhole, That may he have such a bit of luck As he saw the piece of cheese that I keep, And that for that he’ll split my head. So, I see that it is not a joke, And I move over slowly to the door With my chair and with my cheese, That I keep safely under my ass, And I do not raise any fuss But ask him, whether it’s cold out there. To this he answers that both his ears Are frozen, his eyes wet with tears, And he swears, crying aloud, That in his sleep he devoured His own leg, the leg that is missing, And if I let him in, he’ll tell me all.
270 Symbolism and Expressionism Of course, when I heard the word: devoured, I really got scared. I almost forgot To watch out for the piece of cheese That I was keeping under my ass. But I touched it and saw: it’s here, as before, So there’s nothing to worry about anymore. So I proposed that we should see Who will lose his patience first: I, waiting in my own house, Or he, watching outside my door. It seems, it’s an interesting thing to find out, Even—I said—for its own sake. And this is how the matter remained. Seven years have passed since then, I call Good Morning through the door, And he calls back Have-a-Good-Year. I beg him: brother, let me out, And he says: let me in the house. But I know well what his tricks intend, So I leave him outside to stand. Then he asks me about the piece of cheese That I am keeping under my ass. I get scared, I touch it. It’s here, as before. So there’s nothing to worry about anymore.
Aby Kirly, The War Hero Aby Kirly, the war hero, With medals on his chest and with a crutch, Closes his left eye when he cries. But yesterday, on a simple Wednesday, He made a holiday at midnight for himself: He swallowed seven living frogs. Seven times it seemed to me It was merely the night-wind crying in my garden. But I didn’t even try to ask myself Why it should cry. Maybe it regrets
Moyshe-Layb Halpern That it cannot move the flowers In my garden. They are of stone—that’s how I dreamed them up. But strange as it may seem, Not the night-wind—Aby Kirly cried. Each time, as he ate up A living frog, He cried over its death. Now again he’s sitting in the sun, Waiting for the children to come by And say “Good Morning!” He loves them, Their warmth reminds him of his wife— The savage Barla. Once, laughing, she bit his chin. But then he still had his music-box, A peacock feather on his green fedora, Tight trousers, And his boots— Glimmering like mirrors in the sun. Hey you, my Barla! Aby Kirly must not remember happiness, Because then he screams And in a fit of coughing, spits blood. Otherwise, Aby Kirly is not a bad guy, He only closes his left eye When he cries, With medals on his chest and with the crutch.
With Myself Yohama, my dear, Where did your joy depart? —I was waiting in evening glow for golden happiness, But Ghingeli, that wild riddle, Stole my poor heart Like a fish from a river, And hung it on the miller’s blond donkey, on his tail, And he went with it, didn’t fail,
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272 Symbolism and Expressionism To the mill he went, To the mill he went. Yohama, my dear, How will you walk without a heart? —The shoemaker Yankl-Bear, In his art a wonder in the world,— From him I ordered me A heart of leather, I ordered me. So, as Zarkhi says, till I fall to the ground, With a heart of leather I’ll walk around, I’ll walk around, I’ll walk around.
I Shall Never Go On Braggin’ There are people who maybe go on braggin’ That it’s not nice to crowd around a wagon With onions, cucumbers, and plums. But if it’s nice to schlepp in streets after a death wagon, Clad in black, and lament with eyes saggin’, It is a sin to go on braggin’ That it’s not nice to crowd around a wagon With onions, cucumbers, and plums. Perhaps one should not be so pushy, so attackin’. One could, perhaps, crowd quietly around a wagon With onions, cucumbers, and plums. But if you cannot chase them even whip waggin’, Because earth’s tyrant, our belly, naggin’, Wishes so—you must be evil to go on braggin’ That it’s not nice to crowd around a wagon With onions, cucumbers, and plums. That is why I’ll never go on braggin’ That it’s not nice to crowd around a wagon With onions, cucumbers, and plums. May the shoving anguish me and plague me, I’ll stoop my head, and suffer like a beggar. Perhaps I’ll cry—but I will never go on braggin’ That it’s not nice to crowd around a wagon With onions, cucumbers, and plums.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 273
Zarkhi on the Seashore Zarkhi to Himself Oh, Zarkhi, Zarkhi, you cannot cause A bridge to be built straight across Over the sea, to go there and back— And your longing stands on the other side With red-raised paws, and calls and cries Like a village broad who needs a man— Needs a man, Needs a man. Oh, Zarkhi, you are watching the ships in vain, You are merely hitting nails in your head When you believe whatever you thought and said. Ships bring only such people, behold, Who have time and who have gold To eat once and eat again— And eat again, And eat again. Perhaps you could convince your dream To turn you into a floating cloud. But what’s the use, if before you move out Appears—devil-take-him—from afar The wind with a knife, and cuts in small parts The heaviest cloud like a head of cabbage— Like a head of cabbage, Like a head of cabbage. Sticking out your tongue won’t help either, Zarkhi, This could be done even by a yellow Corpse, hanging on the gallows, Or a child, his lips white with milk, Running around in a coat of silk. But you, Zarkhi, seem to be wise— Seem to be wise, Seem to be wise.
Another imaginary figure in Halpern’s poetry, representing an older, wiser character (Moyshe-Layb’s
“uncle”). The name is from Hebrew, meaning: “dawn” or “shining in the dark.”
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Zarkhi, His Pipe to the Yard, Cries Zarkhi, his pipe to the yard, cries. He likes the evening sun on grass. But the evening sun shines and burns As on raw meat, on the legs and arms Of the broad, combing her hair in the yard. Zarkhi, his pipe to the yard, cries. He likes to be pensive in evening shine. But his neighbor looks like a butcher-boy, And he walks out, naked and fresh, To the broad, combing her hair in the yard. Zarkhi, his pipe to the yard, cries. He likes the wind to sing in the tree. But the wind hates the tree that is dead And sings in the painted hair of the broad Who combs her hair in the yard. Zarkhi, his pipe to the yard, cries. He’d like to see the night come in: It will take the broad and lead her inside, And it will grant some moonshine light To the dead tree in the yard.
From Zarkhi’s Teachings
Omar Rabbi Zarkhi—so said Rabbi Zarkhi: In the Book of Barhandi Compiled by the greatest sages, In chapter seven, A story is told of a murderer Who once, like a wolf in the darkness, Wept in the depth of the night He went out to a robbery, Attacked a woman in her sleep And was about to kill the baby at her breast— When it stretched out two little hands, “So said Rabbi Zarkhi”—a typical opening of a saying by a sage, rendered in the traditional form of
Jewish teaching: a word or phrase from the Hebrew sacred text is followed immediately by a Yiddish literal translation.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern Grabbed the knife, still dripping blood, And played with it Till the stains of blood on his shirt Looked like flowers at dawn— In the glow of the torch That lighted for murder. 10 Shavrulim ledarrkhi peruma —Light hidden in darkness, The lament of a murderer. Or maybe—who knows? Maybe it means something altogether different And the tongue will roast in hell For not interpreting it right? Omar Rabbi Zarkhi —so said Rabbi Zarkhi: In the Book of Barhandi Compiled by the greatest sages, In chapter seven, A story is told of a saint. Once, as he passed by a church at night, Glowing embers were thrown from the windows, And his beard and his coat caught fire Like a torch (on his body). Then the saint raised his eyes to the sky And dying, he said: —For blind fools the stars are signs, For evil men they are nothing; But in truth they are God’s light maybe, Showing through His sky— Tiny holes in the old umbrella over the world, And it is nothing but a grace To one on whose head the light falls in a flame And takes him away. Shavrulim ledarrkhi peruma —Light hidden in darkness, The last prayer of a saint. Or maybe—who knows? Maybe it means something altogether different And the tongue will roast in hell For not interpreting it right? 10 A mock-Aramaic, pseudo-Talmudic text. The syntax reads: “The shavruls are prumed for Zarkhi” (the
words in italics have no meaning). With a slight change, it would mean: Zarkhi’s sleeves are slit. Also, Proma’a in Aramaic is burglar.
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What Do We Know, Dear Brothers11 Three rubber bands on a thin tin pot And a pair of glasses looking out to sea. Maybe it’s Zarkhi’s longing that weeps— What do we know, dear brothers. And maybe it is not Zarkhi that weeps But a tree that burns and isn’t consumed, Weeping with branches as if they were arms— What do we know, dear brothers. And maybe it is not a tree that weeps But the silent lament of an eye and a hand Of a man dying at the threshold of his land— What do we know, dear brothers. And maybe it is not a man that dies But a blind giant a thousand years ago Weeping over his shorn hair— What do we know, dear brothers. And maybe it is not a giant that weeps But the simple silly instrument Weeping under Zarkhi’s aging hand— What do we know, dear brothers.
The End of the Book 12 So I ask my dear wife How to finish the affair Of my little booky— Says she: Let happiness leave on a train And wave back with a hanky. Says I: Hanky-panky— Says she: Booky-shmooky— And asks me whether I’d like With my coffee a cooky. 11 This poem employs biblical images: the Burning Bush (stanza II), Moses barred from entering the
Promised Land (stanza III), and Samson (stanza IV). 12 The poem is founded on a play with a string of diminutives, untranslatable into English (all accented
on the first syllable): plikhele-shikhele-tsikhele-kikhele-tikhele-bikhele-shmikhele. The cluster shm prefixed to any word (instead of the initial consonant) has a mocking, canceling effect.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 277 Says I: Cooky-shmooky— And tell her to put a case on my pillow And not to play hooky. Says she: Hooky-shmooky. And tells me to repair her shoe By hook or by crooky. Says I: Crooky-shmooky. So she jumps up, and points at my head: I am bald and spooky. Says I: Spooky-crooky-hooky-cooky-hanky-panky-booky-shmooky. But she cannot say it as fast as I can, as fast as I can: Spooky-crooky-hooky-cooky-hanky-panky-booky-shmooky. So we laugh together— Laugh so nice. Till she closes my eyes— Closes my eyes. And rocks me with a song of rain and light, Rain and light, That you sing to little children at night, Children at night.
Posthumous Poems (1934)—I13 Salute There are things in this country too— And if they find no streetlamp pole, There will be a tree—and that means clearly That a Negro over twenty years old May hate all things that spire up To hold a man for his hanging. But the one whose death I saw Was not even fifteen years old. The white old maid was not sweet at all. A rusty lock on an old valise— 13 Volume I includes poems printed in various newspapers; Volume II is from manuscripts.
278 Symbolism and Expressionism Her nose and jaw. And the arms and legs, I tell you—rather than touch skin-to-skin Such a smudge—better death. You are you, she pointed at him. And you will hang for me, she said. It’s true—in death-fear he nastily laughed; But she laughed too, and brought the tar, And inspected the tree above her head. And the joy of the crowd at the first smoke, I swear—from a madhouse on fire You would not hear such a scream. And the first spoon of tar at his heart Was hot upon hot, and black upon black. And the eyes were not lightning, but white bulging out. And the body—tearing out of the skin, As if it wished to undress its death. But not only did they loop a rope Around the neck of this piece of cattle, The flag of the republic too Was raised on high— And the sky was blue—it didn’t care— And the wind rejoiced with the flag in the air, And I—a beaten dog—said not a word. Took no part—a partner to murder. You don’t have to swallow a sty of pigs In order to vomit your green bile, The priest will take care of that, that well of wisdom— If blackness, he says, is a blunder of God, Then it’s sinful to let it mix with white. And I tell you—it is not the groan of a branch, Not the rope with the whole paraphernalia, Not the feathers flown in the wind, Too late to stick to the body— It’s you, the stinking sorrow of the world, Standing there at a distance, safe, Hands through your pockets, on your groin, Composing a poem for the world and yourself.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 279 14
Better go, wake up the klezmer Chopin, Let him pour something strong, if he can, A rain of tones, for everyone to see 15 That a goy too has a mood of Kol Nidrey When to spilled blood you need music.
Night in Manhattan A monkey—a hairless body, Brown and blue from cold—stands at my window And cries to the sky Hanging above like a sea of blood and mud, Overturned on the dark city. It cries like a man in the dark Who thinks he lost something When he lost the light of his eyes: After all, sometimes a man may lose The light of his eyes. And even if I come close and listen, Would it help the monkey crying up To a sky like this? The dead moon is dead. And the stars will only remind you of sparks That flew once upon a time From a fire burning in the world When there was yet—neither blood that cries Nor mud. It’s only a pity for the children here: How strange and sad they look When someone, not in his right mind, With eyes staring at the sky— Whispers of stars. But perhaps the monkey outside Cries over all of us, its children? Wouldn’t dread rise like a mountain 14 A Jewish folk musician. 15 The opening prayer of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). A solemn, sad melody, considered a key
text of Jewish music.
280 Symbolism and Expressionism When you see so many people together, Their arms and beards drawn to the sky, Crying over the world? And even if you could reach them With your voice— What could you say to them in the dark? Where is the home of the world— If they want to go home? And what shall we do at home, in the dark? 16 He who has, will eat borscht in the dark. He who doesn’t, will eat a crust of dry bread Which he didn’t manage to sell To another, before the sun set. Oh, let the sun take pity— Like the monkey on its children— On our miserable world. Like a wolf gobbling a sheep in the dark, Let it devour Its own light Somewhere. 1924
Sacco-Vanzetti You can pull out An early gray hair That comes from grief, when it’s too heavy; But he who, in his grief, may think That his head—with skin and hair—is heavy And he can no longer bear it On the two poor bones, called shoulders— Let him not stand with gaping mouth and eyes As in some madhouse; and let him know: The stones of a wall are harder than his head, And banging his head against stone will only raise a bump No larger than an apple of a tree that withers And there is no one to pick it in time. 16 Soup made of red beets (“red borscht”) or cabbage—a staple of east European food.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern Today there is an easier solution If you look for it: Be still for a moment And, like a typhoid patient, bend your head To him who shaves. He is your brother. You mustn’t be mad at him For not taking your skin along with your hair. He only does what he’s told and when he’s paid. And the death-clothes too— These too—were tailored by your brother who was hungry. And if a child—the poorest, When you dress him up on a holiday, Will go wherever he is led; Then you too—no matter how old you are— May let them take you to the death-chair That is waiting. And when the deadly copper gleams on your head, What can be heavy then? A king—even when the whole nation weeps around his throne— Must be still when they crown him. And if the crown on the chosen one is made of fire, It is a wonder-crown in this damn world. And only the wolf, forever lurking, the wild animal, And only the outlaw in the dark— Fear the fire. Babies, still mute, With open eyes that don’t yet see a thing, Stretch their hands to fire. And only the moth that yearns for light In the dark of the night, With outstretched wings, greets forever— Death by fire. September 4, 1927
281
282 Symbolism and Expressionism
To the One Who Seeks Me Whether your name is Wolf or Leo, man, or Chaim Bear, If you desire murder and run and scream everywhere, And you seek me as I am seeking you— Here I am! And if you love the sun for it is blood-red, Like black decline, when everything’s gnawed dead By rotten teeth of mice in children’s shoes at night— Here I am! No wheel running at you, no sign pointing away. When walls collapse as airplanes fall astray, In the bright light of the explosion, I scream out— Here I am! Not like a giant crying but small and blind and raw, Just like a baby screaming in a crazy woman’s womb, Or like a corpse with bare pate in an open tomb— Here I am! Not sleep nor rest at night, but hands and eyes That seek a wonder-light in hunger-hate that cries Inside a spider gobbling up a fly on a kitchen wall— Here I am! A black bat flies—preceded by a crow in dead of night, And on the crow a flea that didn’t measure right Its leap from head to tail, and is falling fast—wham! Here I am! 1927
From My Royzele’s Diary17 1 People wake up in the morning And race in boats and trains, And flutter like birds in the air above it all, And push, like smoke out of a chimney, And spin like dust in the wind, 17 Moyshe-Layb’s wife, a frequent figure in his poems.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 283 In this ever-singing, gold-and-iron whirlpool Of a city. And even here, by the sea, on Dead Island: The fruit-vendor has almost Emptied his wagon by now, And Sam the grocer puts out the eighth milk can; And McDowell, too, the old Irishman, Our neighbor, His hands and hammer on the hard sole, Whistles for the tenth time the same song To a bird in a cage that learns To mimic him. Yet my husband— As the sea will never stop its swell— He’ll never stop Making war on the flies In a bathrobe. With my hat on his head, the one with the red flowers, He races about and throws his arms Like a hot conductor in an opera. He sweats like a beaver (he might, God forbid, Catch cold). What shall I do with such a man, my God? Shall I scold him like a child, Or, with words, put him to play like a child? —Oh silver-gray head—you, my husband, my child, What’s the name of your teacher? Tell me, if you know. —My teacher is blind in one eye And his name is Reb Chayem. —What does your teacher drink every day? —Chicory in a mug, that’s what My teacher drinks every day, And only on the Sabbath he eats 18 Kasha with beans, Kasha with beans, Kasha with beans. 2 Here, in this country, grown-ups, like children, Desire new games every day. 18 Cooked buckwheat grouts.
284 Symbolism and Expressionism Why shouldn’t—I ask—a competition In fly-catching also be a game? It’s hard for me to think about it, Because every thought appears as an image Before my eyes. Now I see a poster Where letters big as pillars Announce the name of my husband, The fly-catching champion of the nation— That’s what it says. Painted with glasses, hair and a bowtie, With his arms and his legs in the air, He looks—forgive me for saying so— Like a madman climbing walls. But above all, the woman in me is annoyed! How they’ve dressed up my dear husband! Never mind the golden pot hanging on his chest— He has to drop the flies he catches into it, So they can count them When the competition is over. But what are those Wide red trousers for? Are flies wild bulls Who must be teased? But maybe they want to attract us— The women? Red reminds us of an apple-rosy sunset, And the sound of spurs of young officers. One of them once bowed To me. It happened when I strolled With my girlfriend In Vilna, on Main Street. Peshe-Gittel was her name. 19 A landsman who just came off a ship Told me that she killed herself When soldiers in the middle of the night Burst into their house — — —
19 A person from the same town in Europe.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 285
Your Dress Eyes drawn up to the evening sky— Not my eyes. Steps pacing at the seashore, up and down— It’s you, enfolded in the rustle of your black silk dress, A gift from one who made it in this country In business with the blacks. Soon he will walk here by your side And will rejoice: How beautiful you are in your black silk dress. And he won’t see behind you, heavy as behind a corpse, Walk your poverty and me And a black child, Crying for his bread that glitters white In every fold of your black silk dress — — In evening-shine.
Summer Rain Summer rain in the big city. Higher than the rainbow, the Woolworth Tower shining in the sun. Below—people tiny as flies, over their heads umbrellas, Black as those under them in their damn rush. Only the sick one among them, who longs for raw earth, Now sees a peasant in a field in summer rain. Like raw earth to the summer rain, let your longing Open up to me! Over my clouded blood, let the light Of your gaze shine Like the sun in summer rain! I am darkness—like a clash of heavy clouds, Deadly lightning is my shine, strange woman. Who will redeem me from myself? To be a rainbow over myself— Children’s joy in summer rain, Song and ring-a-rosy in summer rain— Summer rain light in sun and rainbow! — — —
286 Symbolism and Expressionism
Overtime Wolf, Khaym-Berl and Zanvl were playing cards When the news was brought to them That the leader was dead. Khaym-Berl, with a hand of spades, mourned: A pity—he mumbled to himself—a pity. Zanvl, who had a broad beside him 20 For luck (her name was Brokhe ), And who’d been dealt hearts, Cursed the one Who brought the news That the leader was dead. And even the broad, who was almost as red As Zanvl’s cards—she too growled —Don’t talk nonsense, Big Bear, We already know, we know. Only Wolf said nothing; He put aside his cards as they were dealt And with eyes and mouth open, he peeled a banana And said nothing.
He Who Calls Himself Leader No one can order his face in advance. And you shouldn’t throw a stone at a dog Showing its howling muzzle to the night sky. But when I think about it, Losing myself in sadness, in this night-café Fogged up in smoke, And they point out a man across the room, And tell me who he is, And when I look at him And he, with every fold and wrinkle of his face, Reminds me of the undertaker back home, how he rejoiced When they lit candles At the head of my dead little brother— And when the crookedness of his right eye, Which strikes me suddenly, is almost as cold As a hidden murder that wakes you up at night— 20 Brokhe—in Yiddish: blessing, good luck.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 287 Am I not allowed then to feel pain, Like a wound bleeding in my gut, That he, of all people, insists that we blindly believe He was chosen for leadership in life? What does leadership mean? It means a wind singing in spring! It means, for sure, a pillar of light leading the way Through a wilderness of stones and thorns. It means a wind singing in spring, Urging on the sick bird Hope To spread its white wings When we must cross mountains reaching to the clouds. And what is the light in the leader’s eye? It is but a spark of his image, the chosen image. One spark can perform the miracle Of shining like a rainbow in the night. But even if the man who sits across from me Did not remind me, with his talk, of an angry fly Buzzing around a pile of shit in the street— And even if, while hearing his voice, I could stop thinking That it is the evil of a human tongue, braiding words Into a rope for a brother in the night— Would it be any easier for me To imagine him in the white robe of a leader? Oh, what grief— What an evil ghost play In the night! If a child, awakened from sleep, Saw him, clad in white, in the night— He would think: a corpse is running into the synagogue 21 In its shroud, and would comfort himself, perhaps, That there is an early hour When the cock chases the dead Back to their peace, their cursed peace in the night. Let my blood not poison me for this— I’ve never seen a corpse walking around. But to this day, my breath dies in me from terror When I remember the Negro woman in white in the night. 21 An East European belief about the dead leaving the graveyard at night in their white shrouds, scaring
people to death; only the early morning cock’s crow chases them back into their graves.
288 Symbolism and Expressionism A step away from me, she stopped me. I searched in the dark For a hand, a human face, an eye, And what I saw was a snowman with no head, A white figure in a field at night To scare away the hungry birds. I didn’t even hear her breathe. Only the smell of her flesh— Like sulphur-acid on rotting meat— Brought me to my senses. I remember, as if it were right now, How heavily my head dropped. From her, however, I could walk away in the night, To cry quietly for myself And for the darkness, which leads poverty To trade for pennies Its longing, the holiest in life. But here, in this night-café Fogged up in smoke, Here is my resting place— Here I’ve got friends— And I have no place else to go. 1927
The Bird Mertsifint 1 Thirteen black and white witches Scratched out their own eyes Yesterday night in mid-city. But the bloody bird Mertsifint Circled high above them Like a fire in a whirlwind. The sages interpreted this to mean That thirteen times thirteen Armies will move on our land Like a wall of fire In the middle of the night. But my own mute shadow,
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 289 Looking straight into my eyes, Slowly leaned over to me And as one cries over a dead man, Crying he revealed to me That I myself invented it all, Because inside me my soul is sick Like thirteen black and white witches, And because the fire of my end Rejoices in me, as in a whirlwind The bloody bird Mertsifint, That I invented turning in circles Like a fire above the city, Because I wish that a stone on a stone shall not remain In the fire that will devastate it. 2 Oh, my brothers! Whoever wants my clown’s cap with the silver bells, Because he thinks it’ll help him To be liked—perhaps by women, who look like smugglers With packages in their bosoms— Let him know, I’ll let him have it all, With a deep bow, And even my drum I’ll give him (if he needs it). And I’ll teach him to bang so that everyone will hear And see, that from now on he is the fool, If anybody cares to honor him for that. And I will go back home, I’ll roll up the lap of my coat 22 And like Moyshe the poor undertaker from Byalekamen I’ll stand there with a barrel of tar In the old marketplace. And if a poor peasant comes, Whose cart is groaning Like my soul, I’ll let him smear All four mud-covered wheels For half a penny, and get back on the road To wherever he wants to go. For example, to Sassov, if he likes, 23 Or even to Stremblye, or as far as Pomoren. 1924 22 Byalekámen, Sassov, Stremblye—places in the vicinity of Halpern’s hometown, Zlochov. 23 Pommeranien (in German), a former Polish province that belonged to Germany (implying a long
distance where Jews went on foreign trade).
290 Symbolism and Expressionism
The Ballad of Moyshe Kramgold Oh, noodleboard and trough of mine, In Synagogue Street at the Zlotshov River: In his lifetime, Moyshe Kramgold maybe Never had for you a quiver. And not just a boy—but even When he diligently studied law And had, indeed, time enough To see you—if he only saw. He did visit his pretty grandma, As a student who knows and understands, And she did often greet him at the noodleboard With dough plastered on her hands. And Rivtshe, the tinsmith’s daughter—she had a mouth To eat honeycake, as they say. And he did sing every night at her window Serenades till break of day How could he, I ask, in nights filled with stars, Sing of everything in the world in vain, And not see the noodleboard and the trough Put out in the street for the rain? Oh, noodleboard and trough of mine, How often I saw you, front and behind! Forgive the dead one who, when alive, To your beauty was altogether blind. To what dreamed-out girls did he stretch His heart and his open hands, And his own mother, the old Henye, He burned with words like brands. She begged him: My dear child, Here, eat a piece of bread! And he gnashed his teeth and yelled That not of a natural death he’ll be dead. But then he was still a boy And didn’t know the meaning of the word.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 291 Seven years later he really died, As they recount, on a noodleboard.— Somewhere on a stranger’s noodleboard, outside An abandoned house in a field. The second year of the Great War fire Embraced the world like a shield. With his young teeth dug into The noodleboard in the blackened flour, His young childish soul had left His slender body on a board to sour. Oh, noodleboard and trough of mine, In Synagogue Street at the Zlotshov River: Hat in hand—over distant oceans, I bow my gray head to you and shiver! And may the alien sky above Be a witness unto me, That my heart cries out (to you) in longing— Into the distant, lost sea. 1924
The Old Leader Complains Princess Vandora the thief Brought me silken underwear, But I cried—what good is your silk When I fall (like a stone that is thrown On a bare head) at dawn? To be a leader of union brothers— No good, Vandora. Just last night, pockmarked Maxy Together with Jimmy, the limping bastard, Brought me home a stray girl They took in off the street. They undressed her right there in my place And we played cards on her naked body. No good, Vandora.
292 Symbolism and Expressionism She was lying, her heart hanging down. I wanted to liven her up a bit. I wished she’d cry or even curse, Or push her paw toward the bowl of money. Yet—oh, don’t punish me, God, I took a look—she had fallen asleep. No good, Vandora. And even the jokes of our Jimmy Didn’t help. Her head hanging down, She lay there like a piece of wood— Nothing to do but set her on fire. And the thump of the cards on her body and the laughter Were like a door that the wind keeps hanging. No good, Vandora. Only late, at dawn, with fire in her nostrils And in the small breast hanging off the bed, We saw she was dead. Maybe hunger finished her off. Or maybe—the devil knows—we Whipped her to death with our cards. No good, Vandora. But there are lots of broads out of work. I’ll buy me a house with little curtains. They’ve begun to kick, I tell you, Those silly cows, my union brothers. But never mind, I milked them plenty, As the summer sun milks a cloud. No good, Vandora.
Make for Him a Revolution, If You Can! The bump on his forehead? Whose business is it? What counts is, he’s the first— Whoever opens the door will have to see him. —I’ve been waiting here (He’ll beg with tears in his eyes) Since four in the morning. And when they ask him,
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 293 Did he ever work at ragpickin’? Of course he worked at ragpickin’, Even back in the old country, In the paper factory of the convert Seltzer. An unusual man he was, Used to walk back and forth, his hands behind his back, And just for fun he would ask a person 24 Whether one really loved a kugel, dripping schmaltz, And whether one really sticks a whole Dinar in the hand Of the Rebbe, the cankerous Yid. And though he nearly sent the whole town Begging for bread when he went bankrupt, Even then, with the face of a corpse, he went on laughing: They won’t have a penny to stick in the hand Of the Rebbe, the cankerous Yid, So he’ll croak from hunger. —Does he speak while he works too and pull his pants Like this? —God forbid! Is he a “Sauce-alist,” Who will want to get paid for nothing? Doesn’t he wear a pious undergarment? So may he have all he needs, He can be faithful as a dog (forgive the comparison). He doesn’t even spit more than necessary While he works. He only asks the dear boss to let him Keep his felt hat on. —How come? —Not because he’s pious, God forbid, on the contrary, One should certainly not think that of him. It’s just that he’s ashamed of that-thing-here on his forehead— He himself doesn’t know how it got there, It swelled up overnight, The doctor says it’s just a bump— But since he’s got no bread for wife and kids (A full seven, may they be healthy) He has no head for such foolishness.
24 Kugel—baked noodle pudding. Schmaltz—rendered chicken or goose fat.
294 Symbolism and Expressionism And just like this—on bended knee, Felt hat over his eyes, Head sunk in his shoulders And a little beard that doesn’t add A bit of beauty to his pale face— Stands a little man at dawn In the dark corridor, Leaning on the door of the rag-cellar, Which is the property (As the sign reads in the light of a match) 25 Of a landsman from his native town, J. Jacob Playboi’d — A grandson (as he found out) Of that heder-teacher Who once pulled out his sidecurl— Reb Yankel Shpilfoygel, That was his name — — — Yeah — — — Reb Yankel Shpilfoygel.
The Messiah-Seeker A young man with a pale, scared face And hair standing on end like spikes Clutches a flute in both hands Sitting in his underwear on a bed Rocking on a great river. I ask the painter: What does the picture mean? He replies: “The Messiah-Seeker!” And begins like this: Imagine that suddenly They wake you up And tell you in the dark That King David sends you a flute. All right, you see the game’s up, So you take it and start playing, But, you see, water’s running — — — From the flute, it seems. 25 Playboi’d—a Brooklyn pronunciation of Playbird, translated from the Yiddish Shpilfoygl (German:
Spielvogel).
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 295 All right, as they say, the game’s up. So you look for something to plug it up. But you can’t find the hole in the window. So it’s bitter—’cause it turns into a river. So you sit in your bed like in a boat And row with your flute as hard as you can, ’Cause you’ve got nothing else. Then you hear—they’re calling you. “Who?” “A voice.” “What does it want?” “Nothing. It just wants to know if you’re hungry.” You see that the voice is an ass: ’Cause why, out of the blue? So you answer under your nose, And that’s it. But it turns out that those Are two princesses, Calling you from both banks of the river. What do they want? “They want to sip the flute.” When you hear such a thing, Your eyes grow dim, of course. Because, who knows, maybe they’re ghosts And they might do something to you. What’s there to think about? Of course, you clutch the flute with both hands 26 And begin screaming with all your might: Sh’ma Israel! But if God wants And you wake up just then, for real, Then you can see for yourself That you probably did some dumb thing Not even worth talking about. 1924
26 “Hear, Oh Israel”—the prayer a person says before his death.
296 Symbolism and Expressionism
A Poem of a Love Pithom and Raamses, two neighboring cities, Known from the Bible, as we understand— From New York to Chicago there’s a thousand miles, And I am a stranger in this land. And in my longing I cannot at night Pull you like a blanket over me. Only once did I meet one like you— In Tyrol, years ago, you see. The mountains there—higher and more beautiful Than the walls and the buildings here. But if you call out a name and you shout oh-ho, Their answer, oh-ho, comes back clear. And you don’t have to save your milk for the child To drink a glass of wine, And the woman there is to a stranger As intimate as mine. I have a homeland too—Galicia, You cannot order you own place of birth. To a Gentile girl there you can be close only At the fence around graveyard’s earth. And “delicate” means a girl who looks Like an eight-year-old crone: Her gait—a mountain of dress upon dress Over flannel bloomers has grown. Over there you get married for a mitzvah, And dancing for them is in: The weeping bride holds a kerchief, You take it and give it a spin. Sometimes you can escape death, But not your self and your home sky. And therefore I don’t need a mirror To see that I am I. And for twenty years I am playing just With oldness that I recall—
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 297 And maybe it’s you I was longing for In the empty synagogue hall. I talked about it already With my own quiet wife. Your hair—not as blond as hers, Your eyes not as blue, full of life— But it’s clear, the air would not be poisoned By the breath of a child of ours. Your beauty—honey to my bread— Is also blood my heart devours. Here a child in his mother’s womb Sees his father as a foe,— And you, you want to sacrifice yourself For your circumcised immigrant beau. It’s true that even the prince of your dreams, That you brought from the plain like a crop, Lies dead like your husband’s paper in the bank, Like your locks in the barbershop. And I know I should be aching for you As for myself I do ache, When I see myself naked as in a bath, In the slippers that here they make. But through bars of a death cell you can see A rope even around the moon, And I say: even in my dream I fear Your hand on me, coming soon. You are the wildness of a Tartar village, And your figure—a dance of a knife; I am grandpa with a pierced eye And a babe that has lost his life. In you, as on strings of a bass, The song of a rider royal. I—fear of death with a pouch at my heart 27 Of Eretz Isroel soil.
27 The land of Israel.
298 Symbolism and Expressionism It’s true—like the shining sun, you rise Over my setting bag of bone; But over my gray head your light Is spiderweb over a stone. I don’t know why a stone is hard— And spiderweb thin is why— But it seems to me that your life too cries As under the spider, a fly. It may also be that all I see Is just an imagined pain. (With my depression, I have long ago Concluded a contract—in vain); And if I’m superfluous to myself, To you I am anyway, my dear. But when I hear the whistle of a train—it hurts: You are there—and I am here. 1930
A Velvet Dress And the Miss in the bed stood up on her head And with bare legs in the air She wept like the wind: “A velvet dress, a velvet dress!” The old woman, with eyes closed, half-asleep, Promised to buy her a big brass trumpet So she could blow out her cheeks for weeks and weeks. But the Miss didn’t like it. Her bare legs in the air Like a bagel she twisted And stubbornly insisted: “A velvet dress, a velvet dress!” Then the old woman opened her eyes and quietly Swore: If she would sleep, she promised her To buy from the shepherd the red flute: You can pipe doo-doo on it and doodle-doo. Then the Miss who stood on her head Almost forgot about the velvet dress,
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 299 And like a child claps his hands She spread her bare legs And waved them the length And waved them the breadth Till she remembered again. And with legs like crazy in the air She stubbornly insisted everywhere: “A velvet dress, a velvet dress!” 1924
Married I look at the naked woman With her tiny head, Thick clumsy thighs And big masculine legs. And I turn to the painter And ask him What made him dream up Such a thing on a canvas. He strikes a match, Stuffs his pipe in his mouth And replies— It turns out: He—puff. Himself—puff. Was married to her—puff. In Paris, mind you—puff.
My Only Son And if I talk nicely to my son—what good does it do? When he looks at me, he stops just short Of saying aloud: How about that! My father the cow Has opened his mouth again . . . I tell him: Son, Nowadays even a prince Has to learn how to do something.
300 Symbolism and Expressionism And you—touch wood—you’re already a year-and-a-half And what will become of you? I admit: there are no annual fairs Here in the big city; But must it be only eggs or chickens one steals? Why not money? Why not silk and velvet from the big warehouses? Why not gold and diamonds from those people Who sneak around among poor Negroes And swindle? The devil take them! But when I see that my son Doesn’t have the slightest respect— He stands across from me With a paw to his ear, like a grown-up Pretending to be deaf— Then I can see with my own eyes That nothing will come of him, And I have to shout. I scream: Listen, you son of the dark! This very day go and light a fire, No matter where, But burn—I say—it must! Wait—I say—I’ll make you into a president, With hands sticky as glue, And if the holy fatherland Goes to war, You’d better be responsible for every drop of blood From our heroes. Remember—I say to him— Blood of our heroes is not water. Such blood is money, money, and again money. And if a guy has money, The nicest women of the land Fly into his hands like birds. And then—I say—you’ll have nothing to worry about . . . Such birds—I say—just smear Their faces with brick-color, their noses with flour, And—giddy-up, kids! Never mind if it’s from shame—as long as you make a living. If you have some extra change—you have everything, that’s how it is, my son.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern But even if I shout and jump out of my skin My son looks at my words As I look at the scum The sea throws up every day. And when I try to threaten him and show my fist, He stands there, touches it, and makes a face 28 As if he were the only one in the Land of Tsimtsidrim, The fist-hero Dirty Dog McCarthy— What a zero he is! I would really like to ask him If he’ll say the Kaddish when I die. —“Waddya mean kadesh? De old kike from stinkin’ Polan’ dragged wit’im 29 Some yaysh-may-robbery — To hel vit it—dats right.”
In Central Park Who is to blame that I don’t see your tree, Garden in snow, my garden in snow. Who is to blame that I don’t see your tree— When a woman goes out for a stroll in your snow, Her bosom rising and bouncing so, As on choppy waves in the sea A boat with two pirates who row And shout that they are two pirates who row— Garden in snow, my garden in snow. Who is to blame that there is no deer, Garden in snow, my garden in snow. Who is to blame that there is no deer— When a priest who should be good as a child Is running after his hat gone wild In the wind, and shouting: Hey, Ho, and Oh dear! And the hat, in its damn whirlblow, Heeds him not, in its damn whirlblow— Garden in snow, my garden in snow.
28 A derogatory nonsense word. 29 A distortion of the words of the Kaddish.
301
302 Symbolism and Expressionism Who is to blame that I’m a stranger to you, Garden in snow, my garden in snow. Who is to blame that I’m a stranger to you— When I wear a scarf and a cap at a slant, Things that no one would wear in this land, And I still have a beard that the wind blows Like a woman seeking an egg in the straw For her sick child, an egg in the straw— Garden in snow, my garden in snow. 1930
Kol Nidrey The clown of Karahamba used to crumble Pieces of onions into his coffee. I am sad—so I tell it to myself 30 To the tune of Kol Nidrey in the dark. How strangely his red eyes blinked Over the simple mug of clay; With a plain wooden spoon he ate The onions in his coffee. Seven days of mourning, autumn rain in the window Cannot remind me of death as much As the misery that whined, Whined from each sip he took. I shall go where my fathers have gone— Thus spoke his open mouth to the spoon. My wife Balaykah is already there, I shall go where my fathers have gone. The pieces of onion in his spoon Looked like broken pearls; And they were like tobacco-yellowed Thin fingers plucking a guitar. In a dress of seven times seven feet Balaykah danced toward her bridegroom.
30 The opening prayer of Yom Kippur and its melody, conveying the saddest mood in the Jewish year.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 303 Why do you cry, clown of Karahamba, It’s only my Kol Nidrey tune. The coffee mug of clay is warm. So is my heart that was born blind. And the crumbled bits of onion Are harsh as my sadness in the dark.
The Poem of Boynisl the Orphan Grandma sits with a Yiddish Bible and reads, And Boynisl outside cries With the nightly wind and the tall trees. “Little Boynisl dear, you orphan child, Why do you cry with the nightly wind And with the trees so tall?” “Grandma bent over the Yiddish Bible Won’t see Boynisl before her eyes; And Mama left him, like a feather Blown away, in the wind it flies; And Papa under the earth alone, Asleep—never to get up again. And there is no one to put Boynisl to sleep, Put him to sleep.” “But Boynisl had seven brothers, Good-hearted as children’s songs, In the quiet corners of the world.” “Yes, Boynisl has seven brothers, But they all clambered off Over the sea, sailing by boat 31 To Pincheh-Mincheh-Drincheh.” “Does the world ask: Perhaps somebody knows Boynisl’s brothers, what are they doing there In Pincheh-Mincheh-Drincheh?” Answers Boynisl that he knows And he calls each one by name. 31 A parody of the place-name; perhaps a Galicized version of the Lithuanian monosyllabic names of
towns, “Pinsk-Minsk-Drinsk,” which sound comical to a Galician ear.
304 Symbolism and Expressionism And he says that Jake’ele collects money, And Abie reproves him with the World-to-Come, And Maxie complains he’s in a strange land, And Johnny walks about with no shirt, And Izzie dreams of being a king, And Sammie spits gum into the sky, And Barnie the oldest wanders around Like a jerk, gray and dumb— In Pincheh-Mincheh-Drincheh. “Does the world ask: What will be the end, Isn’t the night meant for sleeping, And not for weeping with the nightly wind And with the trees so tall?” “The night indeed is meant for sleeping, But Boynisl does not know an end, He sits and weeps with the nightly wind And with the trees so tall.” 1924
My Crying-Out-Loud32 My Crying-Out-Loud fell asleep in me Like a sick man on a stone in a winter night in a field. The light of the moon on his face Is yellow as on a corpse. Only the roaming wind will see him. The world?—What’s the world? There are windows everywhere. Lots of them dark. The rest are shedding light onto rails By the seashore, Down from high mountains And from palaces surrounded by garden and fence. Where people play, there they dance With their bodies warm under silk and velvet and damask. Where they sit at full tables, 32 The Yiddish title, Mayn shrayendikeyt, is a nominalized form of “to shout,” literally, “my
shoutingness,” meaning: that “something” in me that wants to shout, to protest; the scream inside me. For another version of this poem, as published from a manuscript, see in the next section.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 305 There is yellow cake and brown cake Between fingers and teeth like beautiful pearls And bottles with long, slender necks, With silver on top and with gold— And flowers. Granted, the flowers cost a lot of superfluous money, But their colors, bathed in light, Illuminating the people around, Remind you of a rainbow over children’s heads And rivulets of rain. Children in a rainbow raise Their shirts above their bellies And laugh loudly to each other. And like children in daytime, so adults at night. They laugh and talk until They are soft and supple, As fresh from their mother’s womb. Opening a window to the field Will only scare them—nothing more. No matter how beautiful your story about the stone in a field And the man who fell asleep on it And looks like a corpse— They won’t believe you. Women with skylike eyes will pity The storyteller And will look more beautiful than ever. Women with dark eyes Will say—a hungry artist, Who wouldn’t take bread for nothing But tells a story instead. The old couple, however, Who cannot see anymore, (And whom this whole celebration is for) Will tremble in all the folds of their faces And, leaning to each other, One will intone, and the other will repeat. If we wish, we could imagine it Something like this— She: Don’t be afraid, Pop; He: Don’t be afraid, Mom; She: It’s nothing, Pop;
306 Symbolism and Expressionism He: It’s nothing, Mom; She: It’s just the wind passing, Pop; He: It’s just the wind passing, Mom. The wind passing, Pop. The wind passing, Mom. The wind passing— Just that. 1927
Posthumous Poems (1934)—II 33 How Long Will I Stand How long will I stand here, swaying like this in the rain, And what do I care that a woman lies sprawled on the ground In the rain in the light of a streetlamp on such a dark night! It seems that just now the bar-door behind her was shut And I saw how she stopped at the lamp-pole right here in the street— With shoulders and arms hanging down like the droop of her head, I could even hear how she shivered and chattered her teeth And begged them to come and to throw a stone at her body: 34 —Her mother, a maid in a village, a dark samovar, Got blown up with a boot like a bellows by a passing Hussar, ’Cause the world needs a whore who can warm a man like cheap tea, With lips that are painted and hips that are swollen and soft. They coupled somewhere like two dogs in the shade of a fence And left her like this, to stray with no home, with no place, Her name—a parcel whose address is smeared and forgotten, Dung in a backstreet a mare has dropped on its way. So spoke at the streetlamp the woman a moment ago And gnashed her teeth and fondled her face with her hand. And afterward, stretched out her two skinny arms to a man, An old passer-by, as if she had known him before. And what did he do, the old man? He shuffled his feet And showed her how gray was his head, how hairy his body, 33 This volume was deciphered from manuscripts. 34 Large Russian kettle for brewing tea with a charcoal fire in the lower part and a chimney tube running
through the middle. To blow the fire, one could put a boot on top of the tube and use it as a bellows.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 307 And mumbled something to her of a sword and a flag, And excited, he brandished his finger high in the air— And moved even closer to her, opened wider his eyes, And looked at her hat, and looked at her sweater and dress, And looked and was happy, and clapped his two hands like a child, And looked how the water streamed off the flanks of her dress. And then he departed again, as he came, in the rain— His head sunk deep in his shoulders—he left all alone, And when he had vanished from sight—one could only hear The shuffle of shoes in the rain on the wet stony ground. What else then occurred? A train passed by overhead And the woman at that—how shall I put it?—like smoke She shivered and swayed, but I, at that very moment, With umbrella in hand, thought maybe just of myself And perhaps of the railway of iron hung over the street. And as one can suddenly see a specter, I saw The hatred in front of my eyes, the world’s dark hatred With lightning in teeth, like a fiend when he’s cursing and mad— With such a clatter and roar as the train in the night, He swore to me solemnly: true is all that I think— Yet all that I did was to lift up my eyes like a fool To see whether somewhere a window was raised with a noise In one of the six-, seven-story dark walls all around, But before I could shift my glance up the walls and back down, I heard the thud of wet clothes on the pavement below: The woman who stood at the streetlamp fell to the ground. Whether I went, and how far, I don’t know anymore. Perhaps I just wandered around like this, to and fro, In the rain. I am sure that I read on a signboard somewhere That the smoke of Havana Cigars is as pleasant and mild As the breathing of mothers on babies that cry in the night, And it seems (if I am not mistaken) that store is three blocks Away from that place. I am even sure that I saw The boxes displayed in the window, though it was dark. And I cried—I remember this too. I stood, and I read, And swaying like this in the rain, with eyes open I cried. And then I imagined I heard a voice calling aloud: My father while dying; which reminded me how, long ago, He cried at the train when I left and how pale was his face— It seems that he sensed he would never see me again.
308 Symbolism and Expressionism How heavy your heart when you stand and you ponder like this On a father a corpse, near a woman a stranger, who’s dead.
My Blind Neighbor My blind neighbor strung half a string of a fiddle On a child’s violin and played. Afterward, all the newspapers of the land Sang his praises. And soon a local concert agent Gave him a contract for seven thousand dollars a performance: And wherever he played—you couldn’t Drop a pin—so packed it was. But even greater was the wonder When I saw a thick black fence— From dawn to dusk, the cars surrounding Our house—I could hardly get through. My wife told me that veiled women came, Ostensibly to drink tea— She herself saw in half a circle through the open door A full thirteen pieces of them. Arms and throats stretched out like geese, They knelt, and he complained: What a pity his mama isn’t here, She would have told him the truth. He wouldn’t have to touch their faces with his hands And be scared like a child He knows, he said—all the ugly ones Come to him—take advantage of his blindness. Even his servants contrive to cheat him, He gives them money to buy cream— And they whip up soap and make foam for his coffee, And aren’t ashamed to give him such a thing. And when the President gave him a watch With his name engraved and all in gold: In front of his hands, they changed it For an Ingersoll.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 309 And even his agent Whispered with one of them at the piano; And for the whole seven thousand bloody dollars Shoved in his hand a pack of toilet paper. My wife thinks it was a great pity To see him like this speaking and groping; But the women kneeling on his carpets— It seems to her—didn’t catch a word. They all whispered secrets. At first friendly, Then they began quarreling aloud: Who came first and who came next And who is here for the first or the tenth time. And not only that—they began buying out From each other—as my wife assures me—his bed. And then she couldn’t hear either What he complained or spoke about. But it seems that the women were all rich, The price went up to a million. And who knows what would have happened—if a clown in the street Hadn’t heard the commotion and screamed up: Police is coming! So they grabbed the blind man, and quickly Thrust into his hand the child’s violin; They set him at the head and all sat around The table shining with the finest delicacies. Fans trimmed with silk and gold in their hands, Covered with precious stones and diamonds: They guzzled pork dripping with lard And bread smeared with an inch of butter.
There Wasn’t There was no such man in my house And he didn’t look with his left eye At my bowl of borscht. He merely said “Good Evening” with such a deep bow That his hat fell off.
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Symbolism and Expressionism And that is how I came to know That he was bald, and it made me sick. And that is why I was curious to ask: Didn’t he cry sometimes when he longed For the nights when the wind blew in his hair? How strangely he looked at me. This is perhaps true. It’s only a lie That he looked at me with his left eye. He wasn’t even in my house When it seems to me I ate my borscht. This I could swear even by God. True, I saw him myself Wearing a jacket as red as fire. Later, however, when I reflected That it was not a red borscht that I ate But plain cabbage—he indeed disappeared. And it didn’t help that I went out And called after him to come back. I knew of course that he wouldn’t Even as much as turn his gaze— Since he’d forgotten his eye at my house. It was left lying on my table And it was as green as mold. As soon as he shut the door behind him Leaving my house, I saw the eye— And that’s why I ran after him: —My dear sir, my dear sir, Isn’t it sad enough that you’re bald, And an eye is not a wallet with gold That you want to hide it for yourself Because you may need it sometime. Nevertheless—for seven long minutes, Watch in my hand, I waited: maybe He’d get a button instead of a coin When he begs—then, knowing he was cheated, He would want to see who did it.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern But as I saw that I had no bread To crumble into the borscht that I ate, And no egg either, it became clear That God sent the eye as a miracle For my thin borscht. Nevertheless—so as not to suffer later For swallowing a stranger’s blood, I waited with the eye on my spoon For one whole minute more, by the clock— Perhaps he would still show up. But it seems, when the devil wants To lead a man to sin— Nothing will help. He burst in Almost as fast as lightning Just as I had swallowed his eye. Like a nail scratching tin, his breath hissed, He could barely speak for fear: —My eye, mister, my only eye! A sick man on his deathbed Could not tremble like this. Like a miserable freak, like a child With a face all contorted to cry, Out of the hollow of his left eye, Sure enough, a tear slipped out, As red as raw meat. What’s true is true: if I could have Crawled into myself with my hand, I would have given him not only the eye But even the borscht, if he would just stop Crying over me, may a bad year take him. It appears that I really was mad. Because I suddenly got up And threw it straight in his face: No man deserves to live in the world If he’s such a jerk.
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So Far, So-So So far, so-so. And forgive me for hurrying off. My eyes are tearing from the cold And I have a date with two young people In a cellar some three or four miles from here. But they are really black as the soil, Because they eat little and think a lot. They, too, work in our profession. And we all let our beards grow. Theirs grow black, mine is red, But theirs grow a little faster And puff up with pride when a wind blows. Mine, the red one, hangs like a dead one, Hangs like a dead one, I say.
So It Shall Be First we’ll take the red giant who’d beat Everyone up and force him to seat— Peapods to eat, Peapods to eat. Then we’ll demand of his crocodiles Publicly to put on a smile And play with the little children a while, And play with the little children a while. If they are willing, we will endeavor To lay out a land of cards so clever, 35 Where it’s Purim forever, Where it’s Purim forever. 36
The crocodiles, though, love to nosh, 37 And they’ll run off, neglecting to wash 38 And eat up every homentosh, And eat up every homentosh.
35 A festive Jewish holiday commemorating the salvation of the Jews of Persia, as described in the Book of
Esther, marked by a light, carnival atmosphere. 36 To snack, especially on sweets. 37 A Jew is obligated to wash his hands and say a blessing before eating. 38 “Haman’s Pocket,” a triangular cookie with a poppyseed filling, a special Purim treat.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern Then the children will hurry and go To heat up—so hot that they glow— Every arrow-and-bow, Every arrow-and-bow. And with small hammers they will not fail To break them to pieces and forge from them nails, 39 And send them to Chelm in parcels by mail, And send them to Chelm in parcels by mail. With an old hat, the Chelmites may Capture the sun as it’s going away, And tack it to the sky, so it will stay, And tack it to the sky, so it will stay.
I and You I and you—neither rest nor unrest, Gray and blond, pressed To one another. Met casually, quick, Like two beggars with lantern and stick— At night, while wandering. Like beggars two, with bag and mug, Who saw their faces in a mirror— One in the other. An eye grows dim, An eyebrow raised above. Not that I hate you— Not that you love.
In a “Speakeasy”—The Flower Girl Chayem-Shmil, a steak-knife in his hand, Dances and curses the head of the land, But his beard is dark around his face Like a fence around a graveyard. 39 Pronounced: Khelm—a proverbial city of lovable fools, famous for their attempts to catch the moon in
a barrel of water.
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Symbolism and Expressionism And the pale girl thrusting flowers at me Says that her lover who calls her honey Beats her when she doesn’t bring him money— She says, and thrusts the flowers in my face. Maybe one has to really raise A fist—to get, like a messiah, praise; But the whores—my students at the table— Hate the darkness as I do, And the pale girl thrusting flowers at me Doesn’t need the sun—because a bald head Glows not for itself but for others instead— She says, and thrusts the flowers in my face. I say: girlie, for love you don’t have to be sick Like Shulamith in the Song of Songs, And you don’t have to be born blind To become a mother suckling a child. But the pale girl thrusting flowers at me Won’t listen, and shows me her lap: no doubt, From there, she says, life crawls out— She says, and thrusts the flowers in my face. Girlie, life has a home, I say, A house without windows and walls of clay; And you don’t need, I say, any miracles To show up in the white dress of a corpse. But the pale girl thrusting flowers at me Says that she loves her dress, you bet, ’Cause it’s like my poverty’s banner red— She says, and thrusts the flowers in my face. Then I talk to her, as to God, saying Thou— Couldst thou, I say, grant me some peace And take away the honey of my poison Which cries in me like a straw in the sea! But the pale girl thrusting flowers at me Says that flowers overpower the sweat When you take a hot woman to bed— She says, and thrusts the flowers in my face.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern
We The Revolutionaries or This America He kidded himself for so long That he was Avant-Garde, Till he set fire To the straw hat on his head, And just like that— With outstretched arms, Shouting “Help, fire!” Ran downstairs. Then everyone who saw him in the street Ran too— With outstretched arms, Shouting “Help, fire!” At this, my friend Leaned over to me, Eyes and mouth wide open, To hear what I would say. Then I threw down the piece of cake And wiped with a handkerchief fast My face, my forehead, my nose— Over the cup of coffee— And ran out, with outstretched arms. When my friend met me (next day) And asked why I didn’t say Good-bye, And why I forgot to pay The restaurant I answered: “Revolutionaries!” At this he laughed And said “Wonderful.” So I saw through him, that he is scum, And naturally I punched him As he deserved— And told him, short and sharp, That our friendship Was finished.
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Shalamouses40 I wear a pair of old slippers, I wear sailor trousers, And the bespectacled visitor won’t let go: I must tell him about the Shalamouses, The famous heroes Shalamouses. The Shalamouses pray to God, as one should, And wear red hats. In summer they travel always on wheels, For winter they have light sleds, So they travel in those sleds. They don’t think much of women. And eat chicken soup every day, of course. And as Jews hate conversion they hate 41 One who is called Yossel, God-forbid Yossel, They’ve already killed one Yossel! They make a living by making snow From eggs whipped up with sugar. And if a stranger will ask the road to the bath, They won’t say there, but yonder, Not there, but yonder. At night, however, they sit In dishes of ground garlic, And they burn and won’t even sigh From so much trouble, the darlings, From so much unnecessary trouble. Naked, they sit until midnight, I respectfully answer, if anyone queries: They seem just simple Shalamouses, and yet— What wonderful heroes. What great heroes.
40 A nonsense word in Yiddish, sometimes used for “trifles,” “sweet nothings,” “absurdities.” The two
parts of the word are suggestive of “schlemiel” (a clumsy ne’er-do-well) and an odd plural of “mouse.” 41 Yossel may suggest Joseph, the first name of two dictators, Stalin and Pilsudski; it may also be used as
equivalent to “Yoyzl,” the Yiddish nickname for Jesus.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern
My Crying-Out-Loud 42 My Crying-Out-Loud fell asleep in my hands Like a sick man on a stone in a street on a winter night, The moonlight on his face is yellow as on a corpse And only the wind roaming in the dark from signboard to signboard Over the old garment shops will see him— And the world is so immensely rich in windows Shining out into the night—onto the rails At the seashore, From the shore down, From palaces encircled in garden and fence— And inside there are bodies warm under silk And yellow and brown cake between fingers and teeth like tiny pearls, While the ears listen to love-talk of a man or a woman, And there are bottles of wine with such beautiful long slender necks And with silver on top and with gold And flowers costing so much unnecessary money Pinned over hearts—which must be very good—for they love. Yet how foreign, how separated they are from that man on the street. To judge by their rejoicing, he does not exist at all, A mere invention, dreamed up by a scared man in the dark Somewhere in a new flat, All alone, On his first night, He cannot sleep—so he listens to the wind—and thinks, who knows what Is going on somewhere outside.
New York—Mount Clemens The train New York–Detroit. Three old women a man-condemned-to-death Would not have raped, With huge diamonds on their fat hands Spread over sagging bellies Across from me, Shake, soaring dreamily (with a chicken drumstick In a piece of paper) into the hotspring baths. Somewhere, in front of a wild throne in twilight rays, 42 A manuscript version of the poem. For the printed version, see above, Posthumous Poems I.
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Symbolism and Expressionism A smiling young prophet bows his head to the earth— As injustice brandishes its sword Over his head. The king, yellow and dark as a cloudburst, Tries to puff up his drooping chest And struggles—as with a wolf at night— With such a dreadful cough That bursts out of his heart, consumed By itself, together with his death-order And with his soul. And I, his court jester, hunched over as always, Puff my pipe smoke And laugh aloud— Sometimes like a naughty child, sometimes whorishly loud, Sometimes into myself, As at a loan shark’s wife Shaking, old and cold, And soaring—wrapped in a layer of fat Into the hotspring baths in Mount Clemens. The train New York-Detroit halfway there, And I—grayness on my head, Like a pauper in an old winter hat In the middle of a summer—I look at three women Around a piece of paper with chicken bones, And imagine: through the train window, Along with the winter sun, Peeping in— A rooster with disheveled feathers Who mourns like a man Bent over a dead body . . . I lift my eyes to him And see: he holds in his beak A little hen frozen to death— Last night, perhaps— I show this to the women here Who just now swallowed the last piece Of the hen’s wing skin, And I think they too have children Somewhere in the big city,
Moyshe-Layb Halpern I hear them scream through open windows in smoke and fire And fall heavy like stones from an upper story, And in my fear I want to call out—stop—run back— And help if I still can . . . And I see hands lying heavily With diamonds like calf’s eyes On sagging bellies rising and falling, And I ask: Where are they going? Answers one with weeping in her voice—Munt-kle-me-nes. And I see them in my mind’s eye stark naked: I see knees crooked and swollen, It seems to me they crack Like dry mud under wagon wheels— And I myself am lying somewhere in a wagon Transporting pigs from a market to a cellar, I burrow my face into the hard straw, to see nothing more, And convince myself that I too lie bound, Struggling in the tangle of the ropes . . . Then, from a cross beside the road A dark crow swoops down, Dips its beak in my blood running out, And writes on the neck of the hanging man: “Oh bellies mine, oh my red eagles”— I don’t know what it means: “Bellies mine, my red eagles,” And I see the peasant next to me stops genuflecting, Lifts his eyes and mumbles like a child Who can barely speak. And I hear next to me the peasant crying like a baby: “Oh, bellies mine, eagles mine, wonderful red ones.” And I don’t know why the peasant weeps. And from the one hanging beside the road A crow swoops down and dips its beak in my blood And writes these words on the cross. And I think he himself opens his red mouth And mumbles like a baby who can barely speak: “Oh, bellies mine, eagles mine, wonderful red ones . . . ” Then I spit, to get rid of him, And I see myself rocking With tears as hot as fire on my face,
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And like the prayer of an old siddur, I repeat: “Oh, bellies mine, eagles mine, wonderful red ones . . . ” And hot as fire, the tears run down my face . . .
This I Said to My Only Son at Play—and to Nobody Else 1 So far, your horse is a trough on four blocks. For others a rolling pin, for you—a sword. And not yet of steel, but of newspaper 44 Is the tricornered homentosh on your head. Mama complains: the neighbors’ bottles and pots— For you they are soldiers on all the stairs. Mama works so hard—and you, every day You make fresh holes in your kneepatches, And your shoes—I swear: two bears, Even when hungry, don’t open their mouths like this. But, above all—and some may like it— This brat already prattles of conquering the world. The kitten makes war against a ball of yarn, And he—God knows against whom he won’t!—and he can’t even Put a spoonful of hot food into his own mouth, Let alone clear the smallest stone Which lies in wait under dirt and grass For anyone who still has a nose to break. Maybe people should not beg for everything they want. And fighting for it, too, is a game. But where is it? Why should I get bloodied and beaten By some schlemiel as clumsy as me? And what is victory? A man chosen to be a hero Is also a corpse, and won’t be missed by whoever is counting. And who needs to come back to show at a parade That he had two legs And traded them—hop-hop—for two crutches, not knowing why? The merchant shouts that he’s the boss. And because one needs an open road To the fairs of the world—he placed 43 Jewish prayer book. 44 A triangular Purim cookie filled with poppy seeds. A hat made of a newspaper would be shaped as a
triangle.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern Cannons wherever there is A bar to his ship, a border to his train. The working man cries: He lacks a feather duster To reach miles away, to Rothschild’s table, And shovel into his mouth Food and wine. And the king on his throne Needs his cheek held when he has a toothache; And needs to be taught on a harp How to groan properly When the executioner’s blade doesn’t strike precisely in the middle Of the rebel’s gullet. But I—with all my blood and warm breath I reject everything that helps prepare for evil. No matter how right the slave against his master— A just murder is doubly unjust! And clearer yet: the sword out of its sheath, Even when defending, wants only to slaughter! And nothing else! I don’t deny: With our own two hands We needn’t build a jail here for ourselves. And bread is better than a crown. But he who sends us to be killed for it and calls it life’s reward— Is cursed by the cadaver of a soldier, by the dead gaze Of a martyr—his victim dangling on a rope. Just seeing this, is desolation. And only a thirsty man who’s out of his mind breaks his own jug. I know, so far your ear is a wall And to you I’m a dog, barking from a mile away. But I love you—you see—I want you, too, To raise a child when I’m no longer here. And sending prayers upward, Which reach the chimney on the roof and scare the smoke— That’s not for me. Only a pious character Will stand with folded hands while a shikse is on fire— 45 46 47 Give him the kreplakh meat of Heaven’s Wild Ox and a mitzvah-knish When he is a toothless corpse at Next-World’s feast. 45 Dumplings. 46 Shor ha-bor—promised to the Righteous in the world to come. 47 Mitzvah—good deed; knish—baked, filled pastry.
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322 Symbolism and Expressionism For me your growing here (life after my death) Is embers from hell on my daily bread. When you fall down, I wish I were the mud you clench in your teeth and fists; I wish the sun would take away its glow From the six feet of earth that soaks up Your blood, spilled in vain. But ashes, my remains, what do I care who you are, If even the worm crying up from the dust Has veins that tie him To everything in me that has to do with you. Like the sea-bottom to a ship, like grave-earth to grass, like the doorstep To every branch of a tree, stretching with the mountains to the sun. But drag the sky down from the world and take it to the market— What’s the use, if even the piece of earth we were given Is poisoned by our feet, like grain by nettles. We, the trinity of hate—plebs-prince-potentate, We here, eternal cannibal trapped in his own reeds. We here, a flock with necks and heads Like pots and empty bottles on all the stairs. We useless toys—like trash from a house, Hurled out of mother’s lap. So what if all this was invented By fear which helps the night To get us used to the long last sleep. What does the end— The earthworm crawling out of a corpse—have to do With you, the child—just out of mother’s lap! And what if this bundle of skin already Manages to carry to his own snout a piece of black bread? Who needs the eye, the keyhole in the door To my own darkness, which doesn’t stir inside me, Even when I demand One speck of dust of the days I staked At this gaming table, where you can win: The stoop that never straightens out! Who needs my numbness Like a corpse in his shroud
Moyshe-Layb Halpern Listening to my own breath—a wind that carries me away To be the cloud-mud in a marketplace, left over from a yearly fair! The blind man thinks: Oh my! The earth is a wheel! And he—in an empty wagon with unharnessed horses! He thinks that God should clear his birth-factory out of mother’s lap, For they forgot to give him eyeglasses when he came out of there. And if his stick fools him and he falls— The forest should make war on all the stones. And a telegraph pole should be there, to give the finger, From behind the oven, to the rain and to the snow. For him, stop up all mouths like broken windows, Because his enemy, the city-boss, eats dumplings from a pot— While he eats just a herring With seven onions big as fists! And ask the sucker, his cousin, what more does he see That he should ask for less! The bladder needs a river for a mirror And I—to see my own blindness—need you. And he wants a tornado as a switch to flog the fly That eats the dirt around his mouth because it’s hungry! The sucker thinks: for him stepmother Need Should spread jam on bread with a ladle. And since he wears a pious undergarment, one must stuff for him The treasures of the world like cabbage in a sack. And since the radish has a forelock and a big belly He needs one, too! And if the princess—his happiness, 48 Won’t spread her legs like a duck, nose in table, on Simchas Torah, One must snatch off (like a child’s underwear) One’s felt hat before the prince. And in front of his horses a pillar of fire shall burn the street, Bread, stock and herring barrel. And at the wedding of the tomcat and the goose—make way For him and for his peacock with the crooked legs! And death to the nightingale that intercedes When he wants to knock out the jester’s tooth.
48 The last day of Sukkot, the feast celebrating the end of the yearly cycle of Torah-reading in the
synagogue.
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324 Symbolism and Expressionism Right he is—if even cheese has holes, you don’t need a flute To step on the bride’s dress. 49
And the Sabbath should fall on a Thursday — So he won’t have to go to the bath. And not his billy goat at a neighbor’s flowerpot—the lord himself Should pay a fine for shaking his beard. 50
But swing a thunder like a rattle on a Purim night as much as you like— A bastard of Haman, overlooked by Ahasuerus, Is leader of the world. Evil—his commandment—is observed Even by the flea that wakes you up to seek God. And the sun and the stars here— A clock with no hands. And in the earth—go find the appendix Which hardens its refuse—the iron for the spear. And for me (oh, my word, don’t cast an evil eye!)— The trousers on a string and the drum on my belly And my own death-dread, rising with volcano smoke. And church and synagogue with gold on roof and door— For our world two searing abscesses, on top of the ulcer Called national pride! Forests supply whips and gallows-wood And flagpoles for a warship that lies at foreign shores Like an ink stain on a love letter. And parliaments—melting pots for our priest, the stock-market jester. Wherever there’s a Golden Calf, they dance around it like fish of prey in a net. And if our stepmother Earth lacks bread for us She replaces it with iron for a sword. And the toe of our boots shows the way To the light of life, where we are slaughtered. And if we lack the right measure of honey For this malice breaking us like glass— Then emerges, with two eyes like holes in snow, The world-Golem—the Messiah, who celebrates Consolation-birth with the shell of an egg. And a brother, flesh of my flesh, Sells him, like the skin of a calf, to death.
49 An allusion to the custom of washing once a week on Friday. 50 A noisemaker for Purim to drown out Haman’s name.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern May he be judged by the dark silence Of a madman who’s watching a bird dead in its cage; May his dead mother (even on his remorse-path) Follow him with a face like the last days Of Jerusalem’s ruin; And if afterward, in Caesar’s circus, A lion meets him, who leaves behind 51 Leftovers like a Rebbe: underwear bands and leggings— Don’t mix in. His slightest stir Smells of death worse than a death notice on a door In time of plague. It would be easier To run barefoot through a new-mown field To save a flying butterfly from a preying bird. But the one who hovers, bound to poles, with nails in his hands, Is lost! The clothes on him—less than on a streetwalker: Not even a bottle-stopper on his pierced body. And not merely the cloud above In the gleam of a city fire— The bedbug on our bodies, too, is red in the light— Like the sun at dawn, like measles-sunset on baby-skin! 52
And don’t tell me about one who sleeps, head on a stone, And sees angels white as sour cream walking down to earth. Not they, and not the dove of Noah’s flood, but the knife slash Slitting the gullet of a calf— Makes peace between The fire and the water on the stove. And soot—the vestige of all happiness— The chimney sweep will clean it out, like a house after a death. But he throws his broom down from the roof, Not like you hurling your head down from fences. It’s true, so far I can Press your bump with a knife And pour sugar on your tongue when you get hurt In that place that even a king needs to sit on his throne. But it’s not to send you a crate of chocolate That they register your birthday with precision! 51 Customarily, a Hasidic Rebbe ate first; his leftovers were given to his followers as a special favor. 52 An allusion to Jacob’s dream.
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326 Symbolism and Expressionism 53
Somewhere a tailorboy—one of the Thirty-Six Just, like you— Already bends over your soldier’s tunic— And may his hump accuse him for singing at his work! Anyway, they are already melting lead for rifles, And he who knows that there are no hands On the worldclock of sun and stars— May take his time and, Like a stargazer observing strange worlds from afar, Imagine his own pit, with flowers in a circle Like used-up sweeping-branches in the backyard of a bath. But I—my pain cries from a thousand open pits in a battlefield, Because I see as clearly as one and one are two, The truth of your play. If you wish— As mama lays out grapes for you on a platter— With your own hands that are too small To really hurt, lay out my words—the fear in me Calling out to you like a mute man shouting from a swamp. What do I want?—the rooster crowing Wakes people up to slaughter him for chicken fat! I want you to see in a drop of salt—my word— The whole sea; and to refuse to race, riding on a shark, 54 After ships that carry bread to Hotseplots and bring back cotton! Your drowning Won’t add beauty to the pearls in the depths, And he who longs for wind and song of waves May listen to bells and charity boxes at a funeral. And if the President—who is everyone’s father, only God knows how— Should call, let him go first, to see That sky-plum and hungry-face are blue In the enemy’s country, too! And that a deathfield Is everywhere (even without dead bodies) an ornament for the world. And the widows—like parcels with blurred addresses On beds at night—don’t forget them either! And let his men who helped the pimps go idle— Cut up the banners and sew shirts For children who trudge hungry to the wisdom-stables 53 The Lamed-Vov, or Lamed-vovniks—36 just men, modestly hidden among us—are the pillars of the
world. 54 A Yiddish equivalent to Oshkosh; implying a distant place, the end of the world.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 327 55
To learn (like chickens for the Atonement ritual) to be worthy of the slaughter-bank. And he can hire himself out to a shoemaker. Ruling is not a craft. It is old-fashioned, like a squeak in new shoes. And not only crowns are worthless! The sun is here to bring light into our heads, Yet a top hat will not let through one drop of air— Thus says medicine, Which protects even a fly so the spider won’t get sick, Because we need spiderweb for science, as Caesar’s patriot 56 Needed pork on Jehovah’s altar. And blood spilt in vain can be diverted to the Hebrews. All he has to do is wash his hands like Pilate 57 And at your table eat (if it’s the Sabbath) gefilte fish, Which is sweet like guests as long as they’re fresh. But he must watch out not to choke on a bone, This may bring so much joy—that your friend, the little Negro, Will go dancing. That’s how he rejoiced When they burned his father alive— Two years ago, as he walked by a bakery, the smell of bread Struck his nose—and he said “Good Morning” to a white broad. 2 I know, the soapbubble—before it bursts up high— Must first be beautiful. But—what kind of light do you see in the soldier’s trench To make you leave your parents at home Like shards of a jar at a poisoned well in the plain? A bird has his tree, a spider his net, I have green bile— The mold on your stone—the watchman of your rest— Who looks at me like you and won’t respond like you! The wise man and the city clock know clearly that he who loses 58 An eighth day mourning a death, has gone mad. I do not drag my grief to a court of justice!—My dark life shuts up Even when they hit me more than I deserve!
55 On Yom Kippur, a chicken is slaughtered for man’s sins. 56 A reference to the desecration of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans. 57 A Jewish ground fish dumpling. 58 After the seven days of mourning.
328 Symbolism and Expressionism But our clarity—Oh, tangle, you my silent helper, collect The madness of the world and hurl it on top Of this brain—the wisdom-source of my hundred and fifty pounds Of broken health— And ask the long johns round me if I feel tight in them Because our country beginning with summer soil and ending in snow Is not yet big enough. Is it my fault that our smoke and soot overflow Do not yet blacken the Pacific up to the top hat of god Confucius. And if a gut with Witzli-Putzli-oil is not yet laid as far as us I need to flay the vest of a Hindu And drink the juice Of all the nuts that grow in Hawaii. And if a stink of oil Comes from a cat on some balcony, it is a sign the Ganges is on fire. And then, with mugs in hand, we must Rush from Gibralter through Lemberdreck To the North Sea, and trampled breadfields with bedclothes and abandoned bundles Are a sign of victory. And hooray to the veteran! They’re already bringing For your wooden legs a retribution, from Honolulu to Paris— The Cactus Dance. And from the Vatican 59 To Yoyzel’s grave, they’re whoring with the nuns in a train. 60
And you world whipper, my bath Goy, slap my belly. The secretary at the Ministry of the Mountains of Darkness Has prepared a wallet for himself. And if you bring him gold from the city latrine, he will reveal to you how to travel 61 To the Future State—not far from the Sambatyon River Where three red little Jews—not to be recognized— Cover their circumcisions with their hands, And, pretending they’re thirsty, they bite their own tongues out At the fraternal blood that gushes from every stone like Moses’s desert spring. But may a thunder strike a wolf in the forest! He’s not yet five summers old, 62 And can still be a son-in-law feeding on a healthy wet-nurse, And I for him—a sack of poison to be tossed over the fence On the head of a “Blue Jacket.”—But he deserves it; he is devoted 59 A diminutive nickname for Jesus, i.e. Palestine. 60 Flogs the naked bodies in a public steam bath on Sabbath. 61 The Sambatyon River rests on the Sabbath. Beyond it are presumably the ten lost tribes of Israel. 62 In very early marriages, the son-in-law, still a boy, lives with his in-laws.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern 329 To stargazing at high noon. And ask him (as big and as thick as he is) Why a mother had to have so much trouble with him.— A wife among the Chinese with a belly half of his in weight Brings to the world half a dozen kids And he—because he can whistle—stuff him with delicacies Like a barren young woman, And dream up (when you see him) sausage for the bread For a marketful of Goyim, still there should remain a pinch For an orphan on the side, crying for he wants too. But he—even smoke turns into nothing up above. He (when he sees my gold in the wind—your head) Turns into marmalade leaking from a cracked pot. And even something better— A wholesale store full of birds sings out of him from that same hole That is filled with curses and almost like the halo on the wall of a church Around a saint—lights up his goiter—our treasure. And if you say “good morning” to him after lunch, around four o’clock, He will order the sun to return—to be fair to you. And his laughter, with paws in his lap— A lion roaring in a circus from inside a drum. But in reality—not just the hatred With hot lead guarding our street from injustice, But a log you pull out of the fire with your bare hands Forgets it must kill you when it burns. And the sliver of glass, and the serpents in a clay pit—your palace— Cannot be one hair sweeter than them.— And this is not a father’s hooray, But the riddle like a bone in your gullet. I say to you clearly: Not God! Your mama in her longing for salvation from his nasty grace, Gave him her heart—here, take, She said, and do something with it— And let it be beautiful. And only then, when in his grief he covered His eyes with both hands—did he see his world, How ugly it is—and created you. Now we bear in us his mud for a couple of years To boast (at the heap of earth awaiting us) with you. And what a joy—your mama, when you cut a tooth, Looks almost like our grandpapa the holy Abraham, When he watched the “Troika” of arsonists on their way to Sodom. And Sara—when she was a child—
330 Symbolism and Expressionism Looked younger Than I—when I hear the ringing Of the doorbell calling to pay for your milk. And in order to sew my pants here (already sheer as glass) They took the measure of somebody else. Luck too is a broad—it mocks him 63 Who comes with gold of sun and dust—a barefoot Ba’al-Shem-Tov. And I—aside from my treasure you—have everything. A tongue in my mouth, A head with hands and feet—but on my vest The chain of the magnate is missing, as under me his horse That should carry me—to see the wonders of the world: A caravan dying in a firestorm in the desert, A white bear on ice—a leg of an ancient martyr’s table, A stone lion kissing a lamb—in his gullet—carved By some poor so-and-so who, for that truth, deloused himself and sweated 64 Seven years round the pyramids and fourteen at the Wall — At the hump of the octopus-monster, the Holy Land Drawing to itself with paws of roads and paths the peoples of the earth, To push them with Torah-Cross-Crescent—Shields against the sword. And over your lapel the heroism—a general’s uniform To spite the one who has a double hernia and an ambition for you To grow up here a Dwarfexander-Bonaparte, Who has no time—because of his murder business To eat the rat—he caught with his own hands, When they burned at his orders half of the globe’s bread. 3 I know that for the chronicler here who has to make a living too— I am the fox who sours the grapes up above. The postman is wiser—he sees in me the dark mishmash Pushed into his pocket before Christmas. But as the city madman—my prophet—why does he need To see my name on paper—that every nerve in me Is a bent figure dragging on his knees To the holy Pope who is waiting for God’s sake for gallows’s happiness. And what is Nero’s name for the world? Where do you find A ruler shining brighter than this child? Why doesn’t the tyrant Come to learn how to subdue 63 The legendary founder of Hasidism was a popular healer. 64 The Wailing Wall—Jewish holy place in Jerusalem.
Moyshe-Layb Halpern All the nations, as he does his united mama and me! Why don’t we see the pot and the bottle, the two soldiers And his war game that doesn’t hurt a soul? But like a sinking ship your voice drowns. The fog in the sea multiplies the fear a thousand times. You stand on ground—and what you see is here, Your third eye—to see salvation is nowhere here. And you’re struggling in vain for rest.—Your ear hears inside you A stray dog scratching at the door. And help the bird sing his grief—be your friend— He will not fly into your hand. And the wind did not sew into His pocket your thimble of joy. The day is a picture book—no answer there— Even for a grown-up, not a hint of a word! Moreover—split the thinnest ray— Your longing for goodness—a fox tearing out of a trap— Will kill itself a moment earlier, and there is no thirteen o’clock— Dreamt up in children’s wonderland.—Just your neighbor is here Who slaughters his pig with his own hands And can slaughter you too when he’s drunk on good wine. So far, it’s not a millstone he’s throwing on your head, But a cigar butt—and is angry too that you don’t open Your mouth at that, so he (as Moses to himself) burns your tongue. And horse and car in the street—a signal for me To make an acrobatic leap— The fly on me will have to take care of herself.
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Berish Vaynshteyn (1905–1967)
also: Berysh Weinstein
vaynshteyn’s first book of poetry, Brukhshtiker (Junk—literally, “broken pieces,” New York, 1936), with its rough surface, elliptical and uncouth syntax, Galician dialectical expressions, and rich naturalistic American details in a surrealist composition, was a tour de force of expressionistic poetry about the lower depths of New York. Vaynshteyn was born in Reyshe (Rzeszow), Galicia, then in the Austrian Empire. At eighteen he went to Vienna, and at twenty he settled in New York. As with many of his contemporaries, the Holocaust brought him back to writing about his hometown in the old country and its Hasidic milieu. Vaynshteyn’s trilogy of epic, book-length poems encompasses his three homelands: Reyshe (1947), America (1955), and In King David’s Estates (1960), this last work describing Israel as the imaginary biblical land of his childhood and the land in which his children settled. The poems of Broken Pieces (1936) were included in Vaynshteyn’s better known book of Poems (1949). They were, however, severely edited and lost some of their original roughness as well as a number of important descriptive details. Here the original text has been restored.
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Berish Vaynshteyn
Broken Pieces (1936) On the Docks On stone floors lie heavy ropes with steel anchors, Crates, bales and high piles of bulging sacks. Chests with rich, brass locks lie scattered about, Oil barrels and hooped wooden casks filled with reinforced concrete, And the walls give off a cool smell of goods from foreign lands. Wide cargo-ships pull in from Cherbourg and Le Havre With dark French faces of young sailors, Agile and light for climbing on high ropes. Their endless voyages have taught them to read signs of clouds and storms and trains, They know how to call their signals out at night in the winds of the sea. Poles, Negroes, Italians, and sturdy Jews load merchandise; Their shoulders carry sharp hooks, on their waists hang bundles of food, Their clothes: leather aprons, rough burlap shirts. The strongest have tense bellies, powerful hands with thick fingers, Their skin, torn by ropes and nailed crates, Is yellow and coarse, cracking like the hooves of horses. Ships from foreign places anchor at the docks, thrust the waters into the wind. Immigrant faces disembark, Germans and Jews with frightened children, On their clothes hang pinned-on names of a relative, of a street; The faces are mute behind iron spikes, behind the heavy cold of bars, Bars of disciplined fear before uniforms and rigid calendar-destiny. On stone floors lie heavy ropes with steel anchors, Familiar baskets with scattered seals of borders and countries. At the docks the pavement is shining, eroded by footsteps and cargo-carts. From the harbor looms the dark mist of a railway station, panes grow heavy with evening, And the walls give off a cool smell of goods from foreign lands.
Sailors Sailors have hearts that yearn for trains and crowds and cities; Their eyes hold the wildness of the sea, the farness of countries.
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334 Symbolism and Expressionism Out of longing—over their beds hang pictures of port cities, Photographs of a laughing girl, smarter than an older sister. In bed, when the flesh is hard, sailors think with ease Of flowery garters on young knees, restlessly slender, And of stiff corsets which make breasty the ripeness of a girl’s body. Somewhere on the sea, their faces silver toward the moon on a holiday night; Sitting on the floor in white jackets, their legs folded like Chinese, With hot lips, one hugging the other hard like a woman, Their melodies break forth through the hoarse air, the memory of a mother Who wanders around, stooped over, with heavy baskets on both arms, Peddling through foreign port-cities, her eyes lifted to the sky, Seeking the face of a son, a daughter, in the rising smoke of ships. Mothers of sailors are tiny, weak women, caressing the earth with their steps. They are used to giving the world strong sons and healthy daughters. Their menfolk are tall and broad, with hairy hands, Heavy, red noses, angry eyebrows and rough, wild beards. Sailors have hearts that yearn for crowds and trains and cities. In cities they stroll, dressed up in round, white collars, In blue uniforms, and wide long trousers over thin legs. With the wildness of the sea they lust for girls with bashful eyes, Who sit deep in their laps, legs crossed, with trembling knees. Hands that anchor ships lie heavily on restless hips of girls, On hot shoulders and narrow cleavages in warm, transparent silk; Wild kisses gnaw at the roots of their breasts, at the fingers of their hands, And cool off the dazzle of their knees in the evening rustle of July leaves. The ripeness of beautiful daughters is bleeding in port-cities.
My Street—Sheepshead Bay Rain. Dark night. Winds rinse away the noise of heavy wetness. Gutters clatter in a rush of water over noble asphalt. Wet sidewalks shimmer colorfully in the reflected light of shop windows. Cars stream swift, slippery and light. Whipped-up foam in the wake of their wheels. Rain. Shadows of bare trees on evening windows. Rusty fields, cluttered with junk, And railroad tracks humming with steel distances.
Berish Vaynshteyn Pedestrians sloshing through drenched wastes, Fishermen with rods thrown over their shoulders, In coarse jackets, rain swelling on their faces. Quiet steam rises from the side-streets and touches the frost of the stones. Pieces of ice break submissively underfoot. The fishing harbor smells of damp coal-grease, tar and rotting logs. A lost seabird stirs the late darkness of the shore. In the fishing huts smoulder bleak lamps, December nights, Tin tubs plastered with blood. Calloused hands pound heavily with wet shears and long wide knives. Shrimp clamber on ice, climb easily over the rim of a basket, Fish swim, calm and sorted; leeches—thin and foaming. Raw fisherwomen, soaked in salt and wind, cold and coffee, With laughing faces and taut breasts straining warm bodices, Scrub the fishboards with cold water and put out the lights in the huts. Ships depart in the dark from evening docks and plow the waters. The waves pick up the light of ship-borne lanterns, Foam up the shore and push the ships off their moorings.
Negroes Negro Village The sky blooms cold and starry over Negro huts. Waters run off the mild snow, freeze thinly into ice. Chimneys rise smoking and dark, kerosene lamps flicker in the windowpanes, And through the windows Negroes sing on a Sunday in the Negro village. A Negro village on a Sunday winter-evening feels like home. Black flesh in hot silk, lurking on roads for a Negro boy And fleeing passionately with swaying hips from frenzied hands, Through neighboring fields that stand hard and heavy with approaching wind. In the Negro village, wise are the Negroes who know of big cities, Who wear clothes of city cut and the wound of a savage knife. From their feet moves rhythmical jazz, gliding and light over the floor. Negresses sit bashfully on their knees, with open laps.
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336 Symbolism and Expressionism In each yard, before each threshold, calm dogs lie quietly, Their necks bald, tied to a stray piece of scrap. They are merciful to the passer-by; they eat out of a stranger’s hand; A man who stops at night in the Negro village feels at home with them. In the forest, far beyond the Negro village, far beyond the Negro cemetery, Fires smoulder and cast shadows on broad faces, on heavy copper hands. Axes wave gleefully over trees, in the transparent smoke, Sharp branches break and slivers splinter dryly in the night. A cross stands here as everywhere, a church as everywhere. But in the cemetery a black undertaker, a black priest, black corpses. A funeral with raised arms, wailing before an open grave in a lamenting prayer, And a chill smell of dug-up earth with a fresh coffin, the fresh body of a child. The village mourns in drinking, in awe and in mild stammering. No one swears at anybody, on all lips a quiet greeting. A memorial candle on the highway lights up “Lincoln’s” face in bright mourning And his protective eyes look down on the Negro village. The moon rises scattered on the windows, scattered over the roofs, The panes light up with a greenish chill, foamy like evening waters in the wind. In sad mirrors emerges undressed a sudden body, Brown-and-heavy grow the houses, dense with warm Negro smell. The morning dawns over meager fields. Babies lie dirty in their cradles. Doves move lazily, beat dryly with their wings and hum in low nests. Negro nuns, clad like white ones, sadly open every door And leave behind them a quiet bit of food, a warm undershirt, a clean blouse. From the Negro village, cripples trudge off and scatter over alien cities, Some that are mute or blind take with them a child, a wife, to help them beg. And those with washed-out faces, with bloodshot eyes and protruding lips, Stand pitifully at street corners, sink in drinking and die wisely.
Negro Geo’ge Early morning smoke smoulders over a city field in a December dawn, Alien smoke fueled by a Negro boy fresh from a Negro village. From his tent blows hoarfrost, the chill of rusty tin; On a pile of gathered wood, clothes are drying, a vest and a shirt from home.
Berish Vaynshteyn In the city he walks around in the heavy wind, lost and belonging to no one. His steps scatter in the snow, dripping cold falls from his eyes, On his face glooms the light of lanterns, the tease of shop windows. No one greets him; they don’t even ask him how to find a street. Unbuttoned, in a stray felt hat that a blizzard blew off somebody’s head, He strides past elegant gutters and collects cigarette butts; With a good heart, he drops them at back-doorsills where beggars sleep. Those who are wounded and weak—he takes them home to the city field. His lips are sad like the Negro village and curse the fear of the city. The blood of father Patterson, the legend of his grandfather, is silent in him. His body flinches from the whip that drove his grandfathers to market. They saw death in the face of the sun. In cottonfields they died out blackly. Enraged, he went to the city to shape everyone like himself. His limbs burst to create people dark as his legend, Black as his mother, as his sister, the seed is wild in him To fertilize a woman to bear many bodies for a black world. But New York is stronger than a legend, people like him die without mourning, And again he must dawn at the market for someone to hire him for a warm meal. He becomes gracious to his neighbors standing with him in the sun And his limbs don’t burst anymore so hotly but grow soft with forgiveness. The city cooled the fire of his eyes and his village homeyness, Now he is full of pity, wears a sad face, young-sprouting hair, And brightens like a legend with a hidden vengeance for the fathers from Carolina. At night he rises like a dream and anoints himself for the black savior. Under a murky sky without sun, without clouds, mild with heavy wet snow, His hands are mud in garbage bins. They dig up a useful piece of junk, A cast-off shoe, a forgotten garment, or wood from upturned earth. Before his tent, a heap of clothes waiting to feed a man from the cold. Drifters, women, black and white, trudge to his tent in the field, And he has no god for them, he would not take any prayer from them, He has only the gift of giving away the bit of saved-up food from people’s garbage. His talk is like that of all Negroes, with no consolation, but with a heart of pity. Though the sun leaning on his tent is like the sun in the village, It is still the sun that leads him among walls in the bright city
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Symbolism and Expressionism And throws him into a noisy corner with a stupid face and begging lips, And his eyes look for a man coming out of the cold to sell him his shirt from home.
Laundry White-tin chimneys shimmer in midday under a high sun, Make the street commercial, the Hudson and the harbors big-city-like. The laundry at the Hudson is covered with chimneys, all smoking at once, They shout wildly to the street and above smoke-filled foreign-import docks. Heavy windows, on their panes settles the mist of steaming wash. Negro hands scrub off the smell of dirt, shirts become white and elegant. The hardness of bleached linen glows whiter under black hands, Bosoms bend blackly from the irons and touch the homeyness of strangers’ underwear. It’s dark. Walls heavy with sweat, streaming like rocks in fog. There is only the light reflected from white hung-out sheets. In such light, dark sweat pours out on elbows and faces. On ropes—white fear; open eyes look mutely into nowhere. Wide eyes, flaring noses over full lips and thick fleshy waists. Irons carry the force of Negro arms, the agility of young fingers; Collars run off stiff with fast steam like warm dust in the wind. At midday the laundresses cheer up, sad and cool on the sidewalk. In the hour of high sun they long peacefully for the Negro village. No sign whether their faces have gotten pale or wasted. When they grow leaner, their noses are wider, lips hang heavier. Negroes have a habit of changing their skin when they bleed. In the dark abyss of wetness, cauldrons flame with a zesty glow and heat; Naked arms from bare hairy chests throw wet coals. From the heavy fire their bodies gleam against the open heat, seared in the blaze. Their scorched skins crack dryly after each bow of the shovel. Above red shoulders warm belts drive wildly over steel and drip with grease; Fresh drops incessantly drip and spread on the temples of Negroes, And you don’t know if it’s oil that flows or sweat that breaks out, Their bodies glisten anyway like copper—like the skin on all Negroes.
Berish Vaynshteyn 339 The cauldrons boil with an odor of worn linens and smell of bed, of flesh. Wet woman-hands count carefully damp heaps of laundered bundles. Silk blouses off white shoulders, off smooth cleavages and flat breasts, Still carry traces of subtle perfume, stains of lust and champagne. In the laundry on the Hudson, the freshness of Negro village children falls apart. So much heat weakens their breath and opens their mouths in quiet panting. They long for comfort, for pity, with lots of mercy they bless their grandfather Patterson And sing over the irons the Sunday songs of the Negro village. When ships smoulder with peaceful smoke and distant light over the evening Hudson, They circle, alien, in strange clothes, with eyes that scare street-corners, And take in the homeyness of every street, of street lamps and strangers’ laughter. Sometimes they reach out a hand to bandage the wound of a bum, or a drunkard.
Harlem Negroes Evenings that sometimes forget to light up the stars over Harlem’s sky Stream off the El with dark rain and steel rot And take a wet heavy Negro father home to his family, And in his home the walls steam with the inviting smell of cooking. Hands that pull furniture through high windows, pull curtains to close off a bedroom And lust for wide beds, for a taut corset filled with black flesh. In the darkness at night all bodies anyway are black and wild, And Negroes themselves know which face of a Negress is beautiful. From such a night, from such a simple passion grow Harlem Negro guys; Daughters who know, like white girls, how to shake a hip at a man in the street And can tense their body, thrust a provocative breast under silk brassieres Rhythmically at drunk men, with the hot song of Negro melodies. Harlem Negro guys are more city-wise than others of everywhere New York. They are pale-skinned and always wear pressed pants, lacquered shoes, Cuffs with mother-of-pearl buttons, fresh collars on a dark-shaved neck, And on their fingers elegant rings, clever manners after white copulation.
340 Symbolism and Expressionism
Lynching White wild hands snare you with a stray rope, And a July tree crucifies your Negro neck, In its heavy ripeness, in its full bloom. In the thick of green leaves the branch is more pliant, It does not break with the weight of a noose. Your neck with marks of the hangman’s fingers—blots in the sun. Leaves break out in dew and sway gently as ever And don’t feel that they are shaken by the wind of a hanged man. You hang black in flayed clothes. Your drooping shame dies open and young. The extinguished lips sag thickly And the dazzle of your strong teeth—a mute challenge to all eyes. Your singing prayer wept so mournfully to God, But he won’t appear to you, his legs burst, his nailed hands, He cannot even open an eye with a tear for you Or accept your last word as a confession—He’s crucified Himself. Negro ! Your body blossoms on a summer day though you hang, though you no longer see the sun, Your wife making her evening bed on a back doorstep in a street Or your father, counting pieces of suet in the morning on a meat wagon. Negro, the fate of destruction fell not only on you. Many, many die like you. Such a death is now in fashion, Like this they now die everywhere — — — In Wedding, in Leopoldstadt, and in Carolina.
Guys of the Volye Guys of the Volye Guys of the Volye, the strongest in town! Fiery guys, with thick forelocks over their eyes, With ruddy butcher faces and shoulders that carry slaughtered calves. Wedding—Part of Berlin, where the Nazis crushed the Communist resistance in 1933. Leopoldstadt in Vienna, where the socialist uprising was crushed in 1934. A Polish name for a suburb, meaning a free area, out of bounds, beyond the city limits.
Berish Vaynshteyn
They have rough hands from porging calves, their clothes gleam from skinning carcasses, They smell of slaughterhouse, of fresh blood, of butcher shop and raw meat. On a holiday they like to dress up in soldier uniforms, Jackets with brass buttons, raised high collars, And leather visors tilted sideways like officers. Jodhpurs, lacquered boots, daggers in the boottops, They stroll with their brides in cadence to the beat of silver spurs. They have mouths like their mothers, petty peddlers Who slump with fruit in the cold marketplace And know how to swear an evil curse; From blowing firepots, they have parched lips, Their clothes rot from baskets, sacks and rain, And their nails are sharp and can draw blood. Guys of the Volye, of fathers with carriages that drive to the railroad station And horses that run free to pasture in strangers’ meadows. Their talk smells of brandy with the dry odor of cheap tobacco; They are not ashamed to kick their mother, their father, their sisters, And to sleep with the women of a brothel. From too many women, their walk is slovenly, And from being awake long nights their eyes drip. On Polish winter nights, their sisters wander about And love the love at a street-gate under falling snow. From a wanton guy, their breasts open up for sucklings, And they become mothers in the murky light of a street-lamp. Guys of the Volye, the strongest in town! Fiery guys, with thick forelocks over their eyes, With ruddy butcher faces and shoulders that carry slaughtered calves. From porging calves they have rough hands, their clothes gleam from skinning carcasses, They smell of slaughterhouse, of fresh blood, of butcher shop and raw meat.
Jewish ritual cleansing of the arteries of slaughtered animals. To warm themselves in the cold weather, women in the marketplace would sit on firepots with glowing coals. The coals needed occasional blowing to keep the glow alive.
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Slaughter Chilly walls with sharp steel hooks. Long, narrow blood troughs of red cement. On the hooks hang calves with slit throats; Lungs and livers stick out of cut-open bellies And from under brows eyes gaze as if alive. Blood drips fast, steam rises from the dripping. Flies swarm in the wide nostrils of carcasses. Men, who have the heart of a butcher, skin the hide, Porge, cut the veins out of the fat. Butchers with heavy sticks beat the bones of the oxen. They rip open their muzzles, and count the years in their teeth. In the slaughterhouse the cattle cry like people; And he who slaughters calms the crying with a knife.
Dogs of Dawn Dogs of dawn—lean, tall, quiet and fearful, Who have a habit of walking apart on a tranquil highway, Dogs that lick dried blood off a butcher shop wall, Their tongues are hot and can thaw a frozen butcher rope. Dogs of lust in blizzards, dogs of wild squabbling over a bone, On their backs, bitten hides are peeling, torn by rusty garbage. They roam with a wounded leg in the cold over hardened fields, With tracking noses over forest trails, in the footsteps of an avid hunter. On dark sidewalks, their tongues foam, their eyes bulge glaring. Their tails stiffly alert for coupling with a house-dog till the night is over. Dogs at dawn—lean, tall, quiet and fearful; From a sudden blow in the wind, they flee in fear. In the winter, when frost breaks the steps in the street and the moon makes the snow slippery Steam rises from their hides as from a winterpane on a sunny day. At dawn their noses are white, puffed-up with frost, and sharp for raw meat. They die sadly—stiff from cold or from sticks, in a dirt-covered gutter.
Berish Vaynshteyn 343
New York Everywhere Sheep in New York On their hides one can still see the calm of sunny mountains, And in their eyes the faded language of a mild shepherd. New York trucks run with them light, crowded and mute, Their necks leaning on each others’ shoulders, Their woolly heads huddling against bellies for fear of New York. Ropes tie several necks together, by flock, by weight. When the wool is shorn, they shiver in a white January over a Manhattan bridge; No one will turn an eye to them or stroke their backs with his hand, In the speed of New York they sense the wild road to the slaughterhouse, And sheep-mercy falls apart silently over the speeding road to the butcher-knife. *
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Four times a hundred sheep hang down to the ground, their throats blood-filled. The walls of the slaughterhouse are plastered with reflected sun, Knives feverish and nimble in the hands of red-faced men; But they don’t skin the hides of sheep, they merely hollow out their bellies, Butchers here are in the habit of hanging up a carcass as a live sheep in the butcher shops. Sheep in New York are easily overlooked, though they are driven in open trucks, Because most of them are gray, and gray does not change the color of the walls here. New York is too big to mourn for sheep, or even for cattle that bellow. The wonder of such a city falls frightfully upon them, their eyes filled with fear. Here their hooves do not raise dust behind them—one single day from shepherd to knife.
Mangin Street Here too there are guys like the guys of the Volye. Though in their clothes they look decent, clean and slender, They have gentle faces and hands with soft nice fingers That want to play with amber pistols and not with carcasses.
344 Symbolism and Expressionism Guys of Mangin Street have a heart that lusts to kill a man; They’re always talking of murder-blood and know how to outsmart strict uniforms. Peeling pictures from Italy still hang in their dark houses. Alien to them is their mother’s eternal sorrow, their father’s language from home. They are sons of fathers who plod in the mornings to the docks with thickveined hands Or stand wet in dug-out pits and throw up shovels of deep earth. Tired as their fathers, the sons fall ragged in their clothes on the bed in a New York dawn; And from their sleep blows a foamy sour smell of embraced women. When twilight covers the panes of their houses, the mothers go out to the street And overturn rich garbage bins where cats feed cleverly in the refuse. Their daughters have a weakness for silk and for guys like their brothers Who can see the blood of a murderer’s wound run drunkenly in a New York dawn.
People Who Talk to Themselves On the shore of the sidewalks they walk apart with downcast eyes, And with bundles under their arms they smile at the gutters, They roam over vacant lots, pet cats or dogs in the garbage, Out of love, they collect food for them and talk to them as to people. From eternal outside, their clothes get crumbly, scorched in the sun, Their faces bearded and prickly, from under their hats peeps a stale tuft of hair, Right on their hairy bodies they wear plain burnooses, frayed, without buttons, With high pockets filled with boxes and silly pieces of iron. On chilly twilight steps of quiet churches they doze with open mouths, Their warm steam has the rusty smell of junk and backyards; Their forearms still show hair-covered seals of crosses and loving girls, With their gnawed skins and battered temples they scare a decent passer-by. Once their eyes lusted, when a woman’s first gown bled, And they followed their wife with a child gotten at night with a stranger, Now they wander around with their faces to the ground and nothing amazes them, In shoes with untied laces, one of one color one of another, and talk to themselves.
Berish Vaynshteyn 345 At night they look for a bit of intimacy in a shop window and talk to a lamppost. Every day their brow puffs up, hard and swollen, at times blood over their face. Flies, that hate sweetness and buzz only on hides and scabs, Cluster on their wounds when they sleep sprawled out in the open city. Genteel passers-by quickly give way to their drunken trudge. Girls avoid them, girls who sit at twilight on stoops with loosely combed hair, Legs apart and a tight breast longing for a rendezvous. ........................................ People like them die some day on a city bench or under the clatter of a signboard.
Division Street Cellars with collected sorted jackets gloom in tallow candles. From the floor blows a stale rag-stench of heaps of used clothes. Horses, wagons with white mould, unhitched on twilight asphalt. Cats lie down intimately in cold laps of passing tramps. On quiet walls wounded people drip fresh blood every day; At night they stand close, two by two, and warmly look in each other’s eyes, Their jackets carry slept-in creases from crates and ledges, From their footsteps blows the rust of dusty thresholds and neglected locks. In the sun, slumping Negroes quietly mend their clothes. Negresses, lame or blind, with no appeal for a decent Negro, Carry their coupling away and get big with drunkenness in their chewed-up bodies; At dawn they come back with caved-in faces and pensive silence. When such a street grows dark, the doorsills grow hot with passionate bodies. Girls, just starting to ripen, struggle with the lust in their laps, And with young-glowing eyes, they calm their hands under a boy’s shirt, Settled straw mattresses hung out on balconies reveal wild nights. Cellars with collected sorted jackets gloom in tallow candles. In the shop-windows lie served-out uniforms of decorated soldiers, Cold canteens and old rifles tell of shot-up fields; And in the fields sink barbed wires, severed heads and mud-covered eyes.
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Junk Warm junk rusts on sunny fields of drained earth. Silent, iron-pickers bend busily in the hot rust, Burdened with coarse sacks, their hands torn from sharp tin; Rusty scars crack their fingers, palms yellowed with dust, Quiet moss greens on their clothes, worn luster on their collars. Wherever junk is strewn, grass grows high and wild. Wet, lazy snakes slink off from underfoot on a rainy day. Sunk solidly in the earth: a severed part of a truck, a bent signboard And an abandoned god-figure, no longer drawing the eye of a passer-by But a rare prayer of a neighbor when a child dies in his hands. Over such fields roam Negro mothers, boys and silly fathers, Bent in autumn, in frost or in the July sun; In twilight their hands, their steps, smell like dust after a summer rain, Their shoes carry the odor of coal-grease, glass, and wild stones, Their lips dribble with heavy saliva, sticky froth, and quiet words. Horses in meager skins pull debris with tense steps into the sunset. Pickers on the wagons sort the junk into awkward heaps, Piled-up wire skeins lie pressed and high and grate rustily; Behind the wheels walk slowly dusty shoes, dangling hands, Picking up a nail, a screw, dropped by the threshing of heavy wheels. At night the ruins of junk grow dark like field, like forest, Pieces with saved-up luster rise coolly in the moon. One can still stumble on a forgotten sack, a picker’s important piece of iron, Or pass by a clever lair made up by a leftover man, Who checks his clothes, mends a shirt, a shoe, for the morning. Pickers’ huts stand boarded-up with a stray piece of wood, a found door. On the roofs of gathered tin sheets lies the white light of a mid-month night. Dried-out bodies steeped in rust seek night on the cold earth; Painted windows of genteel neighbors lend homeyness to their eyes, their nights, And their lips dribble with heavy saliva, sticky froth, and quiet words.
New York Everywhere 1 Bridges hang stretched with cool fear on steel ropes. Feverish boats at the shores rise in crumbling smoke
Berish Vaynshteyn 347 Sometimes to a searing sun, sometimes to a frosty moon, And break out in high fog over Manhattan. New York grows dim and damp like London. Summery roofs darken steaming and bodies lust on doorsills. Along chilled sidewalks gutters flow garbagey, foamy and fast. And through stifling windowpanes, faces disintegrate in overflowing sweat, Infants lie hot, bundled in diapers, and torture their mothers’ breasts. The city clamors sweepingly like trains through forest stretches. Wide wheels raise the smell of gas from the highways, Steps plod loosely in melted tar on a summer day And leave behind bubbly footprints. Men in sweat-soaked shirts rein in the walk of dray horses, And the wagons are loaded with bales, wood and barrels. Negroes thrust out their shoulders for flour-sacks, for skinned meat; And they smell of many odors, spices, kerosene, and wool. Ladies on elegant avenues parade past summery window displays With little parasols and light reticules on refined elbows, Through their blouses breathes the chilly perfume of bare breasts. Merchants and chauffeurs trip up the rush of foreign tourists. 2 Streets under rails, under reinforced concrete, lie steel-hard. From heaviness, the earth sometimes moves underfoot. Buildings reach out pointed with humid light into the night; In the day their cupolas shimmer freshly like silver-dazzle And spurt sun into eyes and display windows. Factory chimneys stick out scorched with sooty peaks between the rooftops. Stokers in the sun climb easily, oilcans in their hands, And in the factories windy belts run, overgrown with wild-dust, Wheels whirl freshly on greased axles and bleed oil. It smells of warm scraps of cloth-fabrics, steam of iron presses, Arms sweat hairily, and fingers pull cool stitches through linen. Frightened faces pale in steel and glitter with a cold glow, And breasts for sucklings lean with open roots on machines. In harsh light, eyelids squint with creases of soft swelling. Windows opposite are open with summer and invite with bright longing, Hot sunset on the windowpanes stirs desire for the street, for a child at home, And low clouds in the distance glow transparently like lumps of rock.
348 Symbolism and Expressionism 3 Digging bulldozers strike sparks and crumble damp earth. Pylons of black steel descend swampily under rhythmic pounding, After every thrust, a rebounding echo bounces back And springs burst in the abyss, hands are dusty with rust and cement. Lifts rush up with boards, cornices and sacks of cement And rough hands nimbly toss glowing rivets. Ropes haul buckets of burnt lime, gravel and mortar; Raw walls darken coolly with fresh iron, whitewash and peeled boards. Evenings boil in hot cauldrons of tar, faces take on the light of lamps. Loins, girt with wires, sink into pits with armored eyes. In the tunnels, pipes crack in the glow and break off hotly. Leaping pitch and gas-bottles flash in the swift light-dazzle. 4 When the gutters rustle with falling leaves and smell of broken branches, Flames of winds bend to boyish faces on evening corners, Beggars warm up from the day, drunkards lick their wounds; Through their summer clothes frostily blows a dry cold. Steamed-up window displays are coated in thin frost and change into white trees. The streets lie cold and friendly, scarves flutter, woolly, on a skating rink. Girls’ legs swish slenderly on skates and glide young on the ice; Their faces warm and easy rush with hot breasts in inflated blouses, Winds hone their open knees and their breath smells of frost and gliding. Billboards blink from rooftops with warm light-colors on street-faces, Late trams rumble with a pure sound and uncanny light, Last passengers stray in avenues with a street number in their fingers. From a corner somewhere shuffles a cripple on his knees to a night-lodging And behind him a trained dog, a music box on a blind wife. On evening doorsteps lie heavy drunkards with whiskey-puffed lips. Docile Negroes sleep fast on ledges, jackets over their heads; Cold curls their knees and their veins shudder with a wet cramp. Those in light clothes, with open shirts, warm one another, Throw themselves closer into a hug and fall asleep as in lust. Locked warehouses are piled with half-unloaded wares And on a table still lies someone’s forgotten jacket, a leather apron, Crates are broken open, nails bared and bales undone with discarded hoops. Shutters of store windows hang in fear, bolted up with rusty cold.
Berish Vaynshteyn 349 In the cold, cats howl with greenish hot eyes and mate wildly on the sidewalk; Fear of passers-by, of a signboard in the wind, disturbs their coupling. In such streets a guy strays by with a cooled-off woman; Sated with flesh, sated with wine cellars, they trudge along, separate, with no words. Brooms touch the frost of morning, and on doorsteps dawn milk-bottles.
Poems (1949) Harlem —A Negro Ghetto In the Harlem ghetto, in such Exile, Even God becomes a Negro. Men like Canaanites sprawl on the riverbanks, Spend their nights on wet barrels from foreign lands; Talk to the logs bumping against the shore. Right before everyone’s eyes, noise of the flaming foam Of America’s stately islands, They tell of chains on arms, on legs, Carried away—into a hot northland. Harlem is sad and is like Oriental Jerusalem: Daughters in the last blue of their street Wait with outstretched plates for bread Like maidservants in the times of King Solomon. On every evening threshold, Negro faces. Some, out of hunger, fling themselves into lewd dances, Whirl with passion into the gates. A silent, burning cold before the houses Moves from the open nights into their homes. A cold winter moon greens on the windowpanes, A frost paints the Bible on a Negro window: The barefoot Moses with a staff through the sea, The tablets of God’s engraved wisdom. Children—black, soft as flax, Spring forth from the Torah,
“Ghetto” was not yet a common term for black slums in American cities. Vaynshteyn uses a set of metaphors, projecting Jewish destiny onto the black experience.
350 Symbolism and Expressionism Amazed at the ark from the flood, At Noah’s dove, on all their windows. In a night of a cold moon A Negro midnight is like Genesis. In the stories of their grandmas and grandpas, Even Jefferson came from Ur! Only “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is an incredible chapter. Every Negro home is wrapped up in a Bible When the houses stand in the deep white, Put to sleep by the falling snow. Snowed-in grandmas awaken, like prayers, In Negro-weeping for their generations.
Hides Skinning-shops under the night’s lead sky Buzz hotly with long savage knives, Black sweat breaks out on Negro bodies That smell raw of oxen and hides. Such a broad thin steel flays the skins, The warm hides of sheep and cattle. The blood runs off gently, as on all slaughterers’ knives And drips salty and swift Off a cow’s carcass. As days pass, the skins grow harder, stiffer, The smell of blood evaporates. The skinners’ hands are coated with fat From spreading the hides on bare ground, On their thick fingers yellows wet clay. In wagons that leave the skinning-shops, Carrying off the skinned calves, Ride Negroes sprawled on the heaps. They glide with the soft thrust of the wheels And in their boredom sing hoarse songs. With lanterns in their hands, they ride atop the carts And slither through the nights to tanneries. Negroes are afraid of skinning, of twisting, Of anything that runs off slaughter knives.
part four
Introspectivism
The Introspectivists (Inzikhists), 1923. sitting From right: N. B. Minkov, Tsilya Drapkin, Jacob Glatshteyn, Jacob Stodolski second row Mikhl Likht, B. Alquit, A. Glanz-Léyeles
A. Léyeles (1889–1966)
Poetic pseudonym of Aron Glanz
in 1919, léyeles was one of the founders, with J. Glatshteyn and N. B. Minkov, of the modern Yiddish poetic trend Introspectivism in New York and its chief theoretician of free verse. Léyeles was born in Wloclawek, Poland (then under Russian rule). He grew up in the industrial city of Lodz, where he finished a modern Hebrew school and a Russian commercial school. In 1905 he emigrated to London, where he studied at London University and was active in the Jewish political party S.‑S. (Zionist-Socialists). In 1909 he came to New York, studied at Columbia University, and was active in the Socialist-Territorialist party (which aspired to a Jewish state in Yiddish outside of Palestine). His first published book was written in German: Der Territorialismus ist die einzige Lösung der Judenfrage (Territorialism Is the Only Solution to the Jewish Question, Zurich, 1913). In 1914 the first poems under the name A. Léyeles appeared in New York in the anarchist Fraye Arbeter Shtime, a newspaper open to new, modern poets. A. Glanz-Léyeles (as he became known in public life) was active in the organization of Yiddish schools in the United States and was among the founders and teachers in the first Yiddish school, on Henry Street in New York. He was a cofounder of many Jewish cultural organizations, such as the Workman’s Circle schools, the Central Yiddish Cultural Organization, and the World Jewish Culture Congress. From 1914 and throughout his life, he was a staff member of the New York Yiddish daily Der Tog (The Day), where he wrote on political and topical matters, as well as a weekly column of literary criticism, “Velt un Vort” (“World and Word”). He participated in many periodicals and was editor or coeditor of several of them. He also wrote a number of ambitious poetic plays. For many years, he served as president of the international Yiddish P.E.N. Club. Léyeles was twice awarded the prestigious Louis Lamed Prize for his books of poetry. In his early books, especially in Rondeaux and Other Poems (1926), he
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354 Introspectivism revived or developed new metrical and strophic forms along with a variety of free-verse cadences and celebrated urbanism and the architectural wonders of the human creative spirit in New York. His next book, Fabius Lind (1937), is a complete reversal: here the urbanism is expressed not in hymns to the architecture of New York but in poems of the alienation and isolation of a sophisticated, uncompromising, intelligent individual, along with increasingly pessimistic poems on political themes, all embedded in a kaleidoscopic diary of his objectified alter ego, Fabius Lind. Léyeles embodied in his work an “anti-emotionalist and anti-rationalist” Modernism: “It is, first of all, an intellectual method that wants to feel but, not less—to know.”
The God of Israel The God of Israel is not rich. I saw the Sistine Chapel, Notre-Dame, the Cathedral of Cologne— You can feast your eyes on them, you can enjoy. The God of Israel is stingy. He won’t fill his museum with statues, Paintings, altars, thrones, Purple gowns, three-tiered crowns, He does not wish to live in a Palais. The Jewish museum has a modest display. A Chanukah-lamp, a curtain, a scroll, A spice-box, tefillin, a pointing Hand, A menorah, a Torah Crown, tools for circumcision, And an old, ancient manuscript. And another manuscript and another manuscript, Entangled, bound, locked together. Letters in love with letters. What does the God of Israel ask? What does the God of Israel demand? The God of Israel is a just demander. The God of Israel is a strict demander. The God of Israel is a stingy demander:
Chanukah-lamp, curtain (poroykhes), scroll, spice-box, tefillin, pointing hand, menorah, Torah crown—Jewish religious objects (see Glossary).
A. Léyeles Search by yourself, research by yourself, suffer yourself— For your own and for my honor. In a gray-gray once-upon-a-time, From a mountaintop into a valley, He dropped two handfuls of letters, Scattered them over the roads of the earth. They sparkled with speech, blazed with sayings, And since then— For thousands of years we seek them, For thousands of years we save them, For thousands of years we explain them, And there is no solution on earth For the letters, the sayings, the words. Another manuscript, and another manuscript, Entangled, bound, locked together— Letters in love with letters.
Labyrinth (1918) Winter-Night Sonnet The sun revolves in its red flames, And Alpha circles in sky’s tent. The world and me, me and the world: We travel together by accident. It does not care what I prefer, And I don’t care to know or hear Whether the Canaanites were black Or whether Anthony’s a hero. I don’t complain to anyone, And no one owes me anything, I sleep my sleep and smile my smile.
“Twenty-six generations before the creation of the world, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet descended from the crown of God whereon they were engraved with a pen of flaming fire.” (Cf. The Alphabet of Creation: An Ancient Legend from the Zohar with Drawings by Ben Shahn [New York: Schocken Books, 1954].)
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Introspectivism And one fine day (perhaps—quite bright) I’ll say to me: You had your while. It’s time now. Shut your eyes. Good-night.
New York Metal. Granite. Uproar. Racket. Clatter. Automobile. Bus. Subway. El. Burlesque. Grotesque. Café. Movie-theater. Electric light in screeching maze. A spell. In eyes—a pending verdict, faces—strangers: No smile, no Bless-you, no nod, no gentle word. And straying, rambling, imminent danger. And jungle, crush, upheaval, wild absurd.
Young-Autumn (1922) Castles Castles— Castles of iron and of granite, Castles of marble and of malachite, Castles of bronze, of steel, of cement, Castles, and castles, and castles no end. Castles— Libraries and museums, Monuments, mausoleums, Temples, cathedrals, halls, All the castles— Now fall, fall, fall. But my castles— Built of urging, Daily searching, nightly yearning, Sensations, visions, Strivings, wishes— Braided, spun
A. Léyeles By distant moons and distant suns, Desires— Rays of my heart That won’t stop at all: My castles can never Fall, fall, fall.
Whiteness Snow whiteness all around. White calm. Yet what January snow can compare With the whiteness and calm That unfold And spread out, so softly, On a July-afternoon— Within me.
Young-Autumn Bright—Young-Autumn’s delicate gold cupolas ignite, A languid-ripe aroma wafts from West’s mother-of-pearl. Soft and opaque, the sigh of grass; in longing flutter leaf and twig; On every treetop, Young-Autumn-pensive aureoles light up. Light clouds stand hewn high in the sky—now minarets in Baghdad, Now gliding lazily like gondolas in Venice. The sky spreads silver-sadness on Young-Autumn’s golden shells And grips my heart in hoops of melancholy brocade. In this enchanted realm of pallid calm and colorful perfume I stroll, my golden love, I call you softly, seek you silently— You are not Autumn-gold, you are Late-Spring’s song, joy and pain, East’s charm-of-dawn, the dance of West’s last evening fay. Baghdad and Venice! My illusion, painfully beautiful illusion, I long for you with all the longings of Young-Autumn and decay.
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Taos Long colonnades of slender, stone gladiolas. Distant splash of far-off gliding gondolas. Tremble-light of dying golden cupolas. I—alone. Castle of cold, sparkling chrysoprases. All around me—dragon-bellied vases. Throne of blue-green-yellowish topazes. I—a stone. Idols—copper foreheads, ruby eyes, Idols—loins of brass, and amber eyes, Come to bow, and stoop, and bring advice, Serving me. And they sing: it is the music of Aurora Borealis, And it is the longing of all Princes Ali’s, The blue dream of the blond German, of Novalis, All—for me. And they beg me: strike your cymbal brasses, Wave on high your golden wonder palaces, Let your dream and longing armor break like colored glasses, Fast—destroy! And they warn me: we are weary of the chaos, Tired of the strict, the distant, ruthless God Sabaoth, Now we’re tired of you too, Oh Taos. Stop. No more. Stop your offerings of rainbow visions, Stop your stone-hymns, stop your longing-competitions, Stop deluding our brothers, your derisions. Begone. I hear the warnings of my brother idols. I stretch my arm, I crush them in my coils. I anoint my body with their color-oils. And stay—a stone.
A. Léyeles
Yuola Yuola! Yuola! It is not her name. It is only her sound and her scent. Her eye—is it gray? Is it blue? Wild or tame? Elegant, slender—her hand? Where look for her tribe? Where was her land? Pompei? Egypt? Or maybe she came From Troy? Or from old Samarkand? She is woman to me, all the same. Only this I know clearly, one thing I recall: Yuola commands and subdues. Day and year, in dream as in waking, her call Takes me in with its tones and its hues. But what is Yuola? Who is she to bruise, To disturb and unsettle my soul? Is she song that will sway, wave I cannot refuse? I don’t know, do not know at all.
Rondeaux and Other Poems (1926) Villanelle of the Mystical Cycle Mystical cycle of seven times five, Five times seven, a ring in a ring. Shell swept away, the core will survive. Ground by the years, and in years revived. Young when a man, and gray in young spring. Mystical cycle of seven times five. Paths in the sand. Footsteps inscribed. Zigzags of error, delusion and stings. Shell swept away, the core will survive. Struggle. And loss. And despair. And strife. Here—the divide. Now, be succinct— Mystical cycle of seven times five. Written on Léyeles’s thirty-fifth birthday.
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360 Introspectivism Seeds of brightness, sifted in hives. Flames on the inside, ice on the wings. Shell swept away, the core will survive. Brighter and brighter. On love you thrive. To light that redeems, white, in a ring. Mystical cycle of seven times five. Shell swept away, the core will survive.
New York Wall Street Not Ashurbanipal. Not Alexander. Not Tamerlane. Not Bonaparte. Me— Wall Street. Mine— Dominion over continents and oceans. Not with whip. Not with blood. Not with sword Or race for land— I rule With paper And yellow craving. A long, winding cavern Between boxed, walled-in idols. The idols strive upward, Multiply in the heights, Devour church spires, Swallow sun and sky. The cavern is narrow, Somber and dark. Stone, everywhere stone. And under the stone— A heart.
A. Léyeles Cold, shimmering heart Of the idols. All around it, In underground vaults, Behind iron walls— Eternal clandestine ritual. Yellow glimmer, Trembling hands of High Priests: An awesome ceremony On altars of gray concrete. The rocky rows— Indifferent, silent. And silent, the men. At times, the dark earth of the catacombs Rolls with laughter. At times, the buried heart cries out— But men are serious and silent On Wall Street.
Manhattan Bridge Two turbid streams in a confluence of sun’s glare. Two muddy splashed feet and above them—a patrician head. The Bowery, home of the Chinese theater, of bums and missions, Canal Street, the row of cheap Jewish trade— Are linked and locked, In their screeching rush, By a sparkling buckle— The ornate portal Of Manhattan Bridge. Canal Street and Bowery! Sing your joy to the sky, Roar drunkenly your glory in the cupolas of Lower Broadway, Your pride in Woolworth, Municipal, in so many temples of business: Shining suns for your smudged windows, Elaborate cornices of refined riches for your poor grayness. But above all, raise your voice in a grateful hymn For the joy Of being best men To Manhattan Bridge.
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362 Introspectivism Manhattan Bridge! Shall I sing your morning, When your grand reception Greets me with the clutter of people and wares, With the city’s jazz-symphony In which I play too? Shall I praise your twilight, When the sky above you grows moody, pastoral-sentimental, And sends a rosy-blue boyish message To your manly might of brick and metal? Shall I sing your night, When in the endless chain of illuminated cars and trucks, In the electrical lightnings at your ribs of steel, You sparkle, tease, like a ring of monster-diamonds, You, matchmaker of two speeding cities? I love you, Manhattan Bridge, More than I can sing you. You are your own daily song, The daring challenge, the command of success: Let the crooked, hooked fingers, Let the bought, hired hands Emulate Athens and Rome. Let them proclaim our mercantile names, Build a bridge to shame in beauty— London, Paris, Berlin.
In the Subway 1 A wall. A blunt wall of human backs, arms, legs. A gray bulwark with white round stains. A defeated army in a cave, before maneuvers, Waiting for doors to open. Not cages unlatched, in uproar. Not rocks upheaved from their ground. An army senses The serpentine swaying of a subway Into a station.
A. Léyeles 363 Too few doors. Too few doors. Inside—crammed, Standing, and on benches— Walls, walls. Arms, backs, Faces, legs— A kingdom for a seat! A kingdom for a strap! The walls grow longer, Thicker, tighter, denser, Faces grayer, tenser. Got-in! Doors slam shut. Tremor. A living tangle: Restrained, stifled, menacing clamor. Dense, ever denser, Grimmer, dreamier, Blunter, tenser— To rest, supper and cinema.
In the Subway 2 “Rush Hour.” Each cell is filled. Each cell curses the laws of Rome. No air to breathe. And worst of all—hands. No place to hide. Hands slide. Feet shuffle. Men. Women. In gray, electrically yellow light, Swinging slow, swinging nimbly, Swinging left, swinging right, A heavy-breathing, moving web. One beast— A thousand enemies.
364 Introspectivism One face— A thousand feet and hands. The light burns and grates, Burns hatred For the laws of Rome. Burns raw and gray, Hatred of male for female, female for male In the subway train. Suddenly—from the ceiling—a hand Pours streams of golden dollars On the breathing wall in nightmare tunnel-land. The breathing wall— A tremor. Human blizzard. Hands hurt. Hands push. Hands search. Hands shuffle. Hands catch! A hating human tangle— Ablaze, Eyes, ears—crave, race. And the dollars Radiate, Roar, Fall Upon a sprawling, struggling hating wall— From the hand on the ceiling Down. Head-to-head. Tangle in tangle. Golden horror. To the station comes A dead train. Pierced eyes. Bloody mouths. In dead holes— Golden coins, Flashing blades, Dropped by a hand
A. Léyeles 365 In a subway train In the underground mad-mad-madness.
In the Subway 3 Walled-in In the gray, moving wall, Close to each other, A white girl and a Negro. Smell of strong musk Hugs the flask of a girl, her fearful flutter. The Negro squeezes tighter Against the girl. Black craving Blesses white crowding. A white girl and a Negro. Gloom In the moving, gray wall. Gloom of a hunter Who knows he will not get his choicest prey. Not down on the rails do the wheels roll— The dizzying, swinging wheels whirl In a black, curled, unhappy head. (Lynching fires—flaming, flaming. Loop of a gallows—brighter, brighter.) The Negro squeezes tighter Against the girl.
Madison Square No end to roofs’ cry. The line—upward, high. Insolent—to the sky. Straight. Virile. Moods are chaotic. Tense, anti-Gothic.
366 Introspectivism Business-Don-Quixotic. Chance is style. Energy compressed. Trapezoids in quest: Wills’ unrest. Men’s worry. Stupendous unbeauty. Mocking the petty. Polyvalent unity— Giant, New York! Proud wonder-work, Flatiron Building, male figure. Your stride cuts into the square, a hero juggler, Arms and legs behind, the head protruding far, You want to walk away. But, manly, you curb your desire. Metropolitan, your line shoots straight, your song roars, Drowns out each beggar’s dream down in the square, Your laughter falls, a mocking thud, on the asphalt. Truncated molds crowd in around you, each—an obelisk. Hero-towers dart their spears into the sun’s disk. And from a corner, through a crack, peeps the “Garden”— The pride of yesterday, now more and more Fleeing risk and worry, it gets lost in New York. But Fifth Avenue laughs and wantonly laughs Broadway. They have neither will nor time to weigh The worth of changing styles and forms. They simply change. The square—an accidental pause, A chance encounter, which in one loud moment Gave birth to giant sons of iron and cement.
Evening Windows flash, flare up above the square. Lights sparkle—polygonal, anonymous. Triangles, diamonds—part Secession, part harmonious— Dance joyfully on windowpanes, straight and queer. Flickers of black and gold, pointed and sardonic, Wink to the sky. The sky—in pieces, Allusion to the Viennese Secession, especially to the paintings of Gustav Klimt.
A. Léyeles 367 Hangs deep and dark, cut up by giant scissors— Glimmers back its blueness, slant, laconic. The virile towers—cornerless. They twinkle— It seems: a crowd assembles, richly sprinkled With torches for a frivolous carnival. Debauchery in the square. Electrically fantastic Carousing for an hour, boisterous, orgiastic— A chimera drunk on itself. Unreal ball.
Night Now all is calm. The window-lights spent. Lanterns slip silently into the pavement. Towers stand watching like monsters of stone. Massive Flatiron: imposing, gray, cold. Then Metropolitan: heavier, grayer. Others hang gloomily, crowd like a forest. Every building now is a gateway To a great graveyard. There, behind walls, Sleep the ambitions and plans of the builders. Every building at night is a monument, Shadow in stone of the fever of cities, Crown of unrest that creates and destroys. And, behind panes, in the empty corridors, Lurks the demon of counting and planning— Powerless now, while his charm is subdued. Somewhere, the chattering crowd disappeared, Left, departed in cars and in trains— Women and men of the city caravan, Crammed here by day in tight little squares, Harnessed like horses with reins of paper, Heartlessly drilled against rigorous numbers. Dead is the paper-world. On doors and on walls Lingers a dream, a figure that failed, Skulks an ambition, designed with no luck.
368 Introspectivism Now I can see my own face, not interred Under the turbulent traffic and roar, People I see, too, and I nod to their shadows. Come with me now to Madison Square. Let’s stroll about in the beautiful graveyard, Graveyard that lasts for twelve hours, no more. Let us embrace it: be blessed and be happy, Let us forgive that its power will soon Rage here again like a God or a Golem. Innocent, names on the gravestones appear, Hover and vanish. Mysteriously carry Echo to echo the sounds of the quarry: Song of the cars that raced in the streets— Hordes of hundreds, through the ring of the day, Song of the soles, that shuffled and polished Sidewalks—tens of thousands of soles. (During the daytime all this was subdued, Lost in the sway of steelfast persistence.) Madison Square! If you travel for weeks, Travel for years, you won’t find such a place, Where, with more daring, to insolent stories, Rises the line, the straight line of steel, Molding the shapes of cities and countries, Hurtling men into numberless heaps. Here the line rules, the straight line that forges Ties of iron, concrete, and granite, Making men into builders-and-squanderers. Here, too, the line has a limit. It raises Walls between man and his longing for miracle, Welds them in planes, though he thinks that he flies— Against the rounded line of the skies.
On Broadway The walls of stone, the floor of muddy stone. In alien air, a stony, gray alone.
A. Léyeles 369 As soundless as my step falls on the asphalt, The city’s weight assaults me with a roar. My God! The granite breathes August-madness. Enclosed in hot, hard arms, I squirm To flee from stony vampire’s clutch— As my eye flees to far sky’s blue— To you. And never yet, so intimately poised, Welled up in me my love’s soft voice, As on that afternoon, at two o’clock, When one mad shriek of stone and rock Was Broadway.
Autumn A Sonnet Garland
1 I praise you, Autumn, season of ripe gold, Of cold, translucent, and nostalgic crystals, Of wise trees—giant colonies of corals, Of spacious rest that smiles at all revolt. Unrest and rest are merely shining rays Of everything we ever wished to have. Autumn teaches wisdom. Its richness pays For Spring’s lightheartedness, for heavy waves Of Summer, which delude with all the burden Of false, deceptive, desertlike mirages. What you have ever wished, or loved, or hated— These were no more than pretty camouflages. Truth lies in Fall’s coloraturas: purpose In orange, violet, and dreamy purples.
In the original, the full rhyme pattern is filled. We preserved the iambic pentameter, the rhyming
of each final couplet and the rhyming of the final sonnet, which brings all first lines of the fourteen sonnets together.
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2 In orange, violet, and dreamy purples. Not the fully determined line is real, Not that which has one image, or one face, The line defined by self-assured caesuras. Half-tones are real, the compounded choir, In which, vibrating, still resound the traces Of multitudes of times and sounds and creatures, Where chaos yearns for a lucidity. This is the Autumn. This the fall of twilights That are at once depressed and filled with light. When your own soul, in growing pain of clarity, Reveals its slumbering riches, opens up. Pray to a distant woman, in deep azures: “Within your delicate and radiant contours.”
3 Within your delicate and radiant contours Hovers my dream, you rare and distant woman. Unique one, you emerged in evening blue Before my eyes, a web of ether-threads. Through chance alone we find ourselves so distant, Two wandering, two separated phantoms, Two split-apart and craving traces of A one. The white and black of one mere gray. No, not of gray. More accurately: violet, Where red and blue sing brightly a duet In unison, a wonderful amalgam, In one uniquely lucid, yearning gamut. In you, oh vision live in blue and gold, The tangle of my soul is now unrolled.
4 The tangle of my soul is now unrolled, Though I know well that it is an invention. But where begin, where end all things imagined? Reality is built of bricks, steel-fast.
A. Léyeles But often, made a laughingstock, it flees For comfort into sleep! What should have been Is—in the evening’s gold—more real than That actual, that gliding yacht at sea Which sends a longing wave and disappears. Illusion is a fact. The fact—illusion. I am not sure if I am writing now In Roscoe village or in Andalusia. Illusion, in your lap you warm amazing Memories, visions, images, and faces.
5 Memories, visions, images, and faces— As of a strange and otherworldly world— Approach me closely, and my soul with joy Lights up. I see: I’m under chandeliers Of light—in light. The whole world is my tent, Stretched over me in seven-hued velours. I am no more myself. Amazing contours Incorporate my body: both more and less than now. I am both man and woman. Both together. I’m human and not human. Larger, more. Much more than human. In what hymnal flames Shall I now sing all that I see and hear? My poem dare not mime what gold attains When color-sated Autumn paints and paints.
6 When color-sated Autumn paints and paints I see the past, perhaps I see the future. I am not me. A God with no God-peers. And on a road that widens and that narrows Among world-trees, among sun-leaves, I walk Alone. I am man-woman God. Full-valleyed, Rich-mountained—the amazing earth. It rolls, Unfolds again. I build and I destroy. Roscoe, N.Y., where the poem was written. An allusion to the Hebrew poets of the “Golden Age” in Spain, tenth to thirteenth century.
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372 Introspectivism I build a world, and lay it waste again. My strength is mighty. But the days spin on In loneliness. No one to say: “You are!” No one to worship, praise my mighty power. What I have done is less than my intent. Each image claims: you could, you should, you meant.
7 Each image claims: I could, I should, I meant. I could have formed for me another world. I’m God. I cannot age, cannot be younger. I am both man and woman in one shape. My I will offer love’s fruit-bearing seeds To me alone. But something nags and burdens Within my heart. It is not what I meant. I’m strong and great and lonely. Must divide. It happened. Woman separates from man. And searching people populate my world. Since then I walk about and crave and seek, And do not know if I should curse or bless. I scrutinize the Autumn’s azure faces. In all I find my I’s far-faded traces.
8 In all I find my I’s far, faded traces. Half yearns for whole. And when a female figure Is etched within my heart, deep in my self Resounds the call of those primeval azures. But soon the joy runs out in disappointment. Time lashes deftly out, sends off the wagons With broken cupid-figurines of clay, Your heart remains—like dust-imprinted asphalt. Yet I am longing still for what I lost. Man wants to be a God again—and will. The half which I have lost through a caprice Is longing too. It will perceive my prayer. I shall be whole. Illusion is a fact. What now exists is shadowy entr’acte.
A. Léyeles
9 What now exists is shadowy entr’acte, The past not yet transformed into a future. The future still is yearning in my memory, But with its beat my heart will always beat. All worlds, times, years—they live and die again. I change my image between cosmic acts. I have to suffer for defiant deeds In distant, rosy-wakening Auroras. And over all I think and do and am— Forever hangs the sign of that far moment. My land—it is the color-flooded green Of Autumn’s prudent valleys and wise hills. Light flickers always. Yet forget the worries! The sunset is but eve of a new morning.
10 It is the sunset, eve of a new morning— It is my life. And it is good like this. All that is harsh, and raw, and not-quite-ripe Must seek its clarity in phantom-worries Of pallid twilights, that are red and blue. You don’t buy bliss at fairs and marketplaces, The goal is hidden from a human eye, It is no straw that any wind can sway. Within the sunset light all things are lucid, Attain a value never had, all blue Turns violet, and violet turns red, No more horizon between earth and sky. You hear eternity’s time-beat, its track. You sense: it is not yet the final act.
11 You sense: it is not yet the final act, Because there is no final act at all. Nor first. No blooming and no withering, No certainty: phenomenon or fact.
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Introspectivism All are but spurts of the same power-fountain. If sun should burn and bake with its high fire, If frost should punish with its icy touch— All trains will lead you to the selfsame root. And every thing is merely a reflex, All objects that surround us are but symbols, And everywhere, I rule—I homo-rex. The changing times—they are my aureoles. Who does not sense between today and morrow: Ahead—the stunning wonder, yet unborn?
12 Ahead—the stunning wonder, yet unborn. Death is illusory. A dream of time. It is a thin, imagined, twilight-seam Which carries you from one to second morning. And what is on the hedge’s other side Is not imprisoned by the Gorgon sisters. It is in you, you child of false anxieties Who does not see how time and space are one. It is in you and here. May many more Black veils conceal and hide the real light, And may the seeming sunset lurk nearby— You can see wonders, looking in their face. They answer, if your prayer to them resounds: “Oh, wonders there and here, through me speak out!”
13 Oh, wonders there and here. Through me speaks out The gleaming sadness of recurring sunsets. Destiny’s “no” lives ever in my room— A Yiddish poet’s song must be confused. And yet I know, that I am one who owns The well of Will, which is, and was, and will be, And that my beautifully chiseled sonnet Springs from that well, and see! It lives for good. The wonder is no stranger in my house. The will to wonder is and was my root.
A. Léyeles I carry, like my tribe, the weight of worlds. I know like them: my Cyrus comes each day. I, son of dreamers, hear, roaming about, Their voice: both late and early, low and loud.
14 Their voice—both late and early, low and loud— All destiny-restrainers make me hear. From trees of Autumn heavy with remembrance A hymn of colors calls me, a world-prayer. I, too, restrain—and dream. And may the gloomy Cold watchman of decline guard us—he’ll have To join the one who chose to be a dreamer And sing the song with him in a duet. Oh, to create in light of nearing death! Who could elect more solemn, splendid hours? See, Autumn dresses up in gorgeous red— It is no sunset, those are wounds of life. If death—then red, the color of fresh blood. As sunset grays, then courage comes—a flood.
15 I praise you, Autumn, season of ripe gold, Of orange, violet, and dreamy purples. Within your delicate and radiant contours The tangle of my soul is now unrolled. Memories, visions, images and faces— The color-sated Autumn paints and paints. Each image claims: you could, you should, you meant, In all I find my I’s far, faded traces. What now exists is shadowy entr’acte. The sunset is but eve of a new morning. You sense: it is not yet the final act, Ahead—the stunning wonder, yet unborn. Oh, wonders there and here, through me speaks out Their voice: both late and early, low and loud. Roscoe, N.Y., August–September 1922
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Storms and Towers Snowy expanses On hills of earth. White endless spaces, broken and absorbed on the point of a spear, On the peak of Woolworth Tower. “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” Villon, my brother, Maître Villon, You did not see The Tower of Woolworth In a storm of snow. You did not see the introspective sign, Which spires of concrete with a thousand electrical sparks (Each—the star of a Héloïse, a Beatrice, an Alice) Thrust into the thick of snows, Among masses of people, rails, automobiles. You only knew, that eternal is the will Sweeping away the snows of yesteryear, Eternal, the memory which remembers them, Eternal, the hand sowing whiteness in the world. And so I know, That eternal is the hand that builds towers, And eternal, you and I— The rememberers, The knowers, The creators.
November 1 Melancholy green of November, How juicy is your browning in the early morning in Crotona Park. How you move me today, Crotona Park, In your damp tulle of November, In your foggy detachment Smiling through tears. Memories of better days Gleam white in your sad experienced smile, The smile of a fifty-year-old Bespectacled lady
A. Léyeles Leaning over a novel of young life, In the corners of her eyes Glisten humid pearls. 2 November. Today you came close, intimate, familiar, Joining the team of twelve honorary pages That attend the carriages of my assigned years On earth. Today you unfolded before my memory With your own life and light, No more just a name in the calendar. To each day its color, To each month its sound, Your name had not resounded In the chamber of my memories. But today you introduced yourself to me Softly, unexpectedly, With a straight, brown part in your graying head, Transparent melancholy In the corners of your lips. Your gaze emerged Through the veil of your fogs, Entered my heart. And my lips intimately murmured Your name.
Symmetry Symmetry— Rhythm arrested. Rest in mid-movement. Movement in higher space. Symmetry— Anagram of mystery. Mystery of rhythm On the other side of the seam Of time and space.
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378 Introspectivism Symmetry—face Of all living breath. Drive Of matter craving for life. Figure of plant and animal. Ancient longing of man and wife. My song to the symmetry Of man-woman face, Of man-woman body. My song—the rhythm of higher space, Which has split the living body In two. Oh, lament Of loins, Longing for the beginning, For the sacrament Of undoing God’s blunder. Convex— And concave. (Weeping reflex Of maid and slave Who could have been God!) The song of two, Of two who wish to be, Who are here only to be— One. Face facing face. Loin on loin— One. Rhythm seared in rhythm, Rhythm sunk in rhythm— One. Secret of secret and sacred. Joy of demon and God. Flash of spear. Madness. Planter and plot. Beatitude. Hatred. Ecstasy. E-chod!
One, unique, oneness; attribute of God.
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Immobile Colorless. No sound, no hue passed by. Hanging in mid-flight, winds die. The sun’s blaze—not hot, not cold. A forest in the heart of the sea. Water, plants, animals—one figure with many faces. Worlds, years—untangled, sliced from time’s ring. Not a stir. Not traversing—standing in the desert of memory. On the peak of Everest, That forgot he was a mountain, Leans a jelled sun disk. From a certain spot rises, to a certain goal darts The pitiless obelisk Of calm determined will. Up is down. Up, down—one. All is one. All is. Only is. Still. Immobile.
I Came from Ethiopia I came from Ethiopia. A white Ethiopian, I am— A stranger. Had I been black, They would have deftly laid me out, unrolled me, And read me like a scroll of black parchment with golden letters. But I am light. Suspicions sniff about my threshold. My blond hair— Perhaps I lurk at dusk by the golden gate To bite off a piece of the sun. My blue eyes— Perhaps I rub them at midnight with a turquoise gem
380 Introspectivism When the dead walk out of their graves And the sorcerers regain their power. Perhaps I am myself of Asmodeus’s gang. What a wonder, Oh, Edgar, That in the nurseries My name has not yet supplanted The black cat and the werewolf.
Fabius Lind (1937) Fabius Lind’s Days Fabius Lind’s days are running out in blood. Red serpents of failures empty his veins. In his head—white muddy stains. Confusion. And a heavy load on his heart. He could have . . . He could have . . . Gray spiderwebs of melancholy Cover his mind, veil his eyes And a strange taut bow Aims at the tip of his nose. Fabius Lind, sunk in contemplation, In talking, in reading, tightens— Out of sheer being lost— The noose around his neck. Why can’t Fabius Lind hold on to The coattails of these times And stride in the rows of all the marchers? Why can’t he swing back to his childhood playground And bring his flutes to play The song of calm? Why is he so indifferent at funerals, So nervous at a birth? Why can’t he grab the two whores— death and life— In Jewish folklore, the king of demons.
A. Léyeles
A. Léyeles And let himself go in a holy-foolish dance?
Whom does he ask? No one. Just himself. If he could brain-out an answer, He would not have asked.
In these days of straight rails, Fabius Lind Is not awake. He strays for hours, for days, And dreams of pure isn’ts. A time that isn’t, A land that isn’t, People that aren’t, A Fabius Lind who doesn’t exist. He could have . . . He could have . . . Yes, yes, he could have!
The desire, the thought, flies away on an uninvited wind And comes back in a ball of smoke. The calculating mind has never served Fabius Lind.
From Fabius Lind’s Diary January 28 Darkness. Thick, lumpy, Primeval, uncanny, gaping darkness. Suddenly—white sparks, bright stripes. Magnesium-flare—white, white. A knee—warm, soft, tight. A hoop around me, like the ring around Saturn. Tight around me. White. Motherly nocturne. Somber excitement. Brain-flood. Fall—fly. Fall—fly. Knee. Magnesium-glow. And again— Lumpy, coal-black darkness. Abyss.
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January 30 Columbus Circle at dusk—mixture of flesh and stone. A confluence of city’s riches And a consumptive Negro alley With marginal, meek witnesses To wanton, uproar and highclimb. The forgotten monument of the greatest discoverer Is bored with the automobiles, electrical rainbows, Patriotic statues That guard the park for the people, from the people, by the people. The thirty-forty-storiers all around Push their granite paws At the girly behinds, Dancing on the springs of a clever mechanic Up and down, up and down, With promise, with invitation—who knows for what happiness! Precisely at each turn of the clock, resounds the bored bass Of the disenchanted, pious Columbus (Those who can, hear) : —Whose life is not a leftover signboard, Screaming success, great bargains, On a boarded-up, long-ago bankrupted store?
February 1 They led him to the guillotine. The machine said: I am, I am only iron. The executioner was wise and friendly, And beyond him he saw a wiser, a friendlier one. His enemies’ cries of joy amazed him. He feared with all the fears Of each living drop of blood. But no word and no wish Parted his lips To shout aloud or whisper low His innocence. Body against iron. He didn’t wish to prove a thing.
A. Léyeles As if the metal flowed in his fears And stiffened them with courage and irony. In full harmony with himself— For the first and the last time in his life— He kissed the steel of the knife, And greeted the hangman as a brother. He polished No showcase of his virtues. He pulled grey curtains over it all and said: You are only iron. I am only innocent.
February 4 Two old nuns stood in the blizzard Of my dream. On their chests the symbols of an alien religion. I bombarded them with snowballs. A wind howled, wicked wings battered in the wind, And I caught tatters of words:
Enemy upon enemy. The todays like yesterdays. Let us hate, let us watch one another. I—you, you—me, both of us—a third one, All are enemies.
No more nuns, no old women— In the midst of a furious snow whiteness Two black swords wielded the end. And I roared in my sleep, And opened my eyes with a terrified shriek— Friends, friends, friends.
February 7 I inherited naive openheartedness From generations of small-town Polish Jews, And sharp talk From hot-bathed women in my clan.
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384 Introspectivism A blind June-night mixed it all And sent me out— With no regard for symmetry. My counterpart weighs me carefully On the scales of his experience with world and man. My voice calls back—intimate and straight. By the rule of half to the wall and half to the river, He forgives me my intimacy. And the straightness—like a steel ruler: Cuts and divides. My counterparts grow rarer and rarer. And the rust on my doorknob— Not just the oxygen in the air. Luckily, from time to time I can enjoy a joke with myself.
February 10 I’m tired of words. The clearer—the madder still, To the clearest clarity I am with madness filled. A tower of contradictions rose in one day’s breath. The poem is my rest, a joyful encounter with death.
February 15 Don’t look for bridges to people. Wait with the world for the word That would be like the dying of a saint After a full and cheated life. Dream up the word That would stop the slaughter of weary, wicked hordes. Look for the word That would fog the eyes of strong men. Bear in your body the word That would speak like the silence of an elder When he looks at the sun above and at a funeral below With the same seeing gaze. From your heart, bridges radiate in all directions.
A. Léyeles
February 17 Fabius Lind’s kingdom— A few fenced crates. As to a permanent, identical incantation, The crates open up to let his days out— From one house with a number To another house with a number. All over him, noises of the big city. Wheels, rails above, Rails, wheels below, in deep tunnels. When Fabius Lind undresses the noises, He is left with crumbs of color, spots of sound, A composite mask of unrest and confusion. Sometimes a clearing flashes, it has the image Of a dreamed-up Notre-Dame, Of a well-planned Empire-State, 10 Of a hydroelectrical power-station on the Dnieper— Once upon a time. Once upon a time. The once-upon-a-times are stabbed blind by the jagged wreckage Falling on his head. His head in the midst Of crush and downfall. And he himself on a side, on the brink. Then he is wrapped in night’s profusion, All seems to him imagining, delusion, Tricks and masks of death.
February 23 Not any more distant, somewhere on a mountain, The frivolous young witch Stands in a wide, billowing dress, With no panties. Her naked, juicy legs Will soon step over the thighs of the earth. The legs will win. All thighs will begin to convulse, to vibrate, 10 Turbulent river in Ukraine. The hydroelectrical power station Dnieprostroy was hailed as one of the
wonders of communist construction, a major image of pro-Soviet sentiment in the West.
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386 Introspectivism And spurt colors and smells on the walls of the world. One more day, one more day— She will conquer all and everyone, The naked, impertinent tart.
My Poems My poems are cold. Distance blows from them. Has no one heard of cold burning, Or licked the flame of frost? My poems are hard. Stiff, rocky route. Can no one see in the hard rock Cool, lurking lava-blood?
Cold Night There is a birth Raw-windier than a lighted street In March. There is a birth More incomprehensible than the rage Of a belated winter At his being out-of-time, Out-of-place, Out-of-decency. And that birth has a name: I. And citizen I is a twisted lock. Clever people would fit him with a clever key, But he himself got jammed up long ago. And citizen I Has forty-some times turned around the sun (Just the other day he reached a round number), And the lock is turned ever tighter.
A. Léyeles 387
Bolted Room Dark, bolted room. Thick air soaked with fear and danger. Fabius Lind—eye to eye With a bewildering woman. Fabius Lind is small and trembling, The woman is big and growing—and pouring out Odors of a heavy body. Smells of stable, Of summer afternoons in the thick of a forest. Powerful hips and powerful legs. Fabius Lind is scared and feels so deadly good. The odors enfold him, Take away his will— He doesn’t need to need to exist. He and the woman and the fear and the goodness are one. And he is enormously alone.
An Encounter For two minutes we gazed at each other In curious silence. When politeness nudged me in the shoulder, I introduced myself: A man, the crown of creation. The grasshopper Was not overwhelmed. He kept on gazing with careful, glimmering eyes. Even when I proudly showed him the airplane That just then buzzed by Over our heads, He did not lose his dignity. Offended, I fixed him with my eye And examined without ceremony His finely wrought red legs, His strong wings, His manly mustaches. He didn’t like my impertinence, the trickster of grass. With condescending indifference,
388 Introspectivism He turned to me his gracious ass And hopped away— With a leap More beautiful, elegant, surer Than my airplane. If I live another hundred years I shall probably have the necessary machine to hear His great-, million times great-grandson’s Devastating laughter.
Moscow Night, End of December 1934 It’s hard to be clever these nights, And useless to be modern. Useless to smile knowingly and observe with melancholy The language bastardisms of history: “The government of the Republic is delivered into the hands of the Emperor.” A nasty old moon crawls in my window And chokes me with a cold hand. She coughs, she foams over me: Who do you think you are That you want to straighten the accounts of the world, To rage when a childish toy of yours is broken. The other day I saw a Palestinian bum and rebel Growl: Justice, love, And call for help to some daddy here in the sky. Yesterday a crowd of yours made fools of themselves Around a stone broad with a torch in her raised arm And stormed, clamored in excitement: Brotherhood, Equality, Reason! And today you stare at me from a rumpled pillow With fiery-dry eyes demanding an answer: Why has an icon of yours fallen out of its frame, And the frame itself is speckled with Abel’s warm shudder? Maybe you’d like to ask—even higher—the stars? Go on, perceive (as you idiot poets like to say) their singing— What do you hear? But listen well.
A. Léyeles 389 I listened, I perceived, I wanted to scream my last and greatest scream For me and for the whole creation. But the hag’s hand was on my neck, The hag’s chill in my throat. Who said that pity is not a foundation of the world? Right then the calendar Gave the old witch a lewd wink And she left with him, just like that. My throat relaxed. But my tongue is dumb. Dumber.
Fabius Lind Is Riding the Wind 1 Fabius Lind clings to the flowing mane Of young spring, Galloping on the free highways of desire. Voluptuous desert-winds around him, Voluptuous desert-winds inside him. Fabius Lind surrenders to the frivolous mane And ponders And dreams. 2 Fabius Lind has long since understood That assorted young males, Unbelievably younger than himself, Will multiply daringly around him. Damned if he knows When so many days had time To muster like armies of watchmen Behind his unsuspecting proud back. Damned if he understands Why all these strange witnesses should not retreat Into unwanted yesterdays, before-yesterdays, five-years-ago— At a mere wave of his young arm. But why so many new males?
390 Introspectivism And why do insolent teeth bite off pieces of his joy At the sight of the new Ophelias? 3 Fabius Lind’s heart is full of tenderness For the latest feminine fashions. His lips mutter pious odes to the refined rhythm Of not-overgrown vibrant hips, And his happy eye glides lovingly Over the taut curves of sincerely walking legs. But the new “he”s Impertinently obstruct the open view. And Fabius Lind is not a Shaman-hunter, Not a he-gorilla. He isn’t even a rival or a fighter. He is a gentleman Of the restrained, civilized city New York Who wanders at times in the exciting-poisoning paths Of Freud’s dream-interpretation. And though he’s not ashamed, Nor appeased, Still the great seer and understander from Vienna Allows him a good-natured smile. And if light waves of sadness Lap the shores of his smile— Nobody will see it. 4 Fabius Lind has ridden quite a distance On his obedient horse. Ever thirstier, he clings to the frivolous mane, And hurries— Hurries, hurries, hurries— To ever newer and newer calls.
Fabius Lind to Comrade Death Not so much you yourself, As the road to you, the surrender to you, Dear dictator. I do not know in what lime kiln
A. Léyeles My mettle was formed, But it hates surrender with a great hatred. I was not born to give up. When you breathe backward upon me— In the falling away of a friend, In a moment of danger, In a stranger’s funeral on a street— I wish I’d been on the other side of the fence, In the not-hearing-not-remembering of your shadows— If only to avoid the duel, in which you always have the upper hand. On my threshold, the date is engraved When you arrive with your holiday greetings. But if I will—I can knock first on your door, And you will receive me. No questions, no complaints, You will shake my hand and deck your table With bread and salt. You to me—but me to you too, As with real, close friends, Comrade death.
The Madonna in the Subway Across from me in the subway sat the Madonna Crossing her legs, Bending over a tabloid. She read about a cashier-girl who jumped into the water When her bridegroom left her with a rising belly. The madonna put lipstick on her mouth And went on biting into the burning coal Of tragedy. She stroked her snakeskin shoe, And proceeded to lament the drowning death Of the cashier-girl. My gaze tick-tocked. The madonna’s eyelids heard, And two longish caves turned to me Their suede depth, their intimate mystery. And I perceived the words of the Madonna,
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392 Introspectivism The words which she spoke to me alone In the subway: In Galilee, once upon a time in Galilee, The carpenters, the shoemakers, the tailors, The fishermen, the moneylenders, the thieves Needed a savior and a God. Then I opened my virgin loins And in a dark hour received in my womb The needy seed of one whose name I still don’t know. A soldier, a stranger, an angry man, a slave of a Caesar, A fisherman, hands calloused from pulling his nets, Or just a bum who happened to whisper: my God! All I can tell you is, I got pregnant. Oh, there are nights when the spirit slices into your guts Like a vulture’s beak, Embraces you like a serpent. There are black, openhearted nights, that sense The claim of virgin loins. It was the spirit of God, Because soldiers and fishermen and bums Demanded a savior, a God. The madonna powdered her nose and chin (Her nose was noble and thin) And spoke again: From that far dazzle And bright call, From this near sorrow In the heavy body— Painters and poets dream up My portraits, age after age. From the old sprouting spring In fields, in forests, Hands stretch out: bestow on us! Eyes pray Through the warp and the woof of the year. In the choking air Of streets, in subways— People still long for the miracle, Though they don’t believe in its birth. Oh, one day I shall strip off the webs
A. Léyeles 393 Which enfold me, tie me, I shall quench your thirst With my nakedness. You hear: It will be like that great destiny Then, in Galilee. The Madonna spoke much more, Long and hot and fast. But I—I no longer perceived. In the pious flutter, I felt the coming Of openhearted moons and suns, And I sensed God’s spirit move in me Like a hare, like a serpent, like a bird.
Fabius Lind to Fabius Lind F.L. One: On colored rubber soles of illusion How long will you tread? F.L. Two: I wouldn’t tread at all if not For one moment of illusion each day. F.L. One: On the mouth of the moment hangs no more joy Than on the lips of an old crumpled aunt. Fool yourself as much as you like, Bitterness runs ahead And escorts you faithfully back. F.L. Two: So I came too early, So I came too late. F.L. One: There is never an alibi for yourself. Go higher up than your eye can reach. Go deeper down than your will may dare. F.L. Two: I tried. Up—said they: Isn’t he after the saucer from the sky, And it’s an age of great love of modesty. Down—said they: Look at the masks he wears to scare us— And it’s an age of hymns to two-times-two. F.L. One: And what did you yourself say, Fabius Lind?
394 Introspectivism F.L. Two: I myself . . . I did not go far enough. F.L. One: No one ever goes far enough, But one should not fear the going. One must go where one wants to come. F.L. Two: I cannot get out of the armor that I wear, Or worse, the armor inside me. I am the one who climbs up stairs and stairs to meet, And when the meeting occurs— Flees hastily. F.L. One: If one doesn’t want to flee from the beginning, one doesn’t flee. Unintended beginning cannot reach its goal. F.L. Two: Strife is repulsive to me. I must win without struggle. F.L. One: There is never an alibi for yourself. Wait with the strength that lives to see. F.L. Two: I tried. I was like an inviting armchair— And remained empty. And they said: Cold blows from him. And they said: Not in, but outside the circle is he. F.L. One: And what did you yourself say, Fabius Lind? F.L. Two: I myself . . . I looked too much beyond To be able to break through the circle. F.L. One: One never breaks through. But one must not evade it. Break till it hurts. The rings don’t decrease but multiply around you, Unless you flay your own flesh and don’t shut your eyes In pity for yourself. F.L. Two: I am full of loneliness as is. Should I grow even lonelier? F.L. One: What kind of shield is a garment of thin threads, oh Fabius Lind? What kind of sanctuary is a belt of loose beads, Such as the girls wear in Trobriand? F.L. Two: One thinks—it seems—one hopes . . .
A. Léyeles 395 F.L. One: There is never an alibi for yourself. Out with thinking, seeming, hope. F.L. Two : I tried. In those rare thefts from myself and from time I was like a window: Light and darkness passed through me— And I caught breaths, I sensed fingers on my surface, And I myself remained blank and untouched. Said they: He is too good to be a mirror. And they said: The reward of arrogance is oblivion. F.L. One: And what did you yourself say, Fabius Lind?
A Jew in the Sea (1947) The Poem In the beginning was the tune. A dim stirring of strings, a distant consonance rings Deep in your essence— Leaping over the fever of years, Over the landscape and ashes of years; A buzzing unrolling of spirals In the mechanism of memory. In the beginning awakens the tune— Stammering, sifting, assembling, Sifting, searching, assembling Syllables and words, Silvery brightness of syllables and words— For themselves, just for themselves— For the clarity and the truth and the fullness of tune, For the faith and the freedom and the newness of tune. The beginning of beginning is tune. Only he who hears his own tune Is no stranger in mysteryland of song, Is a citizen in the homeland of song.
396 Introspectivism He has the full reward of song: For the lord of song Touched once and forever His naked open heart With the flame of his mouth.
That’s It That’s it. That’s how it will be. Only a number remains. The earth went up in smoke, the sky was silent, And of brothers, sisters, Of children’s laughing mouths— What’s left is only a figure, a number, a sum. Summers will summer, winters will winter, And we are left with a figure, a number, a sum. Human structures cannot grieve for long. Deeper, ever deeper, The pain of the slash will be driven down, And up above, windows will open wide To the plains of forgetting. Only sometimes at night, An old man on his deathbed Will sense the slash, flare up With the slash in his own heart, Unable to die. And a bridegroom on his wedding night— Unable to create a new life. All around, dust-covered plains will stretch And the winds of forgetting Will blow in the wide-open windows. Only down, deep down, And in the hearts of the few, Still glows the fire of the number— The heritage and testament of a nation. Until— A last one to remember, To lie on the earth and fast,
A. Léyeles 397 A Just man will rise And break bread, and he will be the first To offer new praise And sing the song of a new life. Written on the day of the Nuremberg Verdict
Late Hour It is a deep, late hour, late for everything. We all are writing our wills. Scorpion-eaters, boa serpents Crawl toward us from all the swamps, forests, cities. The world—a horror tale of Edgar Poe’s, A commentary on the spleen of Baudelaire, The son of pain, the terror-understander, “Condemned by a mocking God to paint on shadows.” How familiar sound his words of horror and malheur In this world of woe and wail and despair.
On a Sixth Floor Indeed, who cares That somewhere on a sixth floor Sits in the late, darkest dark A Jew And asks himself: Does anyone care? Why would anyone care? The answer answers itself: No one cares. The asker knows the answer, knows the dread. The asker’s blood rushes to his head. The asker sees what has been, The asker knows what will be. And the night is murky, merciless and dim, And the night is dense and deaf and pitch-black, And it turns the asker on a wheel 11 The sentencing of the Nazi leaders, October 1, 1946.
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398 Introspectivism Of one thought— Who cares? He knows that it could not be different, He knows that it never was different. But the wheel turns deep and turgid and dark— Who cares? Who cares? The wheel turns deeper, down an abyss: Who cares? Flooding, despairing, In dumb, deaf darkness, In pitch-dead darkness, Somewhere on a sixth floor, Somewhere in New York.
Foreign Fencers His sleepless nights are battlefields of madness For angry Noes, for graying Yeses, For gloomy Heres, for twisted Nevers— He can hardly see his connection with them. He would like to escape, He’d let the fencers die weird deaths, He’d shed them like scabby skins, And he himself would begin from the very beginning. What would he have to do with the foreign fencers? What is his business with hunters and beaters? It is all their fault—the masters of evil, The devious demons who descend from a spiderwebbed attic And devastate his authentic image. The sleepless man smiles. Weary, he throws up his hands. Burn in hell! You, brothers, do what you want. You come anyway uninvited. And there is no escape for me.
A. Léyeles 399
Shlomo Molkho Sings on the Eve of His Burning12 Night, metamorphoser of forms, You who pile up doubts in your darknesses, Who weaken a weak and weary soul— Be now the witness of my truth. Night, awakener of hidden fears, You who magnify dangers, Who extort unwanted confessions from split lives Now, put your black seal On the joyful, liberated will Of my confession. Soon it will be here—my most truthful hour, Ash and nothingness will remain of my proud fame. Soon the fire will strip me Of the false plight that deluded me with sweetness. Soon the great silence will be here. Oh, sweeter than all lusts of the body Was the belief of the crowds: Redeemer! Leader! I clung to them with passion, Each throb of blood in me rejoiced: Redeemer. Leader. I. In sinful clandestine silence I sang a song of my I. And while, like multitudes of sand, My faithful gathered around me, While I selected words to match their heavy anguish, I built a sparkling throne For myself. Frivolously, my arrogance embraced my faith. Their belief grew, and with it My haughty head. And my loneliness too, and the fear— Of myself. I saw their faith become a heart with no eyes, 12 Solomon Molkho, born Diego Pires in 1500 in Portugal of Marrano parents. Announced the coming
of the Messiah, obtained the protection of the Pope and aroused the expectations of European Jews. In 1532, was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in Mantua.
400 Introspectivism I saw their blind pain spread Like a carpet Before the treading, fondled feet Of the redeemer; And like stairs— For the climbing, insolent steps Of the leader. Appalled, I saw A forest of wills, tall as cedars, Fall under the axe of falsehood: The hewer sinks in indignity, And the great bright goal— The estranged wonder-bird— Flies back, abashed, To his distant, hidden nest. Now Shlomo Molkho is humble and silent with joy. He sensed in time the redeemer’s poison And exchanged it For the good, free, pure breath Of the flame.
Herod13 Herod is old. His face, anointed with ointments, Balsams and makeup from Egypt, looks young. But his gaze— Restlessness, fear, and grim clouds in the darkening folds, Monstrous two halves side by side in abyss: Roman—and Semite; despair—and good fortune; Patron of strange little swallows, Breaker of nation’s neck; Slave on a throne, King in the yoke Of unsated desires, of sickly and stealthy suspicions. Herod raced early to fortress of lust and desire, Groomed in his youth for the golden scepter of might. Lucky was he. Yet, are all things just hollowed-out vessels? Could the old sages be right, that all pain is 13 In the original, this poem is written in a special strophic pattern, starting with a dactylic pentameter,
followed by an ever-decreasing number of feet—all rhymed, until the last line—a long, unrhymed anapest. We tried to preserve the meter but not the intricate rhyming pattern.
A. Léyeles 401 Nothingness, wind, a mere human invention? He—he will harness the tempest, He is the scion of strength! Pain—not for him. The heart of the voice That engulfs in laments of account and repentance—destroy it! Herod gets grayer and ever unsettled. With age, Choked by a craving to get what’s forbidden to him. Love! King wants love. If only he could, he would order— Just like an exquisite wine from his cellars— Barrels of smiles, fermented on kindness. Maybe it will then be brighter There where the darkness is heavy, Blackness torments. Is, then, his soul Condemned to be ever a battlefield hosting the storm? Herod’s great love erects temples and Golems of marble, Cities and baths. Yet the people curl up in their silence. Mutely they measure the buildings—and count all the graveyards. Stifled, entangled in riddles, the people Stand there, refusing to sip from his wine. Glowing hot coals to the ruler. “Rabble will not—let it be!” Fiercer his anger. Wild is his hatred, Stamping out the last sparks of the aging king’s conscience. Sometimes: he would lose himself in the arms of his wife. Her he adores, she is good to his mouth and his touch. 14 “Fondle, Miriamne, the king!” But suddenly hordes of Demons, intruding their snouts, come together, Whisper and sting and point at Miriamne: Sweet is her flesh—you must kill it! False and betraying it is! He—heeds the voices. Murder dyes crimson His couch, and the mood of the king is a madhouse in drowning.
14 Herod’s wife. She was of the Judaean royal family, the Hasmonaeans, thus lending legitimacy to his
claim to the throne and, at the same time, threatening it. Herod murdered Miriamne, her two sons, and her relatives.
402 Introspectivism Still lies the land under Herod’s hatred and hammer. Hatred feeds hammer and hammer feeds fear—in a circle. All who are close to him, flesh of his flesh—in a vise. All of them destined for dungeons of hangmen. Herod counts clearly: so many of them Died and were buried like dogs. Yet the rebellious, like fleas, Multiply still. Heavy his yoke. And he scribbles fresh notes with names hateful to him—for the morrow. Ever more lonely, secluded the king, day by day. Herod won’t trust an assistant, a slave or a eunuch. Sun is his foe, the earth and the stones are insurgents, All of them traitors, and he—only one. Yet, though the words of the Book bear a warning: Stop—yourself and the mourners!— He is the slave to a curse. His world is asleep. Waking, he dreams But of ruins and corpses, kneeling and singing his praise. Bedlam—the soul of the ruler. Mad spiderwebs Spread, crawl thickly from under the villainous throne, Cover, enfold every breath, so that no one will find Even a crack for escape from the bedlam. Now the last fear grips the king, Strikes like a legion of vengeance: Soon will the crowd Trample your crown And embrace, and rejoice, when your reign and yourself die together. Herod plans carefully. If in his lifetime the joys of Love are forbidden—let mourning surround him in death! He will command: Take the best, in purple or tatters, All who still live, as in spite of his will— Kill them—as soon as his wick has burnt out. Quacks will lament on that day, Women will tear at their skin. Oh, on that day! Wailing will rule! Triumphantly raves the mad tyrant—and night dies in fear.
A. Léyeles 403
Fatal Longing A little poem for the individual. A hot longing, sudden, obtuse, A deep longing—with no excuse. A fatal desire for a poem residual For the individual, who is tired to death. The Hudson’s body stretched out, indigenous, Shackled in ice. Frost plants soar On the hard surface from shore to shore. In the center—an ice-flower sprouts, an original. It, too, would beseech you all: the poem should be. The sun sprinkles sparks, as for a ritual, On the fragment of arctic in my sight. The river fills up the horizon bright With air sharp as brandy, strong as barbiturates, With colors as vigilant as granite and stone. But the poem won’t brew as an ancient remedial, 15 For as in Lodz they had lacked a zemel — (And as in a verse by Richard Dehmel) He simply lacks time, the individual, And the mood, so immediate, that snares you and holds. Caught in his heart, experienced, assiduous, The fatal longing—thirsty, taut. A heavy tightness grips his throat: Now stifled, pales the poem residual, For the individual is tired to death.
On the Hudson The Hudson burns in the white shine of a March sun. The glitter envelops a black tree With naked boughs. You see a man on a white auto-da-fé, You see a white Burning Bush. Around you, end-time aureoles Over black nets of tree-peaks. 15 A roll.
404 Introspectivism Symbols fraternize with things, Things close up in symbols. The Hudson is burning white, glazed. And on the banks— Children glide on roller skates, Ride bicycles. A paralyzed lady with eyes of glass, Gray hair—that once was blond, Sits in a rocking chair And grows, and grows on the horizon, Which hunches up, hills in, And chokes on the false calm of March. White, glazed calm of March.
Why? Just a few steps From the furnished city crates Stands a small fountain. A joyful, dense spurt—a birdbath. From where I sit The Hudson stretches radiant, smooth in the sun. The sun flames, as if obeying orders, But here it is just bright and cool. Here it is calm. The sun exchanges hot winks with the fountain drops, And on a branch over my head A sparrow twitters happily—he likes it. Me too—absolutely. The greenery all around glimmers lush and wet, The grass breathes lightly in the impertinent summer day. Gold, green, silver, birds’ twitter to blue sky. I am dozing off. To this idyllic Picture belongs a white lily In the hand of a fellow Who shows up all of a sudden and says (We are alone) : “As far as I’m concerned you may die this very night.”
A. Léyeles 405 “Why?”—I ask, not thinking. “Because,” he says, “life Is God’s ungodly hatred, And man—the vehicle of his wanton joke. And you poeticize, instead of howling: Horror! You multiply lie upon lie, You fool and deceive.” At this he spat three times, Stuck out at me his long tongue, Crumpled the lily in his hand And, cursing, walked away. The sparrow twittered, The sun teased the fountain’s diamond strings, Shimmering in a rainbow of colors. A red tongue was added to the colors, And a drunken guy in uniform, in the lush, wet grass, Howled: Why?
Sabbath Hours Spicy smell of tall shadowy eucalyptuses With tender, tinder-red fans of blossoms And flowers like delicately cut-up raw meat; Lurking mountains, like camels resting on their knees After a weeklong dusty march; Gardenful, flowering wide expanses Of the golden, eternal Young-Summer— Sabbath in California. High mountains of sand and thought 16 Separate Los Angeles from Lodz. Deep abysses of rushing brooks and turbulent moods Lie between two quiet Sabbath-hours, Shaking their hands over half a century. The late Sabbath afternoon in Lodz comes lovely and leisurely, 17 With the modest green of fresh shchav, With rye bread, milk and farmer’s cheese,
16 Where Léyeles grew up. 17 Sorrel soup, made of green sorrel leaves—a cold delicate drink in Eastern Europe.
406 Introspectivism And with a boy’s lurking, impudent blondness Under Mama’s and Papa’s restful gazes. How can dull shchav Compare with the vanity of eucalyptuses and palms, With orange-blossom, which make you groggy with aromas More fragrant than young honey? What is the link that ties a boy’s sated happiness In the lap of Sabbath peace, running with milk and love, To the soft peace of sun-steeped mountains— Like a wide-open, overripe, giant yellow rose? Over the bridge of half a century Walks from Lodz my mother the Queen, My father with his beard of dark gold. Mother brings bread and an earthenware bowl of shchav. Father’s kindly greenish eyes are like blessings In the boy’s sheltered heart: Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath in the whole world. Half a century is the blink of an eye. Seven thousand miles—the smallest step, When suddenly, unexpectedly, Like the sound of a violin, flutters by The golden wing of the craved-for, blessed Holy peace Of Sabbath.
Desert Madness Wide sky arching above. Warm strength breathing all around. And before my eyes, beyond the limits of synthetic Los Angeles— A convoluted, insane desert growth. Wildly sprawling gray-green branches, twigs, arteries, Bent, twisted, braided, Climbing up, fanning out From some root in dry sands, Then winding down again, rolling in a knot. An open brain, uncovered skull,
A. Léyeles 407 A gray-green powerful giant brain, With all its rivulets, curves, paths and trails, Naked to the open sky, to the big mother, the sun. I looked at the overgrown tangle And caught a bizarre rhythm Assembling sense and harmony in sandy depths. My eyes strayed to a corner Of the desert madness— There, in the most unexpected spot, a flower bloomed And blared passionately its red call for beauty Through all the desolate rawness. How far is a cactus from the bloom of a rose? Doesn’t a rose lie in the heart of a desert-monster?
At the Foot of the Mountain (1957) What Do People Do? What do people do in the days? They hate each other, my dear. What do people think in the nights? Of evil to do, my dear. What does work of the days yield? Destruction, my dear. What does thinking at night bring? Bad blood, bad blood, my dear. Is there no healing at all? The healer hates too, my dear. Is there an escape anywhere? In the Milky Way, maybe, my dear.
It Will Pour After a damp, breathless day, On the plains of the westerly sky
408 Introspectivism Gathered, hordes upon hordes, the gloomy, serious bulls Of night, The humid, strong, black young bulls Of night. A wind drove them And they clung to each other and spread And covered the whole dark-gray expanse, Above the treetops Above the highest hats of the mountains. A dark horde, it amassed and multiplied. Crowded, tenser and tighter Grew their heavy loins, Their overfull, low, weighted loins— It will pour, it will pour, it will pour. The horns of the wind blew and roared Through the thick branches of the trees— It will pour, pour, pour. From the mountains thundered Echo after echo— It will pour!
In Gray Light Over the small Jewish graveyard Is thrown a tulle of gray light, As if a big spider had woven its web Down from the treetops. 18 The orphan Kaddish thickens the tulle. The orphan Kaddish Brings back the unrelenting remembrance Which accompanies me wherever I go, And will stay with me to the last of my days As an internal ash shadow. Next to me stands a young woman. She has blond hair and brown eyes. She is from the State of Israel. 18 Kaddish said by an orphan. Here, a play on words, also meaning a lonely, orphaned Kaddish.
A. Léyeles 409 She speaks to me wise, courageous words: We will do . . . We will . . . Wise and courageous. I make an effort to answer with polite gallantries. The orphan Kaddish Hovering in my ears, has a voice That comes from very far And whispers very near: The voice of my brother Vigder-Isaac. The voice of my brother Yankev-Don.
On the Way Back The sun was hanging in the west Like a big orange, It grew rounder, fell lower and lower. It didn’t warm, and its light Came sideways, foreign, like an idol. The road led among Gentile houses. In the fields stood absorbed—here a cow, there a horse, They broke off their grazing, Lifted their blank faces, Gazing at the falling light And at us. The bright windowpanes Watched us with a wicked shimmer, Sniffing hostilely at our footsteps. The young woman at my side did well To be silent. Or perhaps she talked, And I didn’t hear.
Islandish I was born far from a river And even farther from a sea. Of islands, I learned in school. Yet life has made me into an island, And islandish flow my days.
410 Introspectivism Did I want to escape the open waters Where they all sail in companies? Who am I, that I should know? Yet the oars drove my boat by themselves, The paddles led away from the open space And landed me, still a blond lad, on an island: This is you. I have read in people’s gazes: Go with the majority, any majority, At any time, with any change. I understood their human smiles: Majority means secure refuge, With affable hearths and soft sofas. Did I despise the winking, pleasant flames? Who am I to know? Yet the roads had mustered themselves And led my feet to the narrowest path, Which ended in an impasse Where people don’t walk and cocks don’t crow. There I crouch in my Islandness. Only sometimes Voices reach me, Their call is unintelligible But for hatred and vengeance. Sometimes I can hear the grating Of blunt, flat-eyed envy: “How good he has it, the loner, how convenient!” Then my brow quivers And I laugh my islandish laughter.
A Variant Life is a stage, and we are the actors— It’s an ancient story, in graying remembrance. No one will expect, I am sure, of myself To say it better than the great Shakespeare. Yet I’d like to indulge in a little appendix, An additional variant, it takes a mere strophe.
A. Léyeles The stage is not made of wood and of cardboard, With artful lighting, effects of color, But misfortune and spasm, robber and rabble, With darkness and lust, Cain and Abel. The actors—no pride, no courage, no humor, Uncanny struggle, unholy choir. The stage—a poor clinic, with stench and with torture, The players are whores, and the play an abortion.
A Red Beard Today I saw the arrogant Truth. He comes sometimes openly, sometimes slyly, Always with many faces, By day and by night. The present face—I sniffed it with my eyes, I recognized it, I shall not forget it. A red, copper beard, Sharp teeth, hungry to bite, The eager looks of a preying bird That smells its prey from high up And drops down on it with precision, in a straight line— I saw that face. Like a vulture, piercing its sharp beak Right into the victim’s heart And then spreading over him Its large evil, heroic wings In dark, passionate, satiated victory, I saw him— The arrogant Truth. I looked at him And trembled. Here he is— Who rips living textures, Sears soles, tramples skulls. This is how he lurks and attacks— He who violates the body, Twists the soul, Extinguishes hope,
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Introspectivism Desecrates dreams. The flame-bearded, The sharp-toothed, He talked, and the loftiest name Was on his lips.
Rondeau of My Life’s Walk I chose the road myself, I know it now precisely, I walked on it with energy, with haste as if My destiny had chased me through it with a whip. A road, that has not gathered too much good, And neither has it gained too many friends. Resentments, struggles—pockets full of them. I have saved up self-knowledge. Humility lights up Its lantern on my walk through grayness and—makes sense. I chose the road myself. Not just in Euclid—in life’s labyrinth The straight road is the shortest too. It links together The finest contradictions: bird’s-milk with foul turnip, Soft heart with steel words, the hatred and the loving. I craved not toys—but just an ounce of understanding. I chose the road myself.
Jacob Glatshteyn (1896–1971)
also: Yakov/Yankev Glatstein/Gladstone
glatshteyn was the most celebrated Yiddish poet after the Holocaust. Readers found in his poetry a response to the Shoah and an evocation of Jewish historiosophical consciousness. Yet without Glatshteyn’s sophisticated, individualistic, and ironic style, sparkling with wit and innovations of language, developed in his Introspectivist verse, the achievements of his Holocaust poetry would have been impossible. Glatshteyn was born in Lublin, Poland, then under Russian rule, to an enlightened religious family. He received a traditional Hebrew education until age sixteen and was introduced to serious Yiddish literature by his father. He also studied secular subjects with private tutors. In 1914 he immigrated to New York, where he published his first short story in the anarchist Yiddish newspaper Di Fraye Arbeter Shtime, which fostered some of the best young poets. He studied law at New York University but abandoned it for the career of a Yiddish writer. In 1919 he joined A. Léyeles and N. B. Minkov in launching the Introspectivist trend in Yiddish poetry and their journal, In Zikh (In Oneself). In 1926 Glatshteyn became a regular contributor to one of the major New York Yiddish dailies, Morgen-Zhurnal (Morning Journal), and in 1945 he began writing a column for the Socialist-Zionist weekly Yiddisher Kemfer (“The Jewish Combatant”), entitled “In Tokh Genumen” (“The Heart of the Matter”), where he published more than six hundred essays of succinct, sharp, and witty literary and cultural criticism. Glatshteyn was twice awarded the Louis Lamed Prize—the most prestigious prize for Yiddish literature—for two volumes of prose, When Yash Went and When Yash Came and for a volume of his selected poems, From All My Toyl. Glatshteyn’s early experiments with language—neologisms and archaisms; prosaic, idiomatic, and dialogical turns of phrase; fantastic fictional worlds and Hebrew allusions—are at work in his later period as well. In the last
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414 Introspectivism thirty years of his life, his poetry became an incessant, internalized conversation on Jewish history, the lost world of European Jewry, the birth of Israel, assimilation in America, the tragic demise of the Yiddish language, and the loneliness of the Yiddish poet.
Jacob Glatshteyn (1921) 1919 Lately—no trace left Of Yankl, son of Yitskhok, Just a tiny round dot Rolling crazily through the streets With hooked-on, clumsy limbs. The lord-above surrounded The whole world with heaven-blue And there is no escape. Everywhere “Extras!” fall from above And squash my watery head. And someone’s long tongue Has stained my glasses for good with a smear of red, And red, red, red. You see, One of these days something will explode in my head, Ignite with a dull crash And leave a heap of dirty ashes. And I, The tiny dot, Will spin in ether for eternities, Wrapped in red veils.
The political events of 1919 included Wilson’s attempts to create a lasting world peace, the fresh impressions of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the Red Scare in America, and the wave of massive pogroms in Ukraine. A familiarizing form of the biblical Jacob, son of Isaac, using, however, the real names of the poet and his father. An allusion to “dos pintele Yid” (the “tiny dot Jew,” or the core of Jewishness in a person). Yud is the smallest Hebrew letter, and a dot—for the vowel /i/—is the minimal representation of any Hebrew sound. At the same time, it is the initial letter of both “Jew” and the name of God (YHWH); as well as of Jacob (Yankl) and Isaac (Yitskhok).
Jacob Glatshteyn
The Proud King When the proud king rode into the enemy’s city, His red beard flamed in the rising sun Like the dazzling swords of his retinue. And when the proud king saw with his own eyes How death held the city in its grip And how all the bricks in the houses had died So the mildest wind could blow them into thin dust— He laughed. And he turned his strong head To look at his boys. And the boys were tired and dulled and dragged a weary victory. And the king commanded The youngest men of the city To greet him with bread and salt. Then ten old men with long gray beards approached the king And fell on their knees: Proud king, we are the youngest men of the city And we have no bread, For over twelve months we have seen no bread in the city. May our withered hands bear witness And our parched mouths. A pinch of salt we have brought, Merely a pinch of salt. And the proud king turned back to look at his boys, And they were collapsing, dragging a weary victory. Then the king commanded: Let your most beautiful maidens come to greet my boys, Let them spread flowers at the feet of our victory. In weeping columns walked barefoot maidens with gray heads, Spreading withered petals. And the first four women bowed to the proud king And said: The breath of death has dried our wellsprings Like the roots of our hair, Our skies were turned to stone. How could we quench the thirst of flowers with empty pitchers? And the oldest man rose up from the ground And said:
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416 Introspectivism Proud king, Do not look at me with my head stooped and my step faltering. The years have put a cane in my hand And bowed my head to the ground. The years will cover your proud head, too, with ashes And send it walking like a beggar. Then the proud king knew That his wrath should burn like his red beard. But he did not rage. Only his eyes looked at the withered petals The maidens had spread at the feet of his victory. And one of the maidens tore off all her tatters. Her nakedness cried when she said: Look, proud king, my flesh, that once knew a man, now sags ashamed. Because my longing for the father of my child Has dried out all my female juices. May the womb of your wife so dry out forever. Then the proud king knew again That he must free his wrath like a wild young bull. But he did not rage. His eyes looked on at the withered petals The maidens had spread at the feet of his victory. A dark fear descended on the houses. Terrified children at the windows called for their mothers. From the church came the crying of the pious pews For the young fathers of the city. The dozing blind sexton woke up from his sleep. His old, yellow hands begged the bell to sound That the hour of evening prayers had come, But the mute tongue of the bell rang A death knell. A death knell. The sun shrank. A rain poured down. And the rain soaked the heads of friends and the heads of foes. Then the ten old men turned their backs to the king And walked away toward the church. And the proud king looked on
Jacob Glatshteyn As the maidens with gray heads walked barefoot in weeping columns Spreading withered petals at the feet of his victory.
Bayonets Two darknesses embraced each other And choked the dim light of the sun’s eclipse. Between the two darknesses Withered hands spun blue fires of faith. The right hand spun the darkness of beginning. The left, the darkness of end. Against the sun’s eclipse, millions of fainting bayonets glittered. Bluntly wept their steel. The breath of life dozed lazily, as on a hot afternoon.
Property At the bolted doors of the crumbs of property Shadows of the storekeepers watch all night. At six in the morning the shadows slither home, To wake their bosses For the day-dance over the crumbs of property. But my shadow watches the night-silver of the moon On the peak of Woolworth, And at dawn my shadow brings me A piece of raw gold from the fresh sun.
Turtledoves Impulses of memory: Lightning, swift, Gleam of the sun on a blade. Suddenly: Heder years and a word, Just a word: Tirtle-toyben. Turtledoves.
The Woolworth Tower was a symbolic figure of the marvels of the metropolis. An archaic Yiddish word, preserved in the language of the heder.
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Introspectivism And it won’t relent, With the soft bend of tir-tle, With the fondling fold. Oh tirtle-toyben Tirtle-toyben. Tirtle-tirtle Tirtle-toyben. Heder years, childhood years. And it sings. And it haunts. And it rocks. And reminds: Tirtle-toyben Tirtle-tirtle Tirtle-toyben.
Twelve The hands of the lighted city clock Climb one on top of the other Like a street dog on his accidental mate— Twelve. Now the hoarse song of blood rises To the night ears of the city. Now the whole city sings the song of two. Now the whole city cries the cry of one to one. And the lighted city clock replies: Twelve.
Arteriosclerosis And if, in the rush of your days, Heroically, you vanquished Myriads of little worms Lurking everywhere, And your skin faded in the struggle, And your hair lost its luster And grayed like withered grass On your skull— Can’t you hear,
Jacob Glatshteyn 419 In the rush Of your blood, In the marrow Of your bones, Singing like a cricket, Singing like Titus’s mosquito, Singing to the beat Of a spade digging in black earth: Arteriosclerosis. Arteriosclerosis. And if the higher-up destined it for you: A life like a peaceful swamp, With days that drag on Like a long boring melody, With nights next to a faithful wife, Who brings your slippers When you come home, And her soul rules Among the massive furniture in your house, Even then a spider weaves quietly, With murderous patience, a net in your brain. And to the beat of the ticking clock, And to the trill of the canary in the morning, And to the creak of your rocking chair back-and-forth, Your blood sings the slowly destroying song: Arteriosclerosis. Arteriosclerosis. Arteriosclerosis. A patient robber lurking on the roads. Arteriosclerosis. The must that must happen. Somewhere a yellowed leaf is falling from a tree. Listen to its rustle. Listen to its murmur. Arteriosclerosis. Arteriosclerosis.
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Free Verse (1920) Abishag Abishag. Little, young, warm Abishag. Yell into the street: King David is not yet dead. But King David wants to sleep and they won’t let him. Adoniyahu with his gang shout my crown off my gray head. The fat Bathsheba blesses me with eternal life and watches my last words with a sly smile. Sleep, my king. The night is still. We are all your slaves. Abishag. Little village girl, Abishag. Throw my crown into the street—whoever wants, may catch it. My dead might wails in my every finger. Only over you I reign in my kingly, disgusting old age. King David has lost all his servants. Just one maidservant left. Doze, my king. The night is dead. We are all your slaves. Abishag. Little, sad Abishag. A kitten tossed into the cage of an old, toothless lion. It befell my old age to expire in the lap of your lamenting young years. My victorious wars are but puddles of blood in my memory. And how long has it been since maidens praised me in their songs. Rest, my king. The night is still. We are all your slaves. Abishag. Little, sweet Abishag. Fear is flowing through all my limbs. Wandering through puddles of blood, can you reach the paths of God? At the crossroads, will the soft songs of my pious hours come to my defense? Abishag, you know that songs are more real than sins. Dream, my king. The night is dead. We are all your slaves. Abishag. Little, young, warm Abishag. Yell into the street: King David is not yet dead. But King David wants to die and they won’t let him. Throw out my crown—whoever wants may catch it. A girl brought to comfort King David in his old age. King David’s sons, competing for the throne. Solomon’s mother, who conspired to win the crown for Solomon instead of Adoniyahu.
Jacob Glatshteyn 421 Adoniyahu or Solomon over the people, and I over you in the last days of my digusting old age. Sleep, my king, it will soon be dawn. We are all your slaves.
On My Two-Hundredth Birthday How slowly time crawls for me. Like flies, people live and die. With trembling hands I have been writing yellowing memoirs For who knows how long. My silent dead friends, how lonesome is my life without you. My silent dead friends, how you live within me. Red noon. Calm walls. The stillness in the house embraces the stillness outdoors. I sit and think. My dear wife has left on a phaeton for a visit. The two doves, my son and daughter, went too. I am all by myself. Their subservient love hovers in my room. My friends arrive. We sit together in the garden And talk about mysteries of words, And talk about God, without fear. The younger ones talk about death. We sit on soft cushions and talk About eternity, death, and grammar. The maid serves us glasses of wine. My friends leave. Dusk. The garden is filled with friendliness and wise, measured words. Dampness chases me indoors. In the upper rooms, my maid treads With bare feet on my warm thoughts. I go upstairs. My maid is obedient and soft with quiet bashfulness. Through the window comes the smell of silence from the yard. My lonely footsteps greet dawn in the garden. My thoughts are with my dear wife and my quiet doves. My maid sings somewhere in the garden. The silk of my robe strokes my calmed limbs. Two people from the city knock, asking for alms. I give them a piece of gold.
422 Introspectivism My friends come again with their wise talk. With afternoon-purity in their clothes. They tell stories of countries and books. We speak again of God and mysteries of eternity. Quiet night. The maid washes her body with fragrant oil. Lantern in hand, I give her light and make long shadows on the walls. It is warm to be two in loneliness. In the morning my dear wife and my quiet doves return. The corners are filled again with the song of my love. My dear wife, my children, my bashful maid. My dear friends in countless cemeteries. The scent of grass on intimate graves. Afternoon talk about divinity, about the hidden mystery of the word. A lonely old age is my lot. All the old people are younger than I. And laugh at my dusty words. At my wise words. I pick a wreath of children, tell them beautiful stories. Their fathers pay me pity-money To keep my old bones from falling apart. The ceiling weighs on my head in my lonely alcove. I think of God, with no fear.
Like Chaff With heavy steps the hairy men trudged Like old fat dray horses in harness, And the women followed them. And when the hairy men turned their heads, they saw That the lean man with the whip wasn’t there, And their load, too, had disappeared. Perhaps he fell on the road, And who knows how long they’ve been trudging, slaves to no one And bearers of nothing. It occurred to them: It’s been a long time since they were allowed their women. And it occurred to them: They want to mate their weariness With the weariness of their women.
Jacob Glatshteyn 423 Today they will not be whipped into becoming little gods and procreate, But will spread their strength like chaff. And if the man with the whip really has fallen somewhere on the roads, They will always spread their strength like chaff. It’s been long since they’ve had anything in their mouths— But they did not untie their packs, The hairy men called in the darkness, All their limbs called, Loud and sure they called The names of their women. And the women responded in the darkness.
Gaggie In winter, the house of Gaggie the bear-trainer is warm From the chatter of his five wives. They weave a wreath of warm words Around his heavy body. He likes it and, laughing heartily, Tells them stories of the forest. Later they prattle away in childish disorder Like five drowsy Loreleis. They curl his hair and throw him into a deep well of dozing. When summer comes his wives forsake him. Miles away from him, with dresses tucked up, They stand barefoot in water. They wash other people’s laundry. Then he grows lazy, sits around the house for whole days and dozes. They feel cool. The water splashes between their naked feet. And he feels hot. The five talk of him as of a good uncle, But don’t long for him. When night falls, they kiss each other’s bodies With sweet pain. He feels good too. In late autumn they will come back With packs of food on their shoulders And new dresses with money in their pockets. He feels good, dozing and waiting.
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Evening-Bread On the table a fresh bread, pregnant with promise. Around the table silent guests— I and she and another she. Mouths are silent, but hearts beat. Like tiny gold watches beat the hearts of the guests. And near the bread a sharp knife, its silence heavier than theirs, Beating with a heart more restless Than mine, than hers, and hers. The door is open to the declining sun. On the ceiling, flies doze, tired of the day. And the panes light up in wonder of expectation and fear, Fear and expectation of evening-bread. The knife and I clutch tightly each other’s fear. I flutter with trembling hands over the bread And think of my warm love for them, Of my deadly hatred for them. In my clenched hand the knife faints From fear and danger of evening-bread. She takes the knife and looks at me and at her: Around the table, silently, sit two dead guests And in her heart the knife blade sings The song of danger of evening-bread. The other she plays in quivering joy With the blade of the knife and dead words. And her love for us and her hatred for us And her love for me and her hatred for her Sing out through the wide-open doors To the sun which declines, to the sun, to the sun, Nostalgic songs of evening-bread. Panes flooded with color and song. The knife weary of red desire. Around the table silent guests: I and she and another she. The knife dances from me to her and from her to her. And silently we eat with love and hatred The evening-bread.
Jacob Glatshteyn 425
Autumn Birds sing the song of sadjoy. Wind-bows hover over autumn fields. Woods blush. Leaves die in scarlet longing. Quiet is the crawl and the chatter Of little worms wishing each other may-you-live-till-next-year. A fat old worm sighs And licks his bald head with his feelers: Next year? Heh, heh! Next year. An old peasant climbs with measured steps On the hump of a mountain. In his cried-out eyes flickers a bluish envy Of the death of colors—how beautifully they die. He raises his eyes to the sky. His ears catch the whisper of flower and leaf: —May-you-live-till-next-year! Next year? Heh, heh! Next year.
A Death-Charade The grandfather fulfilled his duty to the grandchildren And died. The earth covered the grandfather. The grandchildren fulfilled their duty to the grandfather And mourned his death. His death to them. His death to himself remained unmourned, Because the grandfather was dead. The grandchildren fulfilled their duty to their grandchildren And died. They are dead to their grandchildren. Dead. to themselves. And the grandfather’s death is dead to them. The grandfather’s death is dead to them From their death until— The grandfather is dead to himself From his death until— Because the deadest is death to himself.
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The Cry of the Gravediggers Woe to us. We come not to plow you, mother of plenty. We come not to sow for a harvest, holy mother. The spade has supplanted the plow. We dig, we dig into you, black mother. Woe to us. We dig and cry. We cry and dig. With the sweat of our brow we earn our bread. Your bread, holy mother. We come not to plow you, mother of plenty, But to dig, to dig into you, black mother.
Credos (1929) Ballad Shoot, comrades, My legs that fled, But don’t shoot my head That thinks of swallows in a nest. So he pleaded When they took him at dawn To the white square. He didn’t cry but plucked at his beard. Spare—he whined—take pity On a man’s head. But twenty rifles in one salvo Shot to pieces the head that was at pains To grasp the meaning of the word— Deserter. And I who was one of the twenty rifles Wandered long till I found his nest. I caressed the heads of three little children And in my throat, My tears imprisoned.
Jacob Glatshteyn 427 A tall, silent woman with high breasts Was waiting for my words. Oh, how could I have told her, And what could I have said for myself, Even if her husband was A deserter.
Girl of My Generation Twice blue and round— Misted mirrors of a soul No one would be stupid enough to research and fathom. A sharp red dash underlines: Here rest words, tongue and teeth Weighted with noble metals. Around the neck white fur. If I choose—remembrance of a white lamb and pasture, If I choose—forest and prey and catch and chase. I don’t choose anything, but I look At the blue velvet which covers one-and-a-half times The thin straight curve holding (The devil only knows how) Everything a woman should have. (Where are the restful, flowing lines and folds, Where Keats and Shelley and Byron buried So much unrest a few generations ago?) Where shall I bury my unrest If not between the thin crossed stilts which tease With black velvet shoes. Light a cigarette, my life, and don’t say That you’d like your innocence shot. Your hunter with bow and arrow has long been laughing at me. In your blood-red nails, mirror For only a moment my cool image.
A Song Your song comes to me in little pieces. You feed me a crumb each morning. Your stingy little hand carefully saves the loaf.
428 Introspectivism Be patient till I give you the key to the gate. Stay true to me till summer. You sit and warm your little feet at the oven And cleverly hide from me your longing. Soon the summer will melt its chains of ice, I shall open the doors and escort you over all thresholds. Stay true to me till summer. In summer I shall slice little tomatoes and think of your lips, And you will stroll over the roads and sing to every passer-by. And I shall regret that I didn’t mark your face with a scar, Or that I didn’t burden your walk with a child. Stay true to me till summer.
I Am Coming to You Slender, middle-aged woman, Watch out for the night Which paints your face with years. I saw you an entangled deer In the branches of the big city. I led you to a bed and said: Let the god of middle-aged understanding Watch over your every move, Let him stand by you in your great skill. Where else have I seen such a bloody war Between age and childishness, as on your face. You silly warrior, I am coming to you, To the priestess of understanding, And I play with your wise words and still fresh legs All through the night that rouges your face with years. In the morning I search in vain for words That can be painted on pink paper. When I find them, I’ll send them to you And you will hide them in a book of poetry Next to dry petals of first love.
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From Our Yoke The last wall between us fell down And I saw that she was not all charm. I heard the wavering of her words And did not long for wisdom. And still, With confident hands I hammered shingles On the roof over our heads. I know that she is not the one I sought. For her I did not spread any nets. What kind of hunter could I be anyway With a pack of years that I managed to sneak through. She came to me herself. And yet I like it now That we have won each other. She came to me herself And said: I am not all charm And not clever And I don’t need all the stimulations In order to want to live. I know that my body, like yours, Is a bit worn, And I have, like you, Three or four illnesses That no perfume can disguise. The body is—flesh. And what in me is different from yours Becomes different only by your touch. Because in themselves the breasts are not breasts And the girlish paraphernalia Becomes girlish only with you. I weighed and measured her simple talk. I wanted to see where in her words Lay the hidden and the mysterious That could feed my desire for her And hers for me. Her words were pure skeleton,
430 Introspectivism With no embellishment of flesh and veins. How could I have talked to her About “Be a mother to me or a sister.” A thousand lyrical poems she denied with her words. And still I climbed on the roof And mended all the leaks. And I did it, rejoicing That another human being was with me. And as I hammered the shingles I thought that No matter how close man and woman may sleep Their dreams are separate. In sleep they are lonely And shut each other out. I told myself: When I come down from the roof I will tell her this and watch closely What her eyes will answer.
Sheeny Mike 1 Sheeny Mike sleeps in a coffin of bronze. He is mourned by a kingdom of twelve blocks 10 And by his mama’s shaytl and his papa’s old beard. Orphaned guys stand at the street corners And crumple cigarettes with thin, shaking fingers. A guy stands on the corner, his hat slanted, And spits a thin stream through his teeth. A heavy stone covers the well of tears, But he knows that Sheeny Mike lies asleep In a coffin of bronze. The terror and the guardian, the ruler and the king Of twelve whole blocks Lies spruced up, asleep. Mama’s shaytl wails out his merit: He didn’t let his old father-and-mother An ironic allusion to Bialik’s Hebrew love poem “Take Me in Under Your Wing.” Bialik’s line is: “Be a
mother to me and a sister.” 10 Mandatory wig worn by Orthodox married women.
Jacob Glatshteyn Be anybody’s burden. And papa’s beard is ashamed in its old age, For everyone, everyone in the twelve whole blocks knows That Sheeny Mike fell and is now asleep In a coffin of bronze. 2 Heavy tugboats cut through the dirty water, Stinking smoke covers with soot The roofs of the little world. Here, on the roof, he saw the dream of his kingdom. The flapping sheets on the lines Were his plains, While below, over a greasy holy book, His papa with half-blind eyes Taught children the meaning 11 Of Shulchon—a taybel and Keessay—a chair. Oh, mama knew her woe, That her child climbed the ladder fast— From pickpocket to the very top, To big boss, king and ruler Over twelve whole blocks. The forefathers, the pious water bearers and coarsened God-fearing butchers, Stayed behind in the cemeteries over there. They did not intercede When papa with his red eyes generously Furnished the poverty of his house with chanting: Oy, Shulchon—a taybel and Keessay—a chair. 3 How did he dream up his kingdom. How did he govern. How did he rule. How did he subdue, How did he harness His little world right up to the House of the law with the green lantern.
11 Shulchon–table, keessay–chair. The traditional mode of teaching in heder consisted of reading each
Hebrew word followed by a Yiddish translation.
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432 Introspectivism Mama’s rusty candleholders, The poor Sabbath at home, The damp walls, Papa’s beard and mama’s shaytl Did they know that under the same roof Lived a king, Who ruled and ruled, governed and commanded Till he fell by an enemy hand. Who broke the dynasty? Sheeny Mike knows, but one must not tell. Sheeny Mike smiles in a coffin of bronze. 4 How much courage in a thin body, How much strength in clenched lips, How much stubbornness in proud legs Coming to be silent, silent, silent At the side of the silent head. Let her through to the coffin of bronze. Oh, over her young and glowing life He was the nobleman, The knight on horseback, The dumb guy, the drunkard, Who exploded with anger And fiery words. How much stubbornness walking through all the rows, Coming to be silent, silent, silent At the side of the silent head. Let her through to the coffin of bronze.
Autobiography Yesterday I dumped on my son the following story: That my father was a cyclops and, of course, had one eye, That my fifteen brothers wanted to devour me, So I barely got myself out of their clutches And started rolling all over the world. Rolling, I grew up in two days, But I wouldn’t go back to my father’s house.
Jacob Glatshteyn
So I went to Tsefania and learned sprechen Jewish, I got myself circumcised and became a Yid. 12 So I started selling flax, wax, esrogs with bitten-off tips, 13 And earned water for kasha. Till I met an old princess Who willed me an estate and died. So I became a landowner And began guzzling and gorging. And when I saw I was getting fat, I made up my mind and got married. After the marriage, my estate burned down. So I became a poor newspaper writer. To my father, the, cyclops, I sometimes write a letter, But to my fifteen brothers—the finger.
Jewish Kingdoms Konskiwolie, Mazelboz. ec, Korznice, Liewertow, Puławe, Bechewe, Glisk, Piusk, Szabeszin— Names of Polish towns, the devil knows why They float up in my memory like dry leaves in a bath. When I was a fat little brat I knew that a voyage there Smelled of a coach, a carriage, a squeaking wagon, Carrying warm maids to new places. I saw all the towns as Jewish kingdoms, Where Yom Kippur lays its fear Even on goyish huts, Where crosses hang on the walls As amulets against the Jewish god. I would give a wealth of poverty If I could still long for that.
12 Citron (Hebrew: ethrog)—a ritual fruit used for Sukkot, not kosher without the tip intact. 13 “Earning water for kasha” is indeed hardly making a living.
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The Baron Tells of His Last Experience14 1 A quiet narrow river, life is winding Rustic-slow through dark streets, Stained by old houses, Towers and churches. Into a big dustbin a hand throws Years like rotten leaves, Heaped and stinking colorfully, As withered leaves do. And too heavy is a man’s burden To stop and read the annodomini— This-year, the year-before and the year that will come With quiet eventless days. Like smouldering streetlamps Darken the hopes for tomorrow. Only the children still dream wide awake, Playing what-will-be, And pet in the dark in attics With hot little hands. In proud colorful uniforms Soldiers stroll in the streets Like bright Australian birds. At night, street corners grow warm and lively like anthills. Girls with sassy mouths and high breasts And soldiers breathing heavily through long moustaches, Restlessly shifting their weight, Glued to each other in the dark, Talk with a quiet singsong about getting discharged And building their own home. Here the Baron came to cough out His last months. Here, in the little church, he heard The pure words of the pastor: Small measured words like little dots, Quiet talk about life and about Joyful comfort in the face of death.
14 In his collected poems of 1956, Glatshteyn renamed this poem “The Sword of Lies.”
Jacob Glatshteyn The mountains under his eyes swelled And the eyes were filled with warmth, When the shepherd of the human flock Talked quietly about the Heavenly Father, The shepherd of us all, who is patient And modest as a beggar. The small town Was lovely and cramped as a steam bath. Here, stretching his long stick, He wrote with the spiderweb of houses The distant name, Petersburg, Or the short word, Rome, Where women on high heels Call with eyes like lanterns, and are More clever and experienced than men. A tall thin tree, he strolled The length and breadth of the town And thought of things that choked him, And looked for open spaces To flood with spun-gold words That soar to the sky like acrobats. The day set on a patch of cloud In beautiful colors. The Baron accused himself Of being old and sentimental When he thought of his enchanted life Flaring up before its decline, And it was all the same to him Whether he had singlehandedly slaughtered hundreds of men Or had invented it all. Everything was as distant as a rainbow. Even if all his life He had set his years with diamond legends— He had lost the crown long ago, And now he thinks so simply Of the man who just lived his life And died like a god. Who could now stretch a skinny arm To what has gone,
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436 Introspectivism And say that this really happened, And that was only imagined? Now, at the end of the road, In a town that is for him end-of-the-world, When the tired feet Won’t go back. Glowworms playing among the trees Lit up and went out. Darkness came with calm peace. Everything in him flickered out As if it were the day after his death. The chill was the only tremor of life That shivered his old bones. The night spoke through water murmur, leaf and frog, With the heartrending magic Of a flute playing by itself In a cemetery. And the Baron fled To seek a warm place and a human voice. 2 Two drunkards sing in the tavern. One sings that omnipotent is the Creator, And the other about Magda and her big ass. And both are sad and cry together, And cry separately, Each in his mug of beer. On a broken long bench, He sits at the bare table, reminiscing About the lean and slender youth Who once paved with lies The entries to the best houses, About the rider who galloped Through the dust of several dozen years And never had time to see The reflection of his own eyes. Why did he ride and ride and ride, Never looking at himself in a mirror Or telling himself a true word? He denied every one of his days,
Jacob Glatshteyn 437 Erased them from his memory. He became the magician-architect Of his own bygone hours. He embalmed his dead moments And with colorful words Invented a life for himself. Once, words were his servants, His blazing brain had kindled them like torches. Now he is engraving his own tombstone And looking for one quiet word that will sum up And perhaps even mourn. Now, after several foamy glasses of beer, The wisdom, always So deep in him, stem of his stem, Separated from him and stood up on the table. Like an owl with spectacles it stood And mocked him for his bitter self-pity. And then it seemed to him That he was not sitting but hanging in a corner, Crucified by his own pity. Hanging with outstretched arms, As if the few years that he had lived Were not his own, But a martyr-sign for a world. All this self-repainting became loathsome And he fled from the corner. He joined the two drunkards And, uninvited, began telling Of his unreal, rainbow past. It was in the year that a cursed peace Spread its paper wings Over the whole world. Starving crows, big as lions, Were roaming and cawing. The fields were blooming and longing for desolation. And man hated man With a rusty love. Then, my dear friends, I had on my hands A war of my own.
438 Introspectivism My black wife from the island, like a cat, Bore me twenty kids in one year. The kids grew like on yeast And went off stretching their legs— And the whole black family ran after me from place to place. But my thoughts were elsewhere, In the coppered city, Petersburg. Petersburg! Copper roofs baked gold by the sun. Petersburg! Where for the first time I encountered The Wandering Jew with the heavy cross on his back. Petersburg! City where God made a pact with the devil. Petersburg! Where, for a kopeck, girls bared their asses, And where my heavy-bodied Natasha Was starving for me. So, one fine day, I picked a bunch of sleep-giving herbs in the forest, And my wife and the kids fell for it and were soon snoring. Right away I saddled my horse and shouted in his ear The magic word: Petersburg. In one leap he landed A hundred miles beyond the Russian capital. I began to steer him back And he jumped again And landed near my sleeping family. Seeing that I could not curb his speed, I commanded again: Petersburg, And after the leap I climbed down And began trudging with my horse The hundred miles back. But on the way I saw That, in my horse’s leap, My trousers had split And my sword dangled pitifully Over the torn pants. And here I am, in the middle of a forest, Where needle-and-thread don’t grow on trees. So I carved a needle from a thin twig, Threaded its eye with sundust And sewed my blue military trousers.
Jacob Glatshteyn 439 When night fell The trousers served me well on the road— The sunstitches glowed like lanterns And the road was like a highway of diamonds. Can you imagine, the night was so deep That the darkness ate into my face And blackened it as if I were a Hindu. In the morning, when I saw myself in the first pond, I thought I was one of my own children That the black bitch had spawned. So I jumped on my horse and whistled: Ready! And I called: Ararat! A leap—and I rolled In the eternal snow, Till my face again pulled on Its whiteness. A leap down and I stood with my magic horse At the Czar’s palace. All his servants fell to the ground And I walked over the backs of sixty thousand slaves To the evil Czar. As I opened the door, the Czar cried out with joy: 15 Willkommen Herr Baron! And soon he told me the sad news That Natasha had died of longing. I shed only one tear, As befits a soldier, and said: I have come to you, Papa-Czar, about an important matter. The world is growing moldy with peace And the sword and the rifle are rusting. Wouldn’t it be nice to tickle the Turk— I am at your service. Says the Czar: War with no pretext? Says I: We shall invent a pretext in half-an-hour, Better go prepare the army For the war that will soon be blazing, Painting the world with soldier’s feelings. So I went with the Czar straight to a brothel 15 Welcome, Mr. Baron (in German).
440 Introspectivism And from the brothel to a church, And there we told the deaf priest the news That a fresh battle was on the way. The drunkard who sang of God’s mercy Threw his glass at the wall And it shattered into splinters. Shut up, Baron. Your stories Don’t have a single crumb of God’s grace, They’re just hollow soap-bubbles. Better to be bored with one’s own wife and kids In a poor house, where God’s blessing flows quietly like holy oil, Than to listen to your empty boasting. You’ve always crawled through the eye of a needle With the gleaming sword of lies, You groveled before power, You bragged to those who could not rise from the dirt. And only once did you see the image Of the Eternal Jew with the cross of his burden. What did you say to him? Did you cry over God’s curse? Did you yourself seek God’s face? You will soon croak and leave us a heritage Of stories that people will tell at every hearth— Colorful lies that will entertain for hundreds of years, And God’s true word lies disgraced, Wallowing in the dirt. All alone, the Baron remained in the tavern And hummed to himself the song of the dark clown: Streams of light flooding magic On his face. He is chosen by the crowd To entertain! All that bubbles in their eyes, All that laughs and all that cries— He stumbles, rises, falls, and bounds, He loves, he lauds, he lives, he lies, He flutters words and flatters sounds, He rocks with song and touches rue, He paints the truth in red and blue.
Jacob Glatshteyn 441 Blue dawned the day and the sky was red at the seams. “He paints the truth in red and blue”— He sang again and, singing, strolled out of the tavern. Washerwomen carried packs of laundry to the river And greeted him joyfully. The pastor stood at the door of the church And breathed young morning air. The Baron went to the forest, And in an abandoned hut He caught the red spider at his work: How well he slid on his own thread And hooked it to the roof, And swung back, Entangled himself, And spit out a new thread. Elsewhere on a tree Dewdrops lay on a finished spiderweb And shimmered in the sun like a diadem. He went to the cemetery and read aloud the tombstones Of good citizens and their wives Who had lived all their lives in this town. And for the hundredth time he laughed at his own joke: That even after their death They lie with their own wives. He shuddered at footsteps, and saw the pastor near him. You’re observing, Baron, my dead congregation, The pastor remarked with a smile That deepened the wrinkles on his old face. His voice was low and clear, As if it were his first word After a silent morning prayer. I strolled in the forest and caught up with you. Come, let us go together. On such a day, it is good to talk of God’s face That is revealed to those who seek Him In the first blue hours of dawn. Here, in the cemetery, at the end of all roads, I think always of a new beginning, Herr Baron. I often leave this place younger, My mind refreshed as a newborn babe.
442 Introspectivism “He paints the truth in red and blue,” A spiderweb of words entangled in the Baron’s head. And with a cutting insolence he cried out: Herr Pastor, is this your truth? To my sparkling words you counter With your talk of a new birth Here on the road where everything is end. Herr Pastor, let us—two liars—go on And together seek God’s face.
Exegyddish (1937)16 From the Nursery Clock and Mommie a click ticks and she a is warm and eye and eye and ha and hand and hand and close and click click click click.
A Boy and a Roll A boy eats a roll with butter, A kitten looks into his eyes. The boy is slee—and hun—. One eye sticky. The cat has a big glass eye And the night has three or maybe four Glass eyes. And mommie has a tail and paws with nails. She undresses him and scratches. She is good and scratches. 16 The Yiddish title of the book, “Yiddishtaytshn,” means roughly: Explications of Yiddish. It is coined
as a reversal of “Ivre-taytsch,” meaning: Hebrew, translated. It was the old name for Yiddish as the language for medieval Hebrew teaching and Bible translations. An allusion to a stylized, archaic Yiddish.
Jacob Glatshteyn 443 The roll is dark as the night From here to there and away. And the night is of glass. The night is a black window, Lying on the floor and in mommie’s song. Tomorrow will be better. There will be a little light, And it won’t be scary to look Through a kitten-eye outside.
Night, Be Mood to Me Night, be mood to me— Mood night. Night, be long to me— Long night. With me under the cover, be calm to me— Calm night. Three times I shall repeatrepeatrepeat, Louder than fear I shall sing. Intimate is the terror Of your catty eyes in all darknesses. Lovely is the scare Of your myriad noises in all corners. My mother is a murderess, She doesn’t care that a shadow Sharpens his knife and will kill me. She left, she’s in daddy’s bed, She doesn’t care that in the morning They’ll find me strangled, So I don’t care either. I don’t care. I don’t care either. I don’t care. I don’t Care either. Through the narrow path, Night, be come to me. To me in the window. Night, be look to me. Look night.
444 Introspectivism
To a Friend Who Wouldn’t Bother to Strain His Noodleboard Because Even So It Is Hard to Go Hunting When Your Rifle Is Blunt and Love Is Soft as An Old Blanket17 And it is hard to tell one Thing from another in the worduproar of the noisy Bible of meaning and saying and verse And reverse with contradictory uniValence when a leaf is simply green And copper-red in wintereve Of worldmagic which turns down The streetlamp at night like a quiet House and watches with one eye And sees double oneself and oneself On the surface in the depths And this is perhaps a glow Of a truthshadow or A prelude to an event But belief and superstition Lie in posteriorstition which To the quiet tumult of kingdoms That swear with loyalties To the serf who doesn’t deserve And builds and plows And enriches the whole everywhere The whole geography is nothing to 17 In a review of Glatshteyn’s Credos, the writer Lamed Shapiro wrote: “Many of the poems I do not
understand. They look like riddles: who wants to break his head on them? Even without them, it is hard to live in the world.” As Glatshteyn tells it, he liked the phrase and seventeen years later wrote a poem in which he wanted “to confront hard life with absolute incomprehensibility which doesn’t plague your head anymore because breaking your head won’t help anyway. From this confrontation, I wanted to extract as much music as possible.”
Jacob Glatshteyn 445 Complain about but in the individual’s Pupil it becomes Thrice devil take it Unintelligible and life The whore winks and gets done with Everything so fast and slovenly A clumpy life a shovel of earth Which the collective minds Little and fools himself that He is eternal When he is no-longer Then he’s a martyr with A monumand in hand And a wick in his And the stage is a stench And the book wants regardless To analyze everything in toto And they paint up to the tears To remember the rivers while And if we pull the chat back We become clear like a lullaby Or like the Swiss government But human luck The philosopher amulet The girl’s two legs The beautifully boned which lead The lovely-veined which lead Away and upward then it becomes Again thrice devil take it unintelligible And infernicely incomprehensible That a surface could dimension out To the very unresearched And around everything And on top of everything Lie graves of meanings Of words of verses And reverses of mysteries Of principles of morals Of concepts of pointofviews Of values and devalues Of complexities
446 Introspectivism And perplexities of cosmic Ethics aesthetics and juices Which have foundations and creations And stride and flow and flood And excite and excise and crucify and engrave And live and live and live Then it becomes really hell May his name be blotted out Thirty times unintelligible When everything is clear like the canary Who used to sing I am cast of gold And my voice is pure flute And the morning is cast of spun gold And the rooster is hoarse And the morning doesn’t mind He walks anyway in slippers Pulls aside the blue curtain And bows deeply I am here And when he may-he-live-long is here Then the trees sway The rivers rejoice The birds sing and it even Rains out of the blue So-what so-what The canary scratches his feathers With his foot and says It would be a crime I f one would If one would 18 (God build God build) Think that this is cymbalism The real truth is I am cast of gold And my voice is pure flute Gold shmold flute shmute It is devil take it terribly Unintelligible 18 In Hebrew: El Bene—an allusion to a Hebrew song in the Passover Haggadah.
Jacob Glatshteyn 447
Dissolution In sad dissolution rust quotations Of bugographs. Dear Matilda, sing me a lemon of sedate aphorisms And howtolives. Tatters of silence, crucified emptiness. Throbbing, I race to the comic sophistical finish. In wishy-washy meantime 19 I juggle the lung-and-liver they hung on me: Rising and setting regularities, Shorthands of erudition Moralerotassociations. Yoke. Mild treeswings. Rosysnowed mise-en-scènes. Egoish, I stand at the very crater, Under the gloomy sign of my geography. I note everything with a sharpened lancet. The gruesome connections, the crying continuities— The atavistic lustburden. Pointed proverbs, rounded folksiness. I am two-years-old and I bow-and-arrow over Fences and spikes. Flower in hand, I question All axiomatized indepthinkings. Red quiver of ashes over dusty vandals. Will rises monumental to be fatal charm. To be or to rust. Hunger or multiply. In the corrosion of the destined sunset I throw borrowed elegies into the melting pot. The heavy steel machine grew wings And the cutting glare sings Over panoramic everywheres.
19 An idiom, “to hang a lung and liver on someone’s nose,” meaning to dupe him.
448 Introspectivism
We the Wordproletariat Night. In the darkest places sparkle traces Of words. Loaded ships with ideo-glyphs Sail away. And you, armored in silence and wisdom, Unwrap word from sense. Mementos—rain-veiled horizon, Flickering return, barely recalled: A book, a face, a smile, a yawn. The cursed night has got into your bones. Soften up, cover up, forget. Don’t make a miracle of a trouser button. Wordproletarians. Airplanes leave lands Full of understands. And you in your vest of Sesames and Ali-Babas. Don’t you hear how yokes sigh? Iron girders lie on your words. Gnash them, curse them with disaster. Where are your laughters, where are your groans? The cursed night has got into your bones. Your palm dates under your windows. A stone and Here-Lies. The in-between times have brought you to the absolute. Graves of individuals, masses, Jews, races— Archives. Now whole collectives sing, Stratospheres, stars, even buildings, stones. The cursed night has got into your bones. The sky, the blue hazard, went out. You still sit and seek the shadows of a word And scrape the mold off meanings. Words take on sadder and purer tones. The cursed night has got into your bones.
Jacob Glatshteyn 449
Songs of Remembrance (1943) Small Night-Music 1 Shadow me in, dark me in, disappear me. I am too small to live big. Happen around me less and less. Flutter around me mysteries of small things. Give me back my portion of world On a small saucer. Quiver about me sunrises, Sunsets, rains, sleep. Give me the smallest cot. I am too small to live big. Blow quietly on my life And put it out. 2 The birds flew in With the evening in their Singing throats. A rabbit freezes in fear And rolls his eyes. The field lies open Against a red-streaked sky. A village fiddler walks home With a burden of played-out songs. The night comes in like a thin bell. 3 Oh, I am, I am. I am sad and barely barely singing. The Italian takes home his little monkey. And I sit in front of my house And bathe in silence. The little monkey has a wise tail And walks cleverly on two legs. The night grows black wings on me And I shudder like a bat.
450 Introspectivism 4 Cradles swing, quiet cradles, Sleepy cradles. The night stays hanging on a piece of house. A window takes cover with a bit of light. The children have dear little heads— Even in the dark they know everything. Nice children with closed eyes And bright fears. 5 Don’t forbid me To sit in the dark and think. You won’t come to me. Even in my sleep you will Stubbornly not come to me. Don’t warn me with your harsh word, I shall invent you From head to toe And I shall curl you up next to me Like a sleepy cat. 6 20 A little, sad Rov Sits over a holy book and yawns. A silver woman stands frozen in a corner With a boiled chicken in a pot. She sings a query. Tra-la-lam. The Rov dozes off. The woman sits down on a firepot With red-black glowing coals. 7 Dear nun, with your childish feet And old little head. The night weighs you down like a heavy cross. You open a little door And drown in a narrow cot. In the corner hangs a heavy, red lamp. 20 Rabbi, legal authority. The poem is a tableau of a woman coming to the Rov with a query as to whether
her chicken or her pot is kosher.
Jacob Glatshteyn You become lighter and lighter. Dripping sleep Covers your old face. 8 A little window, a confident mouth, A quiet beard. The old night is not his last. The confident mouth sings: The sinner’s happiness Is a house of cards. But my dragging boat Will get to a shore. You will take us all back Into your bright shelter. The confident mouth is sure of the morning. 9 A village with mute flowers. A little mill turns day and night. Bent little oxen chew sweet grass And the evening chirps quietly. It is a world of singing signs. Doors are open when the night comes riding. A gray man hushes his old dog, Who is anyway sunk in himself. 10 Shall I long for that saddened joy That veiled in mystery the clearest twosome And brought tears to the prettiest smile? The uncertainty was forever, And in that forever was our bond. Now it’s a happy joy And that wonder of sadness Has become childish. And everything is clear And the twosome is song. But the forever is clouded With sunset.
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452 Introspectivism 11 The sad woman counted small pieces of silver And brought up black bread with butter. The steam of hot tea clouded over The desiring mother. I heard her small words. The night was waiting patiently. She bent over the bed And pushed aside the cover. 12 21 Trust me just from here to here And a few steps more. I am coming on my own, I won’t cheat you. I shall bring you my open face And you will sense all the becauses. I am oversaddened with books, Drunk with the wine of times, And languid as a pampered cat In a warm house. See, I am coming back to myself, To the wonder of the first dot. Close the window, dear friend, Keep me from the slightest breeze. In the dark we are two. What could be lesser and smaller. Let all greedy tasters Do as they like. And we shall saddle our sleep And ride in a private park. There, the mays and the mustnots Will kiss in the dark.
21 A reference to the Yiddish proverb “Trust me from here to there,” meaning: trust me completely.
Glatshteyn confines the space to visible intimacy, using two different words for “here.”
Jacob Glatshteyn
Songs of Remembrance Good Night, World22 Good night, wide world. Big, stinking world. Not you, but I, slam the gate. 23 In my long robe, With my flaming, yellow patch, With my proud gait, At my own command— I return to the ghetto. Wipe out, stamp out all the alien traces. I grovel in your dirt, Hail, hail, hail, Humpbacked Jewish life. A ban, world, on your unclean cultures. Though all is desolate, I roll in your dust, Gloomy Jewish life. Piggish German, hostile Polack, 24 Sly Amalek, land of guzzling and gorging. Flabby democracy, with your cold Compresses of sympathy. Good night, world of electrical insolence. Back to my kerosene, tallowy shadow, Eternal October, wee little stars, To my crooked alleys, hunchbacked street-lamp, 25 26 My stray pages, my Twenty-Four-Books, My Talmud, to the puzzling 27 28 Questions, to the bright Hebrew-Yiddish, To Law, to deep meaning, to duty, to right. World, I stride with joy to the quiet ghetto-light. 22 This and the following four poems were included in a section, “Open a Chronicle and Record.” The
poem first appeared in In zikh, April 1938. 23 The traditional black overcoat of East-European Orthodox Jews. 24 A tribe that slaughtered Jews in their exodus from Egypt and was condemned by God to annihilation
(Exodus 17:14). Amalek became the symbol of all the persecutors of the Jews. 25 Of torn Holy Books; they were buried or preserved in the synagogue. 26 The Bible (in Yiddish, svarbe, contraction of the Hebrew esrim-ve-arba, twenty-four). 27 Difficult issues in the study of Jewish law. 28 The traditional Yiddish translation of the Hebrew Holy Books, which acquired an archaic and religious
flavor in modern Yiddish.
453
454 Introspectivism Good night. I grant you, world, All my liberators. Take the Jesusmarxes, choke on their courage. Drop dead on a drop of our baptized blood. 29 And I believe that even though he tarries, Day after day rises my waiting. Surely, green leaves will rustle On our withered tree. I do not need consolation. I go back to my four walls, From Wagner’s pagan music—to tune, to humming. I kiss you, tangled Jewish life. It cries in me, the joy of coming. April 1938
Wagons30 Twilight. Sad wagons roll in With quiet signs from afar. The doors are wide open, But no one is waiting to welcome. The village is calm. Bells of silence, pealing. Each blade of grass bows in submission Under the flames of coolness. Some sick Jews climb off the wagons, And a wise word gets tangled In each pondering head. God, on your scale of good and bad Put a plate of warm food, Or at least throw in Some oats for the lean horses. The village deadness grows darker, A gruesome silence falls on each Jewish beard. Each sees in the other’s eyes A prayer shuddering in fear: When death arrives, 29 An allusion to the credo “Ani Maamin” (“I Believe”), the affirmation of faith in the coming of the
Messiah. 30 This poem may allude to the expulsion of former Polish Jews from Nazi Germany in 1938 and their
abandonment in no-man’s-land on the Polish-German border.
Jacob Glatshteyn Let me not remain alone. Do not overlook my lean bones. June 1938
A Hunger Fell upon Us A hunger fell upon us, A sad hunger. We have saved up Our own bit of sky. A moon looks down on us Through silver spectacles. Maybe not all good wishes Have come true, Yet by many a cradle stands 31 The golden kid of the song. But your bones ache. No, it isn’t the bed that groans, You hear the voice of your own bones— Wanderbones. You put on your slippers, Go out into the quiet yard, Step on the earth. You stop. What could be more your own Than your own four corners? 32 You touch your fig tree, Stroke the bricks of the house. The bright windowpane wants to reassure you. But the assurance is smoky, transparent. Have you planted? Have you laid foundations? Yes, but again something groans. Still the drowsy bones— The wanderbones. On your table—all you could wish, You take a bite, you soothe your heart. 31 Standing beneath a baby’s cradle, an image from the Yiddish lullaby, promising a future of plenty. 32 Allusion to I Kings 4:25: “And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig
tree . . . ” (See also, Isaiah 36:16.)
455
456 Introspectivism But did you calm the hunger That fell upon all of us, The sad hunger For a word surer than brick, Like earth under your feet? Your wife is asleep. Your children, asleep. Surely, there is a framework To your years. A moment, everything seems Almost fine. Suddenly the door opens. They stick a paper under your nose. What a just bill! They confiscate all you’ve saved up, The bricks, the air, the earth, The right of copulation, Even the golden kid of the song, The silver spectacles of the moon. Maybe nobody’s come yet, But my bones already ache With the dampness of the Jewish weather. I bar the door. My night-mirror is a barometer of autumn. I hear the groan of my scared bones— Wanderbones. Dawn. Life crows cockadoodledoo. Soon the earning-mills begin to grind. But for the life of me, it won’t still The hunger that has fallen on all of us, The sad hunger. April 1939
On the Butcher Block What a commotion there was yesterday around me, As I stood bleeding on the butcher block Like a slave for sale. Here’s the man, they pointed at me,
Jacob Glatshteyn 457 Who deserves our pity. It’s true, a fast tongue was shrieking, You’d better watch out for his sticky fingers, He’s a bit of a swindler, cutthroat, sleazy, But wasn’t it we who pushed him To the livelihoods that are easy? To be sure, he himself is loathsome, A stain on our family— Said another in deep compassion, A tear choking his gullet— But it’s hard to forget the Holy Book That his fore-forefathers bequeathed to us. Just for the Ten Forbiddings One should be gracious unto him And endure This sneak, whoreson and boor. Just look at that hump— An old maid felt my swollen back— It comes from sitting, from poring over books, Sharpening his wits for jewing. But the blame, she says, must fall on ourselves, For we did not force him Into the sweaty trades, Like cutting stones, digging potatoes; So, instead of his neck, he harnessed his head Like an ox to a plow, Outclevered us all, And took away our last cent. Now listen to the language he babbles, See, how he celebrates separateness in our land, The land our fathers fought for, Hear how he squeals that they slaughtered his brother, How he makes our lives miserable— Caresses me the bass voice of a liberable— No trace would be left of him If we had loved him instead of hating And opened our arms For him, the chosen, the proud one. Our churches would have melted him long ago.
458 Introspectivism We must not forget—he concludes with a priestly snap— The point isn’t always to slap his other cheek, But to set ours against His tribal meanness. What a commotion there was yesterday around me In the butcher shop. I stood there in a shirt and tattered underwear As they purged my veins With justifications. They explained away my base instincts so well, They sang so beautifully the merits Of my pious grandfathers, That even the butcher block spurted tears. A pious old woman made a sign over me, Down and across; And everything around me dissolved. I remained alone under a cold sky. The gang came out of hiding And I closed my eyes. The blows no longer concerned me. With a shudder, I remembered How they had assembled At the round butcher block, How they had belched over my beaten body, And like bees, were stinging my wounds with honey. You extinguished one star, a second, a third, Your entire shining might. God, what am I doing here alone, In your eternal night. June 1939
Here I Have Never Been I always thought I had been here before. With each year of my refurbished life I warmed textures From lived-up patches of worlds. I recognized remembered faces and smiles
Jacob Glatshteyn 459 And even father-mother were for me Nostalgic frescoes of antiquity. I trod on old evil paths And between shores of history I sailed. Time and again I found the wonder Engraved in memory And the once-tumultuous past Bubbled bashfully in the present. I thought I had been here before. But the last pieces of rag-years With their invented deaths— These are my own days and nights. This is my own hunchbacked lot, This was piled up in my own life. The frozen melancholy, The scorched fields, The maps with graveyards, Petrified silence, The signs of happy evil— I don’t remember them from anywhere. This I have never seen. Here I have never been. Be still, dead world. Hush inside you your own desolation. Once again withered ornaments will bloom. We shall rebuild your foundations On the blood that was spilled. 33 But the dead will cry in Midnight vigils, Each corpse—a dripping voice. Over every grave, like a small candle, A prayer will flicker. Each self for himself: I am myself— Thousands of slaughtered selves Will cry in the night. Dead am I, and not recognized, 33 Yiddish: Khtsoys (Hebrew: Hatsot, Tikun Hatsot)—midnight prayers reading lamentations on the
destruction of the Temple and the Exile of the Shechinah (emanation of God).
460 Introspectivism My blood not avenged. Such a wealth of graves I have never seen. Day and night I shall wail their names. Here I have never been.
Nakhman of Bratslav to His Scribe34 Nakhman of Bratslav to His Scribe 1 Come on, Nathan, let’s not think today. Did you ever see a world With so many beautiful things? I’ll give you a smack in the face If you squeeze out one thought. Will it kill you to live, just to live? Live with all your limbs And breathe sun like a fly. Let us go backward, Let us think away all our posessions, Squander our ideas on the roads. Let us become holy peasants With holy cows in a holy meadow, Eat kasha with milk, Smoke stinking pipes And tell stories of dwarves, Let us sing simple songs— Day-dana-day, day-dana-day. Naked songs without words, 35 Day-dana-day. I can see a cloud forming On your brow. You’ll get a slap in your mug If you start thinking. 34 Rabbi Nakhman of Bratslav, or the Bratslaver (1772–1811), one of the most influential Hasidic rebbes,
founder of the Bratslaver Hasidic sect. Rabbi Nakhman had messianic aspirations. He is famous for his mystical stories and parables, told in Yiddish, recorded and translated into Hebrew by his scribe, Nathan. Nakhman’s stories have become known in the West through Martin Buber’s renderings. 35 Popular Slavic refrain, adapted for Hasidic songs.
Jacob Glatshteyn 461 Today you better lock up Your thinker behind locks. Today we are singing fools, We cannot count to two. Can you grasp it— How wonderful it is: One—unique. One and separately one Is still unique, And again, and time and again unique. Listen, how simple, How lonely, how lovely, how sadly beautiful: 36 One—unique.
Sing, grass, Bee, buzz, Fondle a flower, Cloud, rain On roads again, For earth a shower.
Nathan, soon night falls, Let us sleep un-dreamed and un-thought Like the peasants. 37 Today, put aside the ladders And let’s not pry into the sky, Let the angels climb Down and up, up and down. Let’s take a plunge and a snore And wake up facing the flaming East With a song— Day-dana-day, day-dana-day. I’ll break your bones If you don’t understand the tune, If you add anything, a word or even a letter. It must be as simple as that— Day-dana-day.
36 In the original: Echod, the attribute of God’s oneness. 37 An allusion to Jacob’s dream.
462 Introspectivism 2 There are some kind of people 38 Who think for a year and a Wednesday And their head becomes holy, But their whole body remains dust of dust. They open a holy book And right away their eyes roll upward, But their legs and arms Are still dust and ashes, And above their belt And below their thigh Everything becomes vile. They learn pretty words by rote, They make a pilgrimage to the holiest places. But if a starving man asks them for alms, Their hand will be closed And their heart shut. They’ve separated their head from their mind; The poor brain spins on all its wheels, But the tiny-teeny person gets lost For ever and ever. That’s why, I’m telling you, Nathan, Thinking is like sheet music to songs, And the songs live in your heart. See that your heart thinks clearly, And your head won’t be filled with smoke. I hate the good Jew, The seeming savant, Who drips upon letters of books With constipated ruminations. 39 Take a candle and light up the Bereyshis. Boro, created. Bereyshis, In-the-beginning created. What a scream, Nathan! What has thinking to do with it? Let us walk together in rain and in snow, In sun and in frost, And let us sing— In-the-Beginning created worlds. 38 “A year and a Wednesday” (a yor un a mitvokh)—Yiddish idiom, meaning a very long time. 39 Be’reyshis boro (Hebrew: Bereshit Bara)—the opening words of the Bible. Here “In-the-Beginning” is
read as a name of a person, the actor who created the world.
Jacob Glatshteyn 463 3 Just as I am telling you, so it happened. At dawn, I walk in the woods, I see the morning rising queerly And the entire creation is out of sorts. The trees turn to me their forgive-me-for-the-expression. The birds hear my Good-Morning and do not move. A rabbit looks me over like a wicked woman, And the drinking-water in the spring tells me angrily: Nakhman, forget it, don’t bless me today. And the flowers give off a dark stink. And all that I think gets tangled and twisted, And all that I say is silenced and hushed. Take your feet on your shoulders, Nakhman, and flee. What good is it, if the whole world is cross. I know, of course, the world, poor thing, is like a human being: All that grows, all that flies All that crawls, wants to be. So I poked fun at it and said: What good is it, the world? An imagining, a mirage, A fleeting moment, An invented Not-Being. Thus I gave the entire creation 40 A poke in its seventh rib. An old tree sighed out a sob— I felt a pang in my heart. But it all started to move. With a hidden force, The whole forest began to be, To dawn. The trees again turned their faces to me, The birds twittered, The rabbit gave me a smile. The drinking water in the spring pleaded: Nakhman, make a blessing over me, And the flowers blossomed As in the garden of Eden. A crow burst out laughing like a child. 40 A Yiddish idiom: a sharp blow to all the ribs that will be remembered.
464 Introspectivism And all the sulkiness disappeared. I breathed a whiff of air And everything loved and everything lived. And a happy shouting spread: Who is a mirage? Who is not-being? We are, are, are. And so it was that a sulky world Awakened to morning, to radiance, to brightness. And all was drowned in squeaking, Screaming, twittering of voices of voices. We areareare. We areareare. Then I too Stood in the middle of the woods 41 And my voice roared like a shofar: World, I swear by this morning-hour, World, you are. 4 I starved myself To hunger for bread and butter And bodily thinking. I walked and my body walked with me, And there was no single thought That did not radiate through my skin-and-bones. I climbed and my legs climbed with me, And each thought glowed With a wonderful everydayness. And when the night descended I was starving for plain bread; And one-ly in the dark, I contemplated with joy Separate one-linesses that lull you to sleep, And if they are holy They make your legs and hands and head Holy and drowsy. And today I woke up hungry, And on an empty stomach I started 41 Ram’s horn, blown toward certain holidays and the coming of the Messiah.
Jacob Glatshteyn 465 From sheer nothing, And the day, too, grew From almost nothing, from black and barely-barely blue. And I ordered my dark limbs: Let there be light. And we both grew bright wings, I and the day, And we both became one And we both prayed aloud— 42 How goodly are thy tents. 5 Sometimes it seems to me, it’s in the palm of my hand, And all-of-a-sudden it’s concealed and closed up. You see, Nathan, I am amazed at so much. I don’t dare to match my mouth with my ear. We cover the human being with a doze. He is shown the earth underneath And high up an awesome sky. But in between there is surely also something, I guess, they call it life. Somewhere, a woman desires, and joyfully, From his warm hiding, echoes a man. But as soon as this is spinning in me, A fear grips me and I say: You see that brat, that thought, Beat him to the floor, chase him, expel him. Nathan, write it down. 43
Take, for example, the Drive-for-Good —a decent in-law, an honored guest. Fed well by his host, his belly big with good deeds. But I pity the Drive-for-Bad. Pious Jews give him a hard time. They starve him out. He is dying for a spoonful of warm soup. And what does he want, the Drive-for-Bad? Joy. A choice to rejoice. Consolation leavened with sorrow. Weeping of aloneness entwined. 42 Numbers 24:5. The first blessing before the morning prayer. 43 Drive-for-Good, Drive-for-Bad (Hebrew: Yetser-tov, Yetser-ra. Yiddish: Yeytser-tóv, Yeytser-hóre)—
the two opposing forces in man, also personified as independent beings prodding each individual.
466 Introspectivism Lonely generations of decline Multiplied in eternal duration. What does he want, the Drive-for-Bad? Body. Flesh. Nathan, write it down. At night, if you have an ear, You can hear all the gates 44 Of the Two-Hundred-and-Ten Worlds Crying out in one voice: Flesh. Don’t you think there is song in such longing? And isn’t this the bit of pleasure Between heaven and earth, Till they put the shards on your eyes? 45 It is the precious tune of a hearty “How beautiful.” You know, don’t you, how my body is tormented, But my heart cries out for the bit of delight. Because Drive-for-Bad means oneness in joining— Wonderful spite. It means a word trembling with life, Fire and flames in God’s weaving of two. It means wife. Nathan, write it down. I think, it’s really scary to bring it to your lips. It’s late at night. I hand you, Nathan, my words. No ear should hear them. It may, God forbid, cause confusion. What, they will shout, maybe he wants To allow you a man’s wife? But what do I mean? My heart goes out to the Drive-for-Bad. Because it is strength, lust, desire, Power, skill. And isn’t it melody, And isn’t it weeping and secret of race, And isn’t it grace and pleasure and song? 44 In Hebrew: Shay Olamot—“The Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He will bestow on every single just man two
hundred and ten worlds” (Sanhedrin). 45 A song sung at the Sabbath eve dinner.
Jacob Glatshteyn 467 And flesh-and-blood of the holy flame And the light of hers and his becoming one? Nathan, you are tired, poor thing, your eyes are heavy, You’re slipping away. Do not leave me alone with my thoughts. Be awake with me. Stay. Nathan, Write it down.
Hear and Be Stunned Hear and be stunned, Nathan. I would give up my share, 46 A fat piece of Leviathan, Sooner than let them take My finest crown—the word. Here is the moral for you. I am a chatterer, a talker. Believe me, Nathan, only in talk, in a juicy morsel of gossip, Can you sometimes feel a taste of heaven. 47 How many times have I pierced your ears And you scream—you don’t want to be free. Oh, dear, dear, Give me your slave ears, For my living yesteryears, And I shall tell you things you’d never hear. I’m sitting, like this, on a donkey, a slow ass, Swaying up-and-down, up-and-down. Suddenly the donkey rears up And shakes me off. Darkness all around. The donkey walks away, As if to say: 48 Now you are the Sage-at-Night. And, Nathan, you should have seen the at-Night, A pitch-dark, groping night, 46 Promised to the Righteous at the feast in heaven. 47 The ear of a Hebrew slave would be pierced as a sign of eternal servitude if he refused to be freed after
seven years (Exodus 21:6). 48 A Yiddish euphemism for “stupid,” implying that a sage at night is a fool by day.
468 Introspectivism Like a blind man, you can feel the tar. One minute a rider, the next—what a letdown. It gets scary, I want to scream, But out of the darkness springs A werewolf figure. Mind you, I’m not afraid Of those guys. Who are they, those clowns, if not ugly thoughts? Just as you think them up, You puff in their faces, think them away, And they vanish in the night. But this wise guy coughs fire at me. He takes me by the arm and leads me away. Oy, I say to myself—it’s ugly business. And he answers like an echo: Ugly business. So I sit in jagged woes, I hate when They read my thoughts. And he hums to himself: Thoughts. All-of-a-sudden he opens his fiery snout And speaks out: Hearken, I shall tell you what hath befallen you. The donkey was everything And everything ran away from you. Now you are everythingless in the world. All your yearnings have gone, All your songs, All your places have bounced off, All your words. Words too?—I think to myself—ugly business. And don’t you think he didn’t hum after me— Ugly business? So I tune up my throat, Draw my tongue like a bow. I want to roar a word. But out comes a feeble squeak, Like a mute female, heaven help us. My mouth, my throat, my gullet—
Jacob Glatshteyn 469 All are puffed up. I’m afraid to think—ugly business, Lest the clown echo my thought. So I walk in jagged woes. Suddenly he brings me to a shining gate And says out of the blue: Here is heaven, Inside, march! I stand there like a dummy. And he gives me such a kick that I see my great-grandfather. It’s a proverb, right? 49 But my great-grandfather is more than just a proverb. He stands there on a shining spot as on a hill, Strokes his beard and laughs. Nu, how do you like that? The Bratslaver—silent. He’s bursting with laughter. And my watchman echoes With a fiery cough. What will you do from now to eternity? No tales, no melodies. Poor soul, you are naked. You are a mute in heaven. Suddenly I saw a tree As one would see the Messiah. I crawled to it, Stood up, held onto it with all my might, I got the strength of Samson And began bellowing, Raised such a ruckus, Such a commotion, That the old man began to shout: Hush, Bratslaver, be quiet. 50 It’s before dawn, you’ll wake up the Righteous. OK, no punishment. Here is your tongue, Bratslaver, Go ahead, talk through fire and water. 49 A Yiddish proverb, meaning that I almost died and went to heaven. The irony here is that Nakhman’s
great-grandfather was the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. 50 Tzaddikim—those who have gone to heaven, as opposed to sinners who go to hell.
470 Introspectivism Lightning flashed. A thud. Of course, I fell not from the donkey, 51 But from the hard bench in shul . 52 Why are you staring at me like a golem? Oh, dear, you didn’t grasp the moral. I’ll give you a smack— You’ll have something to remember. May I be damned if I’d like To sit mute on a heavenly rock. Here, in the sinful world— To talk and talk and talk.
Radiant Jews (1946) Without Jews Without Jews there will be no Jewish God. If we go away from the world, The light will go out in your poor tent. For ever since Abraham saw you in a cloud Your fire has been on all Jewish faces, Your radiance in all Jewish eyes, We have shaped you in our own image. In every country, in every town, A stranger lived with us, The Jewish God. And every shattered Jewish head Is God’s disgraced, broken bowl, 53 For we were your Vessel of Light, The living sign of your palpable wonder. Now our dead heads Are counted in millions. The stars around you flicker out. The memory of you is dimmed. Your kingdom will soon fade away. 51 Synagogue, Prayer House. 52 A soulless being; power without understanding. 53 Imagery from the Lurianic Kabbalah. The primeval Vessel of Light broke and the sparks fell into the
dark world.
Jacob Glatshteyn All the Jewish sowing and planting Is burned. On dead grass cries the dew. The Jewish dream and the Jewish reality are ravaged, They die together. Whole tribes asleep— Babies, women, Young and old. 54 Even your Pillars, the Rocks, 55 The Thirty-six Just, Sleep their dead, eternal sleep. Who will dream you? Who will remember? Who will deny you, Who will long for you then? Who will go to you, on a nostalgic bridge, 56 Away from you, to return again? The night is eternal for a dead people. Sky and earth wiped out. The light goes out in your poor tent. The last Jewish hour flickers. Jewish God, soon you are no more.
My Wander-Brother I love my sad God, My wander-brother. I like to sit with him on a stone And silence to him all my words. When we sit like this, dumbfounded together, Our thoughts merge In one stillness. My weary God lights a cigarette And inhales the first smoke. A star lights up, a fiery sign. 54 Biblical epithets applied to great sages. 55 Thirty-six Righteous Jews (Larmed-Vov) live incognito among us and are the guarantors of the world’s
existence. 56 An allusion to a personal, religious poem by the Spanish Hebrew classical poet Ibn Gabirol, talking to
God of fleeing “from You to You.”
471
472 Introspectivism His limbs long for sleep. The night lies at our feet like a lamb. My beloved God. How many prayers to him have I profaned. How often have I blasphemed In the nights, Warmed my fearful bones At the firepot of knowledge. And here he sits, my friend, hugging me, And shares with me his last mouthful. The God of my unbelief is beautiful. How nice is my feeble God Now, when he is human and unjust. How graceful is he in his proud downfall, When the smallest child revolts Against his command. Through sea and land, We two shall ever wander and wander together. I think to my dozing God of myself: At times, an alien space Will spread in the homiest warmth. And before you grasp its mystery, You feel how your own futility Blossoms like moss on a gravestone. Is this the city that I built? Is this the street I confided in Every night of my memory? How many summers appeared here in my dream? Here I came to strike roots and grow stems, Here I wanted to plant calm On my own living graveyard Of father-mother. I had plenty of death over there. I came here, an heir of death, A refugee. You are talking of yourself, Answers the silence of my wander-brother, And I think of all of us: How much destruction can a people bear
Jacob Glatshteyn 473 And still believe in rebuilding? Now, groveling in the dust, My people is holier than me. One day, nations shall come to bow To its pain. But God, my brother, Why hast thou raised my people And spread their misfortune like stars All over the sky? Pain, blood, pierced hands, Pity of emptied veins— A childish fable with silly words. I multiplied it by six million, I gave the fable its moral. My people, my son, my dream Will blossom forever crucified on a tree of light. My God sleeps and I watch over him. My tired brother dreams the dream of my people. He dwindles, grows small as a baby, And I rock him into the dream of my people. Sleep, my god, my wander-brother, Sleep into the dream of my people.
Resistance in the Ghetto We were starving, Trampled, feeble Jews. We did not cry, we did not raise our voices. The earth bore us quietly. Now we are beautiful, proud, Radiant Jews. We are dead Jews. We intertwined, as brother With brother, as branch with branch, we became A forest of black trees. The watchman lashed lightning over us. But the forest burned without fear, The fire climbed up to the skies, The branches sang.
474 Introspectivism We were little, timid daddies, Sickly mommies, Stooped grandpas, Dead babies. We said nothing, We were tongueless. Suddenly we took on A fearful and mighty voice. We shouted louder and louder, All together, we became One divine anonymous. They came racing, Flying, driving over our bodies, They poured hot oil on us. Our homes, like little graves, disappeared. They encircled us with fire. But we were transformed in the flame. The little daddies became Forest choirs, And we sang: We are the forest— A burning chorus— And God walks with us In the burning forest. We crawled, we walked, We rose up to the last stand. Our own awesome scream Put us on our feet. We shot, we killed. We slaughtered and wrung. We saw their blood, We saw it with our living eyes. Sparks flew up like pieces of the sun. How beautifully the forest burned. 57 And we aimed and shot, We saw their blood running, Their blood flowing. 57 A line from a song by Shmerke Katcherginsky in Vilna Ghetto about Vitka Kovner who blew up a
German military train in 1941.
Jacob Glatshteyn 475 We no longer crawled, we ran, We aimed, we shot, we hit. We saw their dead heads, We died with their death In our eyes. We intertwined, branched inward, We, the mute, shouted like victorious fighters, Shouted with one voice— We, the divine anonymous. We didn’t win. The forest burned out. But in the divine darkness We stroll: little daddies, Sickly mommies, Stooped grandpas, Dead babies. We saw their blood And we rejoice. We are beautiful, proud, Radiant Jews.
My Children’s-Children’s Past In the past I always passed away. I passed like a wonder. And in the now, I lived As a heder-boy should live, 58 With Gemore-melodies, With a sun saved up for me, In an invented palace Of Jewish grief. Oh, my palace glowed brighter Than a thousand-and-one-nights: Great-grandfathers Had invented the fires of my Destructions. I went down with the First Destruction. And with the Second.
59
58 The incantation of the Talmud in reading or teaching. 59 The two destructions of the Temples of Jerusalem, indicating the downfall of an independent state and
the beginning of Jewish exile.
476 Introspectivism Me they annihilated by the thousands, Devoured in famine, Scattered among nations. Assyria, Babylon, Greece All burdened me with 60 Slikhes, Kines and punishments 61 On all my Tishe-Bovs. The dog and the janitor 62 And the hoodlums of the sands Were ever my hunters, And I—a little Jewish fox, With a pelt of prickly fears, 63 Defended myself with a Lag-Boymer stick, Because I had to grow up and live now. Because in the past I always passed away— Passed like a wonder. In middle age it fell upon me To see face-to-face My childish once-upon-a-time. My palace of Jewish grief Is no longer a legend. Day after day they destroy me By the tens of thousands. How could I have thought That the Jewish past Is a historical graveyard? How could I have talked myself into the belief That Jewish children are brought up In the luxury of invented grief? Face to face with all my Destructions, My ruin is on fire. The deaths of my own time will reach me fast. God, I am becoming my children’s-children’s past. 60 Slikhes (Hebrew: Selihoth)—penitential prayers in poetic form. Kines (Hebrew: Kinoth)—songs of
lamentation, recited on days of mourning. 61 Hebrew: Tish’a Be-Av—the ninth day of the month of Av, a day of mourning for the two Destructions
of the Temple. 62 A typical scene in a Jewish town: the Gentiles lived on the unpaved outskirts. 63 Hebrew: Lag-ba-omer (thirty-three days to the counting of the Omer)—a holiday commemorating Bar-
Kokhba’s uprising against the Romans, celebrated by children sitting around bonfires and playing with mock weapons.
Jacob Glatshteyn 477
Chopin Nocturne 1 You will come with small words And sleepy eyes. You will bring me full treasures of night. See, how much bashful joy for your fingers I have brought, You will say To your silent singer, Who waits for you Night after night. I will stroke The daring of your bare feet When you run away from your father’s home. I’ll read you all the pretty greetings I’ve never sent you. Breathless, you ran over a black bridge, I shall never let you go back. At dawn, the first splinters of day Will warm my cold windowpane. Wrapped in quiet darkness, A frightened dove Will open its eyes. And I shall barely be near you, Just barely, so you’ll seek my voice. I shall enter your thoughts Like a story of once-upon-a-time. I shall dream myself into you Like a silent tree in the dusk. Like a tremor of a twig, Barely, Like a sleeping tree. 2 At twilight our lives come together And sit in shadow. We are silent. Forbidden to speak. Your wise mind is the white wine Of my being. I sip the cool drink
478 Introspectivism And write down your every thought. Oh, wonderful, wonderful. How our days pair And become nights. A quiet shore sings far away, But we never believed in that way. Oh, wonder, nightly wonder, We age separately Year in, year out, And grow together in young joy. How well you invent me On the waves of your silent words. So what if I don’t exist? If you don’t exist? The night alone is here. In it we are Planted like one shadow of a tree. Barely.
My Father’s Shadow (1953) We, of the Singing Swords 1 Like dreamy youngsters We milked The fiery sky Of clouds and smoke. We stood amazed. Nothing with nothing Was re-created Before our eyes. We were sated With colors and hues. We were ready to die On waves of sound. Noises with noises
Jacob Glatshteyn 479 We coupled in songs; We chanted, we worshiped, Kneeling at sunsets. Pagan centuries Flew by. Our waking minds asleep. Churches rocked their bells. We bowed To every terror. How much did Abram win? Every artist Is a sad Terah. 2 All the existing words, The expressed, The understood, Lie in their dumbfounded clarity. Their sucked-dry meanings dozing off. It is our world, Soon it will lower the curtain. Our song became a deafening din. The sorrow that was for a while Our elation, Flooded all in weeping, burlesque. Our faces show The grotesque, The fear of becoming Dull and flat. Let us quickly disappear, Before we decay Into the drum and the cymbal Of all-mockery.
Dostoyevsky Dostoyevsky put God On his table Like a bottle of vodka And guzzled. He retched and vomited,
480 Introspectivism Sobered up And was drawn again to God As to the bottle. Once, when Dostoyevsky writhed on the floor, An old man came in. The old man lifted him with a sigh, Laid him on the hard bed, Pulled the boots off his dirty feet, Washed his mouth, Combed the tangled and vomity beard, Stroked the cold-sweating forehead. Dostoyevsky opened his Tartar eyes And asked: Who are you? The old man disappeared. With shaky steps he got to his desk. The bottle was empty. He drank his God to the bottom. Then he took the pen in his hand And wrote and wrote and wrote. He wouldn’t raise his head, Knowing That the old man was standing over him, Watching him, In his good, humane sobriety. Dostoyevsky wrote him into his books.
I Shall Transport Myself 64 I shall transport myself inside the mote of wonder That blots the view As far back as my dark gaze Can dream, can see. In the up-floating, Illuminated darkness, There shines half of A saved star, 64 The title of the poem and its opening is a neologism meaning: “I shall believe myself into”; also
implying: “I shall drill myself into.”
Jacob Glatshteyn 481 Undestroyed. A piece of a gutted planet That once had life, Green plenty, lush pastures. Witness: my tear-shot eyes, The distant flora, hung with blood-grapes, Under a sky of eternal sunset; Leaves, swaying like bells, Deafened, soundless, On trees never-seen, In a hollow world. I shall stubborn myself, Plant myself In a private, intimate night I totally invented And wondered-in on all sides. I shall find a spot in space Big as a fly, And there I shall plant, For all time, A cradle, a child, I shall sing into it a voice Of a dozing father, With a face in the voice, With love in the voice, With misty looks Floating in the child’s sleepy eyes Like warm moons. And around the cradle I shall build a Jewish town With a shul, with a vigilant God, Watching over the poor shops, Over Jewish fear, Over the graveyard Alive all night With its worrying dead. I shall cling to it with my last days. Spitefully, I shall count them in you, frozen past, You, who mocked me, You, who invented My living, talking
482 Introspectivism Jewish world. Then stilled it, 65 And in Maidanek-woods, With a few shots Killed it.
Our Teacher Moses 66
Moyshe Rabeynu, Our Teacher Moses, Who didn’t get into The Land, Was awarded a great honor. Who leads the whole dead Jewish people Into the Promised Land? Our Teacher Moses. He, the shepherd of his father-in-law’s flock, Woke up from a long sleep. Who gathers now The whole dead people from all corners of the world? Our Teacher Moses. The land is small. But at their feet the Holy Land spreads And grows bigger and wider. Who now faithfully leads the dead Jews? Out Teacher Moses. And you, the living Joshua Ben-Nun, Stand aside. Make way, stay the sun. Stop time. Let in the dead Jews. Who is counting the dead Jews, Lest one be missing? Our Teacher Moses. My father closes his Mishnah-book, Takes mother’s arm, And bowing gallantly,
67
65 One of the major Nazi death camps, near Glatshteyn’s hometown of Lublin. 66 The usual way of referring to Moses. 67 Mishnah—a set of laws written after the Bible. The Mishnah is in Hebrew, thus accessible to the
average person for daily reading, unlike the Aramaic Talmud.
Jacob Glatshteyn 483 He says: “Yitte-Rokheshi dear, we are going to the Jewish Land” And both wink at me, with a spark— And you, wise guy, didn’t believe. Clever tears gleam in my mother’s eyes. You see, even the women’s Yiddish Bible Must come true.
Beginning I Maybe we should start small, in a cradle, With a small nation? We both, strayed among peoples. Farmers will bow to you. You will live on offerings Of browned flour. I shall walk around and talk folk wisdom, Which will stay in our own borders, But the smallest child will Wish me good-morning. Maybe we should both go home And start again small, from the very beginning? Mighty Jehovah, you who spread Over seven skies and continents And became a steel-fast world-God, With big churches and synagogues. You forsook the field, the stable, I—the cramped love of my people— Alas, we both became universal. Come back, dear God, to a tiny land. Be all ours. I shall walk around and say familiar sayings That people will talk about at home. We will both be provincial— The God and the poet— And maybe we’ll like it better. You’ll start from small truths. You won’t promise the sky. You’ll remember the human being,
484 Introspectivism His flesh, his bones, his frailties, The wine that warms his heart, The joy of the body. You will love him in the moments When his heart prays to you in belief. You will stay away from blood, axe, murder, 68 You’d rather be the achieved God of a minyan Than the mighty God of plunderers. You will come closer to us And we shall begin to weave New, humane laws, Valid for you, for us. Maybe we should start small, rocking, And grow in the borders Of a blessed land? Children will greet us with laughter, For we are poor and true. Your divine blessing will be just right For a quiet and good people. My own word will become The warm delight of a family. Your nostrils will smell The cream of a people That raises its God On all the best. Me, too, they’ll feed and fondle like a child. I’ll be rocked into A cramped-and-cozy fame. And no one beyond the borders Will hear— Your name or my name. Shall we perhaps both go home? Shall we perhaps both, beaten, go home? II 69 Ato bohartonu. You have chosen us. Both of us were shouted up big, So they could scatter us like dust 68 Ten Jews in collective prayer. 69 You have chosen us.
Jacob Glatshteyn 485 And make us nil. You, they spread like stars over a whole world. What would you have to do with large nations? You are quiet and contented And entirely one of us. Why have you forsaken your shrine, Your small tent, And gone to be the God of a world? And we became your straying children, Shaking pillars, setting worlds on fire. You were, before us, a Jewish International. We followed you in the world, Became sick of your world. 70 Save yourself and come with the Olim Back to a small land, Be again the Jewish God.
Evening Jews Soon they will come riding, Soon they will come on planes. Ready to reveal and explain All the hidden wells Of bright meanings. They have all elucidations in their grip. Dry men they are, They carry long whips. Pay no attention, Enjoy your miracles, Evening Jew, The last years that you get, Till the brainy explainers Reason everything flat. Try to think, to remember, With how much faith We concluded Friendship with the world. Oh, with what bitter grudges 70 In modern Hebrew, immigrants to Israel.
486 Introspectivism We fled from the praying trees, 71 From the gloomy, Jewish Mendele-landscape. What came of it? What appeared? We were destined to live In the Jewishest years. Not just the trees, every moment 72 Reads to us the daily portion With intonation. The Jewish head In annihilation Is dreaming again. There is no single non-Jewish hour. Day and night, like a mystery, Flares the pursuing, Accelerated, Heralding Jewish history. And you, who have fled so far, Now you hear All Mozartian charms In a Jewish shofar. Don’t you see— Even Jewish babies in the cradles Hear footsteps, Lie with eyes open, don’t cry, And understand the footsteps. Promised footsteps, that walk by themselves And drag the walkers with them. Let the Jewish footsteps tread on, Till the explainers and understanders Come running along. This we should remember: We lived through the Jewishest years. Who else had the honor Of carrying on their backs So much Jewish disaster Year in, year out? 71 Mendele Moykher-Sforim (1835–1917), Yiddish and Hebrew classical writer, who saw nature through
“Jewish eyes,” describing trees as swaying in prayer, etc. 72 Of the Bible, read during prayers with a special incantation.
Jacob Glatshteyn 487 Who could boast so much vision, So much revelation? Not an hour passed That in the greatest terror We didn’t see something, didn’t sense. Our own shoulders carried The burden of bright Jewish events. Soon our children’s children will grow up. The footsteps won’t be heard so loud Anymore. We, who live now, And eveninger, darker, grow our days— Let a memory of us remain. Let us note with pride, Let us record: Pure Jewish days, Separate, isolated, Sad Jewish days, Blazing, chosen, Joyful Jewish days— They were ours. These were us, surrounded in clouds, Walking the new-Biblical way. We were wandering among peoples With the Jewish walking stick as a scepter, And lived, breathed, Separate Jewish chapters. 1949
How Much Christian How much Christian, so to speak, can I get? How much pity was left me And what can I forgive? Maybe I can throw a few soft crumbs On the account of one tiny life. But what about the divine annihilation? Do I have any permission from them? Who am I to betray The Burning Bush of death?
488 Introspectivism All my face-slappers have slapped both my cheeks. 73 Cossacks have never given a Mishnah-Jew A chance to turn his other cheek. How much Jew can I convert in myself, so to speak? A pinch. So much pity They can still get out of me For the children of my leprous enemies. This pinch of sympathy—take it from me, toss. But do not shadow my heart With a pitiful cross.
Old Age Thin and transparent Is the love of old age. You move hesitantly On your body as on earth. With calculation, you save your strength, You sense the sting of each destined day. You regret having overlooked So many sunsets. Flowers, trees, grass Engrave in you their thorny songs. You walk on life as on glass. Shadows take on deep meaning, A cool smile you accept like a gift, You’re stingy with God’s plenty of time.
Down-to-Earth Talk (1956) Without Offerings I am poor. I don’t bring you Any more offerings. I come near you, empty-handed. 73 A simple man whose learning goes beyond the Bible to reading the Hebrew Mishnah, but who does not
reach the level of a scholar in the Aramaic Talmud.
Jacob Glatshteyn 489 The phrases with their explained-away heads I threw out long ago. I know how you always rejoiced In symbols.
74
As to sad synagogues, To doorsteps of belief— How hard to come back To old words. I know well their places. I hear their humming. At times I get close, I look longingly Through the windowpanes. But you, still resting in the shadows of biblical trees, Oh sing me chilly consolation Of all that you remember, all that you know.
Let Us Let us worry around us A bit of a fence. Not a ghetto, God forbid, Just a quiet wall. Let us sit down among ourselves And, with reason, invent How to strengthen Our weakened hands. This meanwhiling of ours, 75 Stuck together like a Sukkah, Is falling apart. Everything is hunchbacked, worn out, Old. We don’t want to sleep yet, By force they are lulling us. Come, let us take counsel, Let us be wise. 74 An allusion to the breaking the neck of the sacrificial chicken, which is then cast away as an atonement
on Yom Kippur. 75 A temporary hut with no roof, of flimsy board construction, used as a dining room during the week of
Sukkot.
490 Introspectivism
A Few Lines A few trembling lines on the palm of my hand. I held them long And let them flow through my fingers, Word by word. The city uncovered me. I who heard, who saw, who sensed, Am entangled In an enormous captivity. Do not throw me out In my bewildered fear. The whole song ran through. The street profaned my solitude. The television-pane reflected my every word With a blow of laughter. Loneliness fits me like an old-fashioned nightgown. Do not throw me out In my bewildered fear.
Soon Soon we’ll have lost all the words. The stammer-mouths are growing silent. The heritage-sack is empty. Where can we get The holy prattle of promised Joy? A child’s grimaces Are an alien spite-language. In the dark we compose Lightning-words, fast extinguished. And ash becomes their meaning. And ash becomes their meaning.
Jacob Glatshteyn 491
The Joy of the Yiddish Word (1961) The Joy of the Yiddish Word Oh, let me through to the joy of the Yiddish word. Give me whole, full days. Tie me to it, weave me in, Strip me of all vanities. Send crows to feed me, bestow crumbs on me, A leaking roof and a hard bed. But give me whole, full days, Let me not forget for a moment The Yiddish word. I become stern and commanding Like the hand of my livelihood. The capons and champagne Undigest my time. The Yiddish word lies in a granary, The key rusts in my hand. My sober day robs my reason. Oh, sing, sing yourself down to the bare bones. The world gets fat on your couch. Soon there will be no room for the two of you. The Yiddish word waits for you, faithful and dumb. And you sigh in your ignited dream: I come, I come.
Steal Into the Prayerbook Steal into the prayerbook 76 Like a stowaway. Fasting, without a bite, Travel for days, Till you reach the shore. Lie folded up in your hideout. Do not stir through the whole journey. And if, with a right word, you get 76 The prayerbook includes poems by Hebrew poets of the past.
492 Introspectivism Into the proper place And light up the little prayerbook With Jewish joy, That will be it. The little prayerbook will have to Carry you through all eternities, 77 And they will daven you too, Will say you.
A Jew from Lublin (1966) In the Morning When I start to compose myself in the morning, I always miss A few tiny screws, the size Of diamond-sparks. I need them badly to keep myself together. Where did I go yesterday, on what roads? Where did I sit? Where did I rest? Where did I fall? Probably squandered, Perhaps just swallowed, in the rush of the day. Yes, people are their own cannibals, They eat up their own screws. OK. Sighing, I put myself together. I won’t go out in the street Till I compose myself. Who knows what may happen to a person. Let them not see nor hear How shoddily and cleverly I am screwed together. Little crevices are left open For stings of regret, rue, remorse, Cold, heat, viruses. 77 Pray.
Jacob Glatshteyn 493 The hinges of my hanging-together Whisper mockingly in my ear All through the day, At my every step, Dear little golden Eighteen-carat sufferings. And with them I nourish (Almost) every pleasure. Little pains have their own tune. In the tense, daily weave They mean—life. You accept them lovingly, you know That every little pain is still a gift.
My Grandchild-Generation I longed for you In so much pain. I led you, Still unborn, Out of the bitter vise, I brought you over in my loins. I told you thrice: 78 In thy forgetting shalt thou live, In thy forgetting. Your free head Is curled in joy. Your arm is strong And outstretched. Let me find in you The child of weaned Jewish anguish. Now I walk alone. Your joy takes you far away. Your voice in the mountains Mocks my praying old age. I shall fall between the mountains And become a bridge. 78 An allusion to the biblical “In thy blood shalt thou live.”
494 Introspectivism Generation after generation I shall long For your steps— There and back, There and back.
I Shall Remember And these too I want to remember, The separate, smaller destructions, That ripened in me. The quiet calamities that rose in me Like little frightened suns And slowly declined, Clouded in private years. And these too I shall remember. The barefoot dream-path, Like lightning, A joyful flash through the map Of my nostalgic sleep, The quiet road that brought together All the countries, streets, houses Into one scared-awake Jewstreet, With its warm stones, Its moldy wood and somber bricks, Accepting my light feet. The spice shops, The kasha-and-flour stores, The herring stands, The kerosene vendors, the soapy barbershops, The toupee- and wig-makers, The almonds, dates, and figs, The freshly baked sour-bread The poppy-seed and onion rolls, The dark tearooms With drowsing, black worms On their warm fireplace, The meager pastures, The sleepy, half-alive graveyards, Forever watching over
Jacob Glatshteyn 495 The frightened life. All this was waiting For the fiery breath Of the boy’s panting, light feet, All this came together on the single, Sharp and joyful flash Of the dream-path Called home. The boy runs by, The worn-down, thorny stones— A balm to his tired feet. Home. The boy came back home. The boy just now came running. On one tiny spot The whole city, aching with longing, Came to welcome him. On one little spot All the curious boys and girls Joined hands in a knot of friendship— Not to take up too much space On the zigzag dream-path. This path was cut down, Destroyed, wiped out. It is not much, maybe One lane, one sad wall, Half-decayed in stooped waiting, Perhaps altogether one foot, Perhaps no more than a dot That you can hardly find with a magnifying glass On a large, devastated map, But this small, separate destruction I shall now remember. And this too I want to remember. My own living Bible, Filled with alert, beaming, Proud forefathers and mothers. To me they didn’t say a word, They thought I was not yet born.
496 Introspectivism But they lived in my own private Bible, Grazed their sheep and slept on sharp stones. No one was ever born like this, In his own cradled beginning. And no one arrived like this At his own inevitable end. No separate person ever Declined so separately. The chain of the years has never Encircled an individual like me, Has never extinguished in one man The illumination of a royal continuity, As in me. The whole recounted past Was for me so golden true— Like a sleep-filled afternoon, Like an exquisite, juicy pear About to fall from a tree. Why was it meant for me To begin from the very beginning And to come to the very end, As to my own, separate hanging? Somewhere, perhaps quite near you, People stand again under the shadow Of a swaying noose, But you look up to your last slice of sun, To the strangling loop, And you are all alone. Among millions of deaths this is A lamentable fraction, But this too I must remember, My own beginning, And my own, separate end. A big storybook Is closed, A whole people kissed 79 The cover of the bloody Hazak-Hazak
79 Take strength—an allusion to a blessing at the end of reading a holy book.
Jacob Glatshteyn 497 80
And died with Shema Yisroel on its lips. But at the finish, in the very abyss, Somewhere, covered with mold, Lies my own Shema. In a child’s cradle— Pious, dreamy eyes. In thy hand I shall entrust My soul. My own, last Shema Yisroel I shall now remember. When I started, I swam like a little fish In a living Bible. I saw everything through one narrow, Dark-green eye, A quiet island. I was the least of my people, And even so I was crowned, And that was the glory. Over my morning cradle, my father Made a priestly blessing, his head Covered with a tallis, And chanted into me Everything, from the very-very beginning. Hear how God hovers in your head, How He scratches at your heart, How He implores you to believe: Bereyshis Boro, 81 In the beginning He created. And you played with God And you heard how He Lifted your soul. And He promised you a whole land for a heritage. It grew dark, And you, with shortsighted eyes of a child, You pierced the darkness with light And became the heir
80 “Hear, Oh Israel”—the credo asserting the unity of God repeated before retiring and before dying. 81 The first words of the Bible.
498 Introspectivism To your own Canaan. Before you, your people walked And after them, with tiny steps, You walked, bearing your own Divine yoke on your shoulders. Almost at the end of the road God grew angry And poured on your people All the biblical curses. Pieces of sulfur fell on your face And half-blind, You walked behind the destruction, And this too I shall remember. I recall how the whole living Bible Became a moving aquarium With such a fluttering, scale-shimmering Rainbow of colors, How the whole Bible gleamed, Inlaid with precious stones, 82 Bathed in a Rashi of clarity, Till it became the interpreted, Lucidly sung history of my own people. I, the least of them, Thin as a chip, Became the sovereign Of my own Jewish history. 83 I cried out: Let there be light. And pages of Talmud and Midrash Flowed with light. 84 A sprightly Maharsha, Like a blazing diamond, Beamed from my rabbi’s sad eyes, Eyes of daily livelihood, Worrying, sorrowing eyes, Searching, tear-filled eyes, Sighing, dreaming, 82 Rashi of Troyes (1040–1105)—the lucid commentator of the Bible and Talmud, taught together with
the Bible. 83 God’s command in Genesis. 84 Medieval Talmudic commentator and his commentary.
Jacob Glatshteyn 499 Eyes of rare calm, of Sabbath, of Paradise, Deep and heavily questioned and with a melody 85 Answered eyes. The two tears in the feline eyes Of my Talmud-teacher’s mute daughter: One spoke the Holy Tongue And the other—a Yiddish translation. A timid tear, Accompanying step by step, 86 An oral, faithful servant To the Holy Language, Squeezing the last bit of light From a dark phrase And serving it fresh—like Sabbath fruit On a generous plate— To women and girls And to dear warm simpletons With giant hearts And wide-open purses, Who would rejoice When a little door opened, a meaning unfolded, The mind expanded, The big heart opened up. It was so many years After the Creation of the World, But the world for me Was spark-new, Just born. My Jewish people just now started To suffer from the very beginning, My own, small and poor people, That my toil-weary father Chose for my sake. My land was tiny, Yet ever flowing With milk and honey from all udders, 85 Questions and answers are a major form of rabbinical teaching and decision making. 86 In the last millennium in Europe, Hebrew was the written language and Yiddish the oral tongue, used
for daily life as well as for explicating Hebrew texts. Hebrew was called “the lady,” Yiddish “the maid.” Written Yiddish was considered a language for women and simple people.
500 Introspectivism And there blossomed a single fig tree, A palm tree, an olive tree, In the land of my people, That my good father chose for my sake. And this too I should remember: The songs of my Mama, Strung like beads, The laughing, wise and barely rhymed words, The refreshing, moral-ended, Her quiet mouth, that always First pondered wisely Before it opened beautifully And rounded out a tasteful saying— The whole family was waiting for it As for good advice. My mother, the proud servant of her household, In between scrubbing, cooking, And washing laundry, Confided to me the wonder Of the peasant-wise Jewish proverb, Rooted like Gentile peasants on their own soil, With their own cows, their own arbors, Their own sweet cream and red strawberries And peppered, hard, dried cheeses. I crowned my mother As the mother of my whole Jewish people. For her I have longed my whole life, When the little dot on my dream-map Lit up and fell dark. And this too I must remember. When I came to her with the grotesque steps Of a would-be adult, I was already almost as old, Almost as sad, And almost as wise as she. But I wanted to lean on, I sought shelter In a dying mother, Though I had almost caught up with her age. I saw with my own eyes
Jacob Glatshteyn How the quiet, tended Yiddish Died out on her lips. All schools, boarding schools, Kindergartens, elementary schools, Day schools, and half-schools, Yiddish high schools, science schools, Abashed, unread Yiddish books— They were all waiting at her bed, 87 Hanging on her lips. Suddenly she opened her eyes And sent me out of the room. My crown, the apple of my eye Cannot bear my last suffering— Dying, she sensed my grief. My dear mother, my wise mouth, My own mother tongue, which rose For me so tenderly In Lublin’s whispered twilights. My mother-tongue, with its waxen face, With its suffering-scared, Half-closed eyes. This too I must remember. And when my saintly father, Who was my small window on the great world, My father with his sure, measured steps, His believing, trusting steps, When he took my brother Benjamin With his glowing eyes And Benjamin’s wife and children, When they went with the whole people, They took separate small, measured, cutting steps For me. They went separately through my narrow alley. There, with the people, they walked with steps Numerous as the sand of the sea, But for me they were Separate footsteps, My own heartbeats. 87 An allusion to the decay of Yiddish cultural institutions in the face of assimilation: the mother tongue is
dying with the poet’s mother.
501
502 Introspectivism My own people, with whom I began My created world— Now walks to the end. My created world, that had a beginning, Now burns in the last hours of its doom. The light of the sky goes out. A whole Bible grows dark and mute. A whole land is laid waste. Millions walk and with them My father with his witty eyes, My brother Benjamin Behind my father, with trustful love, With wife and child. And separately they stride Through my dream-path, Pass by, pass away, And rip up my whole dream Like a spiderweb. These separate, smaller destructions too, That grew ripe in me, I had to remember.
J. L. Teller (1912–1972)
Judd L. (Yehuda-Leyb) Teller
a versatile writer in several languages and active in Jewish organizations, a journalist, lecturer, and author of political books, Teller was hardly seen as a poet. However, the 220 pages of his collected poems, published posthumously in Tel Aviv in 1975, show him to be a remarkable American Yiddish poet. Born in Tarnopol in eastern Galicia, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Teller experienced World War I, suffering starvation and the fear of changing military powers, as described in his autobiographical cycle, “Invasion.” His father went to America before the war, and all contact with him was lost for some years. He finally brought his wife and two sons to America in 1921. Teller studied in Hebrew schools in New York, graduated from City College, and received a Ph.D. in psychology at Columbia University. Teller’s first book of Yiddish poetry, Symbols, was published when he was eighteen years old. Miniatures (1934) was in the vein of American Objectivist verse, though more symbolically suggestive and erotically tense. Teller was close to the Yiddish Introspectivists and published poems in their journal In Zikh. His next book, Poems of the Age (1940), broke entirely with the poetics of the short, concentrated poem. Under the impact of the impending Holocaust, his tone changed into that of Yiddish Modernist talk-verse, including elements of a historiosophical essay, intellectual reflection, and irony. Teller combined a close-up but ironic view of the great Viennese figures of psychoanalysis with intimations of the encroaching Holocaust. After a long period of abstention from writing Yiddish poetry, he came back to it in 1959, encouraged by the Tel Aviv quarterly Di Goldene Keyt. Teller was an intelligent and prolific journalist and a sharp polemicist in both Yiddish and English. He served as editor-in-chief of the Independent Jewish Press Service, political secretary of the American Zionist Organization, 503
504 Introspectivism and adviser to the Israeli delegation to the United Nations. In his last years, he was founder and director of the Policy Planning and Research Institute of the Synagogue Council of America. Teller published several books in English on historical and political topics: Scapegoat of Revolution (1954); The Kremlin, the Jews and the Middle East (1957); The Jews: Biography of a People (1966); Strangers and Natives (1968); and The People of Yiddish (1971).
Symbols (1930) Evening Motif Longing nostrils move To the smell of aged roses. Coveted, fondled hour— Hour that wears her own hair. Strange, how my knees bend, The landscape spins before my eyes Like an interrupted film. My blinking gaze stumbles suddenly On the empty sheet of the night. My hand gropes desperately for support in the air. My body sinks. Everything floating in a fog— Like words overheard in a dream . . .
Miniatures (1934) Figure Winds will crack tree trunks Around her slender walk. Her face will emerge Ripping through meshes. The sun shudders, Panes rattle under light:
J. L. Teller 505 Who will thaw the joy In hard, pointed nipples?
Rock Sun raging like a battle. My body is young Among rocks. Here Hail dazzled And ravaged. Trees—alert furs In bright fumes. Stone—thick Uncovered groin. To bite into it all, Like water.
Ruins Blunt, flat faces Of rocks. Brooks leak As from infected ears. Grass sprouts Under ruined waves. And at night the stars wail.
On the Road Wind hinders your walk, Chokes you like smoke. Mountains gleam With a distant sun and cold rivers. You are lonely In the late light. Cars rustle, sharp Like leaves.
506 Introspectivism
Winter Evening Slender boys run In half-light, shouting. On warm, shining towers, Clock-hands climb like monkeys. Blunt voices and late sun. The frost cracks hard, like shells. Somewhere far away, buildings loom Like icebergs. And panes flare up brighter Than straw.
City Highway The wind chases signboards Like waves over our heads. The sun shatters like glass, Cold dazzle Between trees. Carlights surprise in wildweb. Automobiles race Impetuously, like ice-skating. Dusk falls. Windows are open. From radios, night screams With hot voices.
Etude Smoke over the city at dusk Like leaves in the wind. Dogs lie flat like thresholds. Rain-spots on windows Like fresh paint. Storefronts anchor Like ships.
J. L. Teller 507
Landscape Birds aroused By the hot smell Of taut mounds Of earth. The evening is blunt, With late smoke Over rooftops. Your stir Ignites wild shadows on the walls. Winds lurk At the cool, blue flame Of your nipples.
Animal Mood Your gentle, wild rider Adorns your stirrups Like a woman. In evenings of purple skies And warm roofs, He loves your brown, warm fur, Your hard bones between his knees, And is bashful of the intimacy In your lusting eyes. Through damp wool, with a lantern, He will return to you late, Kneel before you As before an idol, With a handful of hay.
Woman in Rain Languid walls. Impetuous plants. Dark. Warm, rattling brooks Over shingles and boards.
508 Introspectivism You are growing slender In sudden wild light. Your dress curls Like tin in a fire. Night. Shouting birds And flying leaves.
Desire Excited pillows torture A girl’s raw nipples. Her mouth is as hard as rock And wet with first fog. The temples beat tom-tom, Hot and blunt. And hands—like nettles— Sting the naked body. *
Perhaps it is God Growing on my body? Your small, sharp teeth Crucified God. God is the legend Of white conscience. At dawn—a glitter like snow On all rooftops. But now it’s night. Stars—quiet, brisk Steps of rabbits. Your freckles are dense And excite like the smell of the sea. God is not young, He is drowsy from the smell of the sea.
J. L. Teller 509
Wild Song I shall take you, wild as a frost. I shall make sweat Break out On your body. We shall race Through dazzling fumes, And you will sip me Like smoke. Night will rush With clouds and rivers— Over us, flocks Cry out bleakly.
Late Evening Tramways run away Like hot type. It is the solemn hour Of tower-clock dials. Like bitches, arms lurk in the dark. Rivers torment the tree trunks. Breath is wild Like the smell of first bread. Nipples glow and tremble, Blue from the frost. Windows burn, calm and red, Like ripe fruit in late summer.
The Knight Sings Sick roots grope For the warmth of wet earth. Night is older than scream, Than rivers and birds.
510
Introspectivism You are slender, You carry your horns in the fog. Your folds are still warm with wind. Late at night I shall long For the interrupted syllable of your steps, For your ankle, red As a baby’s cheek.
Sharp Hour Ears, alert like dogs and like stars, Hear a distant splash Between words. The body blisters. Trees and panes dazzle with frost. Horns flit by like birds In the dark. Houses vigilant like fields.
Poems of the Age (1940) Psychoanalysis Jud Süss Oppenheimer on His First Visit with Professor Sigmund Freud
That’s you—the Eternal Jew. Of Esau’s lullaby, of Gentile legend. And I am your nephew—Jud’ Süss Oppenheimer. You, seer, who can see far, see clear, see through, You may say that I—am not I, Joseph Süss Oppenheimer, or “the Jew Süss” (1698–1738), Jewish financier and minister of the treasury of the Duke of Württemberg. He introduced a strongly centralized system of taxes to enrich the duke’s treasury and was known for his strict rule and personal profligacy. After the duke’s sudden death, Jud Süss was executed, in an atmosphere of anti-Semitism. “Jud Süss” was popularized in a novel (1925) by the German-Jewish writer Lion Feuchtwanger, and then in an influential Nazi film (1940). Teller’s poem was published in In zikh, in October 1937. Wandering Jew. The Eternal Jew appears as a bogeyman in Christian folklore. Twin brother of Jacob, prototype of the Gentile in Jewish folklore.
J. L. Teller That one who craves feasts and shiksas Is not Jew Süss. I am now the mirror-surface of a river, Languid between bushy shores. Springs emerge from me, Water plants and worms. My pedigree: traders in wheat and barley, Who would slyly slip Extra weights onto the scales. I know why. But you don’t want to judge between good and bad. You want to understand. Scholars, who encircled themselves with barbed wire: Like prisoners in a jail-yard, They hopped with shackled feet In a ring of Don’ts. Midday. The sun seared their eyes. Flatterers: they carried the Holy Torah In processions to the Bishop, Raked the dust with their beards, And retreated backward, Facing him who wore the cross. They all were gentle shadow-men Of the Gamzu-tribe. And I am Gamzu’s grandson. He was a timid Jew— And now he fires revolts in my dream, Uses my voice for his profanities, Wants to collect his pound of flesh. In blue hours with a Gentile daughter, He conjures up for me my violated sister (Kishenev, Proskurov, Brisk), And my limbs rage to rape. Reference to the 365 prohibitory laws of Orthodox Judaism. Probably an allusion to Nahum of Gamzu (Gimzo), Rabbi Akiva’s teacher. According to legend, he was “blind in both eyes, crippled in both hands, lame in both legs and his body was covered with boils.” Yet, at the very calamity that befell him, he would say: “This, too, is for the best.” (In Hebrew: Gam zu le-tova, hence the name, Gamzu.) Places of famous pogroms that shook the Jewish world in 1903, 1919, and 1937, respectively.
511
512
Introspectivism I fear the unfinished syllable, Things I have not sensed. The dream gnaws at me, as the sea at the land. You, who see clear, see through, Take me like grains of barley in your fist, Hold me like an egg against the light. They say that at night You mix herbs in a brew. That’s you—the Eternal Jew. I am Jud Süss Oppenheimer, Your nephew. Gamzu was my grandfather. You, interpreter of dreams. Pull a stalk out of me. Taste me Like barley at the fair.
Jud Süss Tells About Them and About Himself Time of coppersun, of hot withering. My back longs again for the cross. My soles and my palms open up Like buds. I am Jew Süss. A tailor with an elegant cut. I tap soda water in a back street. I write melodies Of joy horror longing Like the yellow moon In the port of New York. I eat, drink, sense smells, voices, use Their scales, their measuring tapes. The promenades are noisy. Mistrust grips me Suddenly, like a change in the weather. Between their teeth they crunch not seeds But nails. My shoulder smuggles me through, My eye blinks and I smell the dirty stream
J. L. Teller That floated me up At Golgotha. The tiniest gaze of hatred pushes me onto stilts. My voice tunes up prophetically. The words ride proudly with rhetoric. In the lines of my face I seek The small letters of Maimonides, the clear writings Of the Amsterdam lens polisher. On my own brow I seek miracles. Autumn. Autumn of colors, autumn of plenty. Their women gleam like sickles. And fall like stalks of wheat. Each one is Potiphar’s wife. Like Joseph I watch my young coattails. I cover my thick Jewish lips. I pull the reins of my Jewish Human lust And feel my body with desperate hands: Have I sprouted the tails And the horns Of the Jew-legend? I am a tailor, I tap soda water, Write melodies, and draw my pedigree As far back as a tearful grandmother. Yet why have they cluttered up my head With deafening shouts: That I belong with the Jesus-crucifiers, 10 With Elders of Zion? Where is my end? And where is the beginning Of legend? My back does not feel comfortable With a chair, it goes looking for A cross.
Moses Maimonides (1135–1204)—Jewish Spanish-Egyptian philosopher, physician, and scientist. The Jewish philosopher Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632–1677) supported himself as a lens polisher. She tried to seduce Joseph in Egypt and, failing, accused him of rape. 10 “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a forged anti-Semitic document purporting to be the records of the “International Jewish Conspiracy,” dating from the beginning of the twentieth century.
513
514
Introspectivism Between my teeth I hold nails Just like them. This is me, rooted in everything And in nothing. Jew Süss. Androgynous.
Letter to Sigmund Freud How was the weather on that day? With how many colors did sunset burn? Was it in Paris or in Vienna When inside you, like lightning, struck 11 The Do’s and Dont’s Of your Psychoanalysis? A narrow street. As through a funnel The sun dripped. Suddenly—terrified horses Behind you. You ran like a grotesque phantom. Thought burst upon you Suddenly like this. Or were you in your own room? The eyes drooped tired. Children shouted Under the windows. An organ-grinder Milked a folk song. The day was cloudy and hot, Full of boredom and expectation. 12
What melody was tangled up in your head On that morning? Ti-dam, dam-dam, ti-dam. Was the soap stinging your eyes? And how did the part in your hair go? You forgot to pay the conductor. You overpaid him. You stroked the heads of children.
11 Reference to the 613 positive and negative precepts governing all of Jewish Orthodox life. 12 A Hasidic melody without words.
J. L. Teller With vacant eyes you surveyed the sky And strolled on like a madman. What did you dream that morning? Flies buzzed around the net of your sleep. The cold scared your blanket. Flies kissed you like sugar. Your brother copulated with an eagle. Tell me, how did you reach the moment That poured down on you Like a sunny rain On the eve of your grandfather’s Passover?
Sigmund Freud at the Age of Eighty-Two13 Birds scream with mama’s voice. Papa throws himself under the wheels. A frog creeps out of the boy’s hair. Do you remember the dream of little Sigmund? Now, at the age of eighty-two, His night is dry and clear And squeaks with silence. Sleep is elucidated. The complexes smoked out. Every fear, chained in. Every fright, bolted up. Only in the drainpipes of nightly rest Clatters the fear of death. Like birds in flight, like wind in trees Everyone has grasped it: Patriarchs, warriors, saints. The blind Isaac didn’t even trust Rebecca, The old Jacob spoke wisely, Tearful with age, Wishing to enliven an old thigh 14 With Joseph’s young hand.
13 Published in In zikh, June 1938. 14 The old Jacob . . . old thigh—cf. Genesis 47:29.
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Introspectivism It’s not death. To follow death boldly He had long since Fastened with copper The locks of his knees. It’s something else, and just as old. By day, he looked out the window, Saw the arms in salute. The Swastika. He smelled with his clever nose The old evil blood 15 In young Aryan shkotsim. Shkotsim. Those whose name he carries Have chewed the word in Hebrew-Joodisch-Yiddish, Chewed it like matzo, kneaded it like challah, 16 Braided it like Havdolah-candles — 17 Orel. Esau. Goy. As Adam named all animals, he named all evils. 18 He wrote his own Rashi On Cain-Abel and Isaac’s sacrifice. 19 Yet, as the Patriarch savored his son’s fresh game, He savors now the smell of simple Hebrew-Yiddish: Orel. Esau. Goy. The drainpipes of nightly rest clatter with rain. The trees murmur with dawn. Fear? What is fear? 20 One Egyptian kills another and covers him in sand. 21 Only Akiva’s courage, ripe as orchards in late summer, Masters itself, The pyre and the gallows
15 Young Gentile men. 16 Candles to distinguish between weekdays and the Sabbath. 17 Epithets for non-Jews. 18 The most famous and lucid commentary of the Bible. 19 An allusion to the biblical patriarch Isaac, as a blind old man, who had to make do with the smell of
game instead of the reality of it. 20 Exodus 2:11-12: “ . . . when Moses was grown . . . he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their
burdens; and he spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” 21 Akiva ben Joseph, known as Rabbi Akiva—a rabbinic sage of the first and second centuries, a.d., imprisoned by the Romans after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Rabbi Akiva embodied the tradition of learning vis-à-vis Bar Kokhba’s militarism. He was famous for his contributions to Jewish mysticism; according to legend, he was one of the four who “entered the orchard” of secret lore and the only one who emerged whole.
J. L. Teller And ties the whole being To the wings of a Jewish letter. To overcome oneself is more 22 Than Charcot’s hypnosis. Sigmund Freud at eighty-two Climbs out of the Swastikas, Recites: Haman. Orel. Esau. Goy.
Wilhelm Stekel Gives up Life Like wild oxen in dusty panic, They bolted, raced back— He headed them off, with waving ropes He whipped them back into the herd. In evening return from the pasture, In his long gown among mute tongues, He was a whip over rioting horns, A gentle hand over damp wheezing hides, A shepherd and a healer. But what was it That confused his eyes on the way downhill, Scared him like a sheep, To make him plunge Over bush and stone, Over barbed wire, Over barrier after barrier, Clawing, wounded, over the last fence? The cable announced: Stekel, Wilhelm, M.D., Murdered By his own hand. His usual walk led through yards And buildings of the hospital, the smell of lilac ever spiced With carbolic acid. A wild half-cry Behind bars 22 Charcot, Jean-Martin—a nineteenth-century French neurologist, one of Freud’s teachers. Charcot’s use
of hypnosis stimulated Freud’s interest in the psychological origins of neurosis.
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Introspectivism In a quiet white corridor. In each word on a man’s lips He saw like Freud A bridge To run there, To run back, Create and destroy, The sin And the punishment, The hunter Hunting himself, The wound And the healing. In every yawning barkeep behind the counter, In every meek face at a teller’s window, He saw a tired Bonaparte at twilight On a sad horse At Waterloo. Every being carries his own prison in himself. The brand and the shame of a lost battle. At the tables on the sidewalk, in the strolling Stream on the boulevard, his eye Recognized faces like smashed Ten Commandments, from a wink or a gesture He knew who had been 23 At Mount Sinai. He knew and said: the road to rest 24 Is often backward, through the calf and the manna, Red Sea And fleshpots, signs on doors and death Of firstborn sons, to finger that aches On hot coals and cools On a tongue, to the primeval stammer. In every body he sniffed Jacob’s Quarreling houses, he lurked At the sick man’s dream and sought in it The pit where Joseph lay bound, Benjamin’s 23 Who was under Mount Sinai—i.e., a Jew. According to Jewish lore, all Jews—past, present, and
future—were present at Mount Sinai when Moses received the Torah. 24 The road . . . backward—events in the life of Moses, in reverse order.
J. L. Teller Sack with the foreign goblet, in every cradle he sensed 25 The despot who among the sheaves Will be the chosen one. He remembered well The suspicions and the curses Of each patient. (The deeper the healing The sharper the hatred.) But the writing on the wall For this Jew (Wilhelm Stekel, M.D., 26 Used to stroll on the Prater, read Die Neue Freie Presse, Drink coffee with three cubes of sugar) Destined him to be A healer, an exorcist of Angst, a purger Of fear. Did this lucid understander Lose his way Between door and bed, Groping for the lamp cord To light up his own fear? No. The old exorcist was simply Weary. He saw The fever rising. The thermometer bursting. Mutiny in the most dangerous ward. Madness leaps Out of the jacket. Jew-sign, ghetto-wire and Henkels Over London Bridge. (He diagnosed it all Long ago.) Frenzied crowds in a torch-parade. The creature At the microphone 25 Allusion to Joseph’s dream. 26 A Viennese newspaper, for which Theodore Herzl worked as a journalist.
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520 Introspectivism Squeaks: I have power! (Clinically known. Macbeth’s fear Of shadows moving on a Dark wall.) Wilhelm Stekel Over seventy And weary (The years squeak Like an old floor) Thinks: Time for night. One Jew On a cross Is enough.
Three Adler. Stekel. Freud. Even the doorstep Did not notice your flight In the fiery coach Of a single letter. It was a true Midnight In your study. On the desk, as ever, A wick flickered. The file open on a new page. The pen, As always, Wet. But outside, fear ran like blood. Thunders screamed like strange birds Beyond the mountain. Lightning
J. L. Teller Flared up, like fires announcing a New Moon On a cold Rocky height. Oh, seers— Where did the downpour sweep you away In the tumultuous night?
27
Like prodigal cats, we crawled back To the ledges of the old fears; As on a narrow street at dusk, We detected somewhere inside us The hurried closing Of shutters, bolts, bars; We felt the blowing of a long village Christmas night With packed churches and wrathful taverns, And, out of fear, we revived 28 The exorcising jargon Of our grandmothers. Where is the highway To dream, to reality? The river overflowed its banks. The bridge swept away by the river. The symbols blurred Like writings in a rain. The sky is salivating parachutes Over sun-bathed, swept streets. Tanks munch Towers and walls like bread. Stukas race, hunting over roofs. Bombs, like pet dogs, pursue A blond child on garden-beds Between white-aproned nannies, waterPebbles and apple-trees. Goering. Hitler. Pétain. Are those words from your scare-lexicon? 27 There was a custom in ancient Israel of announcing a new month by climbing a high peak and lighting
a fire, which was relayed throughout the country. 28 A pejorative epithet for Yiddish.
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522 Introspectivism What does a thin mustache over a narrow mouth mean? What does the crooked cross on the Eiffel Tower mean? What? In a forest, dawn like a decree: Gestapo. Announcement: Den JuDen, EtCet . . . Hunched old Jews whispering Over their own beards, seek with blind Trembling hands a mezuzah on the trees 29 In No-man’s-land. Reality or symbol? You departed and left the doors ajar. The wind blew the scribbled papers Off your desks. Did you leave because your knees, too, trembled With the well-known Jew-fear, when you saw The flame of burning cities On your neighbor’s bayonet? And who gave you exit-visas? Do they require a “J” there too? Adler. Stekel. Freud. 30 Thrice “J” And thrice Jew. Oh, masters of healing and gossip. Is it true That Herr Ribbentrop And Herr Gott Concluded a pact And that Magdalen 29 The border between Germany and Poland, where German Jews of Polish origin were deported by the
Nazis in 1938 and not accepted by the Poles. 30 All official documents of Jews were stamped with a “J” in Nazi Germany.
J. L. Teller (Lupescu 31 of Nazareth) Must go? (The pages of the New Testament Weep in the hands of the convert.) P.S. How much Lebensraum do they have there?
Deportation32 1 Late November evening in Vienna: Lantern light through snow, White mist over the Danube, Steam script on windowpanes on Parner Kaffee. Sudden wind in the opened door. Boots and angry words. Asking for me. As if stepping out Of smoking colors and a bronze frame— Flamethrowers Under the screaming eagle of Rome, Spear hurlers, Drawers of swords In the name of the cross And the Holy Ghost. Sieg! Heil! Beat on noisy brass the expulsion march. I am coming. He Is coming. (Flood the highway with a shouting trampling mob.) (Ride in with saddle and spurs.) Ignite barrels of tar. Hold high the torches. And lift the children over your heads So they can see 31 Magda Lupescu, the Jewish mistress of King Carol II of Rumania, exerted a strong influence on
Rumanian public affairs in the 1930s and was vilified by the Rumanian fascists. 32 Original title: “Refugee Poem.”
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524 Introspectivism The wonder. Give every brave hand A stone. Fall back and make way. Lead them through— The blond Cursing Whores— To the ceremony of spitting in my face. They sniff and smell and howl like dogs. He is coming. He Is coming. On pale stairs In the blue street, The air is sharp, (The coat—thin.) I. He. 33 Ahasuerus. Blasphemer and Stranger. Go on, take the poverty of the Second district, 35 Take the key to the door of the Beggar King, Only let us breathe. The tiniest fingernail, Any fallen hair— Whisper, lisp, Breathe. 36 Searching the doorpost with our hand Like grandfather crossing a threshold.
34
And straying with us: the Amsterdam printers, Aprons on their waists,
37
33 Here, the Eternal Jew or the Wandering Jew, condemned to live forever, wandering in the world. 34 The second district of Vienna, on the other side of the Danube, was the center of the Jewish population,
especially those of Polish-Galician origin. 35 In Jewish liturgy, an epithet for a human king as opposed to God, the King on High. In folklore, a
reference to a rich man or a dignitary who has lost his possessions; may also refer to the Jews of the Diaspora. 36 Religious Jews, entering a house, are obliged to touch the mezuzah attached to the doorpost. 37 Amsterdam was the center of Jewish printing for all of Europe, esp. in the 16th-18th centuries.
J. L. Teller Just stepped out of their workshops, 38 Mendelsohn torn away from Lessing’s chess. 39 As to Tashlikh, they walk to the station. As to Tashlikh, stones are flying Over their heads. Adieu. Und grüss Gott. A poet walking too 40 With German “syph” in Jewish bones. Eternal echo in pine-covered Alps. Vienna smells of the Christmas spirit. Crowded train. Station. Din. Die Juden 41 Nach Lublin. 2 Landscape in white blizzard fume. The wagons are open. Cutting dry bread, Peeling boiled eggs. (Children in a spell of crying.) 42 You, from Cordoba, from Toledo, Come tell your tale, Shake out the stories Like stars from your beards. The voyages of my race. On foot. On horseback. Lying chained On wave-swept decks. Clinking the changer’s purse in every port. Glowing in cities that scream flames into the night Like comets. Peasant girls drag buckets from the pump. Dogs wallow in snow. 38 Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), the Jewish-German philosopher, friend of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing,
major German playwright and critic. 39 The Jewish custom of going to cast away sins in a river on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Since rivers
were often in the Gentile part of town, such a walk might lead to trouble. 40 A poet . . . Jewish bones—possibly a reference to Heine. 41 Lublin Reserve in central Poland was planned by the Nazis to be a concentration area for Jews brought
from various countries (before the Final Solution was adopted). 42 Centers of Jewish life in medieval Spain.
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526 Introspectivism A station. A settlement. You have here a river that deserves to be famous. This Heine, he sells cheap. Half a dozen eggs for a poem. In winter wasteland, crosses on churches, Spiteful Gentiles at railway stations, It is all so painfully familiar. But my breath is still on a windowpane Of a Viennese Kaffee, my lip is still On a Viennese glass of tea. Send me away on a thousand trains In barred wagons. Through the womb of your daughter, Through the syllable of your song, I will rise again In your midst. Ahasuerus, the Eternal Jew.
To a Christian Woman The air is clear. The furniture still. My hand, like a longing bird Over your breasts. I speak to you confiding words. I am a Jew. (The room is uneasy, With fur-rustle.) My soles bleed again On glass splinters of generations. (Crucifying is not precisely Our domain. Would traders know how To hit a nail?) The ancestors: Goblet-smugglers, Rippers of a silk coat, Robbers of omens.
J. L. Teller My body— Theft. Chins of a Mongol. 43 The voice of Esau. But the hands, oh, the hands are Jacob’s To fill out a petition. Tribal memories, like the Ten Plagues, Torment my senses. Galician owls Still clamor in my winter, Still demand my grandma’s 44 Genesis-Sabbath bowl of rice. At Purim time, when the snows melt, Tumultuous Jews stamp in my longing With shovels, brooms, and picks 45 Before the thresholds of Tarnopol. The river Seret roars As if led to a slaughterhouse, From cornices gleam Long icicles Like crystals. How much time cut-away like ice, swept-away Like dirty white? And this ties in (Why?) With children—rattling-away Pagans In a New York evening park. The ball flies like a symbol In dark air. Sunset panes on misty upper stories Recall wick-soot and pious black coats. Wailing laments in a stuffy shul. Heartrending laments of Gershwin’s saxophone. 43 A reversal of the biblical phrase “The voice is Jacob’s but the hands are Esau’s” (Genesis 27:22), which
became a proverbial expression indicating Jewish verbal prowess and physical weakness vis-à-vis the Gentiles. 44 The first Sabbath after Sukkot, when the yearly cycle of Torah-reading resumes. 45 Teller’s Galician hometown on the river Seret. (See the cycle, “Invasion,” below.)
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528 Introspectivism Through the “St. Louis Blues” Jacob seeks Rachel’s loins, Abram walks harnessed to Hagar’s heavy step, And a young mother burns like the Burning Bush In a desolate, lustful night, Between her and her husband— A sea and a battle. This is how they are: The fathers, The immigrant mothers, 46 Crying out from Megillas and Haggadahs, Lamenting Yiddish in every tongue. Gentile woman, Beware the males Of that tribe Who, as soon as famine comes, Flee from Canaan.
Meditation at Stuyvesant Church The church is blossoming in green, Nestling in the warm landscape Of a world-metropolis. Movie billboards rise like visions. Mute and living images: Reflections of my Awakened senses. Fire streams in my every limb. My face glows with love and murder. Who seeks now to come into being Through my body? I look for a link between the legend Of slenderwalk, fur and perfume, Selling like the city, And my pious mother Who withered without a man In the nights of her twelve best years. 46 Here, an allusion to the five little books of the Bible read publicly on holidays and days of mourning:
Song of Songs—on Passover; Ruth—on Tish’a Be-Av; Ecclesiastes—on Sukkot; Esther—on Purim.
J. L. Teller 529 Figures emerge like the spheres. The shining gentle face of my brother. My father, a dreamer and weakling, With raging fist, With hatred enough to knock down worlds, For a smiling word He would nibble grass from your hand. They all speak through my gestures And my walk, And so speaks the grass That, after so many circles of the sun, Will sprout from my withered leg. Who am I, torturing myself with words In the shadow of a church In a clamorous, blazing city? My generations cursed the cross, Spat in the priest’s holy water, With every weather-change, they felt Nail-wounds in their hands and feet. A drunkard from the Bowery Walks the street, Confident as a miracle. Bleeding. Maybe he is Jesus On the cross. Or maybe A Jew from Brisk, from Czestochowa. I carry the slaughterer’s lust for destruction, The fear of a Jew. It was a virgin of my race Who sealed in terror The face of her rapist. My ears are ringing With the buzzing of streets. In cards and stars It is all written.
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Invasion47 A. Passport Forename . . . Surname . . . Born in Tarnopol, on the River Seret. Over the tracks lies the city of Zbarazh. 48 To the side—Podvolotshisk, And in Volotshisk itself— The Russian, 49 The Moskal. When he appeared in 1914 with horses, Rickety carts, Barefoot soldiers And riders with lances On the slope going down to the city, My frightened mother locked the shutters. On a bench-bed in the dark kitchen The houseful of women And a two-year-old child Huddled together And waited. Through the slits Distant fires Dyed the ceiling. My first memory is Windows crashing At a neighbor’s in the marketplace. How long did the Moskal stay in our town? On bright mornings That shone like grandma’s candlesticks, Like Jewish windows on the first day of Passover, Soldiers would spit into boxes of shoe polish And smear their boots.
47 This autobiographical cycle evokes images from World War I. Galicia, including Teller’s hometowns
of Tarnopol and Zbarazh, originally a part of Poland, had belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire since the eighteenth century. In World War I, the area was overrun by the Russian army. In 1920 it was taken by the Bolsheviks and recaptured by the new Polish independent regime. The towns were populated by Jews, Catholic Poles, and Russian-Orthodox Ukrainians. 48 The name indicates a suburb of Volotshisk. 49 A derogatory Polish nickname for the Russians.
J. L. Teller The hats and uniforms would change, Would come with shots in the suburb And leave with fires in the marketplace. People would drag corpses out of the Seret, Would find bodies under the snow In the mountains. 50
To this day, Cherkesses on steaming horses Gallop through my dream, Horseshoes brand the cobblestones with echoes, A bridge blows up, sucks in The train.
B. They March In Again a rider gallops on the Zbarazh road. At his feet—Tarnopol. Two mountains, and behind them—the Seret. 51 The tserkov lies in the valley. And behind walls, in an arbor, The monastery where Jesuits Struggle with flesh and God. Late summer leaves fall on the rider’s shoulders. The sun strikes his eyes, Flutters off his lance—like a pennant. He shoots an apple off a tree, The horse neighs, Trots in a circle. Alone—on the Zbarazh road. On the outskirts warehouses burn. On the bridge—the enemy’s winter-coats Like a dammed-up stream. Over roofs a boy is running. Shadows are running with both of them. One breaks away, Dashes downhill. A man flattens against a fence 50 Caucasian people, famous as horseback fighters, who served in the Russian army. 51 Russian Orthodox church.
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Introspectivism To become shadow, Board. From two sides Christian processions advance. Orthodox copper, Catholic gold. From a side lane—a crowd of Jews With frightened bread and salt. The petitioner’s eyes seek The commandant. And the armies stream, stamp To the marketplace, to the barracks, To the burning mill. The air is harsh With light, with color Of white, fresh crosses On Gentile doors. Officers sit in automobiles. Epaulettes, gray temples, monocles. In the saddles—young lieutenants. And in the wake of each proud horse— The simple infantry. Carts with provisions. Uniformed musicians. And the closed wagons Of the Red Cross.
C. Trial A mild September sun caresses The shingles of synagogue roofs, The gold of churches. As during a fair, in colorful dress, Gentiles wash the sidewalks Downhill, Along Panska Street, Past the alleys, Through leaf-heaps and wind,
J. L. Teller Through a blizzard of colors, To the wide yard of the Jesuit cloister. A military band blares. Behind trees, ladies dance With lieutenants. The judge sits in a shadow: Unbuttoned tunic, Gray sideburns. They are coming from the cellar through a heavy door, Blinking in the light, Wheezing like horses. They are stood with their backs to a white wall. Their eyes are blindfolded, their hands tied. Their hair is combed and their shirts undone. Fresh boys walk through the heavy door, The sun is warm and death is swift.
D. Landscape with Military They take a fellow through the street, All the windows are shimmering, The paymaster’s Blond head Between shining sabers. Lances and overcoats At the cabinet And on the floor. A herd returns In hot dust. Houses shudder From approaching cannons. From somewhere—a bunch Of jolly soldiers With cloth, bread, Chocolate. All doors are open. In all Flats soldiers are quartered,
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534 Introspectivism Polishing rifles on the ledges, Playing cards on the doorsteps. Women sleep in their clothes, Mothers watch over their daughters, The night is defiled by barracks’ laughter.
E. Behind the Front Confused days and hasty minyans. Early-morning trade In half-open stores. Children gather chestnuts And empty cartridges. Chickens flap in soldiers’ Paws, And civilians dig trenches Around their huts. The Russians unscrew Brass door handles, Confiscate crosses And Torah-crowns. Wallets burst With worthless bills. People are taken from their beds And are never returned. Walls have ears And every shadow is a spy. People yield to the soldiers Their rooms and beds. In splendid salons On plush sofas Maids laugh in soldiers’ laps And dress up In plundered finery.
J. L. Teller
F. Idyll The day is gray as the color Of tanks. Shutters like gas masks On houses. The highway— Rickety carts and deep Craters. Three Jews, tallis-sacks under their arms, Trudge behind the stands in the Market. A soldier sits, his legs Folded under him, and eats bread with Marmalade.
G. Landscape with War Our blood runs sadly through foreign zones Under a hot sun That sniffs like a dog At the wet rocks. Pupils are seared By the dazzle of rivers, windows, Shiny surfaces. Leaves fall like copper. Trees shout With bird throats. On hills, From under the camouflage of branches Spurts the hot barking Of machine guns. Thirsty rifle‑ Barrels Sniff In steam And dust. Puffs of smoke dance Like white mice In a cage Of fire. A cloud slams in panic the shutter Of the sun.
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536 Introspectivism Bullets fly Like birds in the flood.
H. A Child Sees My mother at night on the road. She smuggles tobacco in her bosom, on her hips. A time of revolt and chaos. Soldiers rip off epaulettes, Trains run and stop With no reason, no rhyme. Train stations—noise and baggage and panic. Mama alone among men. Grandma bakes bread to sell. I see Abram of Ur Barefoot in the oven. A knocking on the door, the clang of an iron bar. A voice in the night talks goyish. Grandma doesn’t answer And turns down the wick. My brother carries baskets from the market. Frosty dawns. Dull shots Echo from the outskirts. The sun hurries over fences. The day is frightened And small. And at twilight. A child of five. The herd rushes: horns, Dust and mooing. Fences squeak. Gates open. The shepherd comes last in a long robe. Sunset-clouds tower Like distant dream cities. Somewhere there, my daddy.
J. L. Teller
I. Of Immigration My mother leads me through streets Of a big city. A scorching summer afternoon Teases with lemonade, pears, And ice cream. Suddenly—like lightning, Dark—like a tree in a storm, A Negro rises— The first one in my life. Children roll big thin hoops. Behind the palings Arbors rustle and darken. Mother hurries and holds me By the hand. Piano sounds hover Like a thin fragrance Among curtains and branches. Tram clatter And elegant horses On all corners. We go through banks, post offices, For foreign stamps, For father’s money. My mother’s face in all visa bureaus. At strict desks and angry bald heads She pushes me forward, As a beggar would his lameness. Men sign, Seal forever, Like God, Like fate. At twilight, When color-voices flood the city, In a chilly, distant street— My mother with swollen legs, My hand in hers, Is tired.
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Introspectivism How many years ago? Every summer reminds me anew Of the anguish-joys Of a little Jew.
98 Fahrenheit The sky is full of night And heavy. We are Umbilically connected to the earth Like trees. Electric signboards melt In yellow smoke. Lamps swim In sediments of air. Children fall out of Dreams. Bread is the tune Of our hoarsest songs. Our summer. Our age. Old men are tired Of not understanding, Of their own brittle bones. The slave is hungry And sets fire to The draperies of his lord.
Poem Today I am like a Big city, steeped in bizarre Fires, filled with Voices and Mysterious strains of blood. Today I am disgustingly Illuminated like the Signboards in drink-street, Full of chimneys, Windows, fogs,
J. L. Teller 539 And the dazzle of Sudden trains. Women totter In the street And twist keys Around their fingers. Beds creak under Old men. Children cry. I roam in my own body, I contradict my own limbs.
In a Minor Key The night is blue, stains Of white on the blanket. My wife is porcelain, and I Am like hail on the windows. Our dream repeats Our day. You are right, comrades. You smell of revolution Like brandy and your head Isn’t even dizzy. When your stone strikes My window I shall hardly resent it.
Posthumous Poems (1972) New York Landscapes 1 High waves of wind Wash The streets And rock us Like sails
540 Introspectivism Like masts On mirror Surfaces. The city Like the sea Has no rim. Panes Spurt Gold Drizzle. Buildings Swim out Of sight. The sun Blinks Rain, And Suddenly— Dark-still As eve of the flood. 2 Overnight The season changed Its firm summer hand To quivering autumn writing, Juicy green whisper To bony Yellow-leafy Rustle. All is peeled open Like kernels And engraved As in marble In cold, Clear Air. The sun warms herself At steeples And cornices. Birds fly by her.
J. L. Teller Panes elude her. Thunder pounds With a hard fist On her bronze skull. 3 Eagle-bridges Brace the city In waking night, Clear And Crisp Like frost. Nerves shudder Like rails. Pulses Pound Like sub‑ WayTrains. Steps at midnight Echo like Commandments, And veins Drip Like faucets. 4 An airplane Scribbles His monogram In black Marble Of night. I’m covered In light and fog Like the street corner. Flooded with panic To the brim. God’s poisonous bite Glows on my groin. The nerves Burn
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542 Introspectivism Like riotous Markets. I float in mirror splinters And cannot Recognize myself. 5 The sun blows up In my eyes. I feel the airplane In my guts. Clouds swathe me In cold shawls; Tired bees Buzz In my senses; Winds hurl me On glowing Knives. I fall like stars, I scatter like pollen, I am in the grip Of God’s mood. 6 It snows Through all My pores. I glisten Like wet Evening Sidewalks Blooming With stars And lanterns. Snows gather Like moths At the light-ring Of my breath. I stand in white calm Groin-deep. My pulses
J. L. Teller Beat All at once Like clocks And thunders, Like bells On Christmas Eve.
October I am unleafed. I stand—groin-deep— In heaps of crumbling copper. The air is dry. The sun— Gelled sap On cold panes. High stories beam Like distant planets. The wind is played out. Frost splits the bark, Drills into the pores. Only I, not the tree, Will not be green again.
Pantheism: 1968 Our night‑ Shadow Falls On the floors Of distant planets. We try the doorknobs Of the moon And leave in space— As in snow— Dawn traces, Leading nowhere. We are clay and plaster And the Holy Name. Light years scatter
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544 Introspectivism Like dew The body-sweat Of our fears.
New York in a Jewish Mood Big-city streets Gaping solemnly Like homes waiting For men’s Return from holiday prayers. Winds nag Like a cantor’s liturgy. Skyscrapers aflame Like pagan worship Against a sun Of scoured Jewish brass. Evening awe Descends on me Like a tallis And I sense the meaning of my day Like clear square letters Under the pointing hand 52 Of a Reader.
Switzerland 1938–1965 Sails float on the margins of sunset. Water-ducks dive for crumbs At the shores. Towns like orchards. Small, flower-covered stations. Bands in evening gardens. Clockdials Like zodiacs On the heights. And all of it is hemmed with mountains And correct Switzermen. 52 A silver pointer in the form of a long hand used to indicate the text in the Bible scroll, written in the
holy script of “square letters” and read by the Reader.
J. L. Teller Precisely like then. Precisely like then. For my death-haunted brothers You were The dream of a Canaan And didn’t let them Over the mountains.
From Three Poems of Nightmare Flood The brain—cut off From the land. The flesh Flows Floods And shackles As with water-ropes The ankles, the knees, The groin Of the last Clear thought. Streams assemble And rise To the brain: The flesh Dismembers us Sense from sense And drains us out To the sea. Our frightened voice Ducks Like a sail Between water-crests. The day is thin as glass; A cloud bleeds In the beak Of the sun.
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546 Introspectivism
Midnight From all the chanels Of the blood, fogs rise. They wrap the night of our flesh, Starred with festive Hell. Outside Thunders Shiver. We pull the curtains. We read our bodies Like Braille— In the dark, With our fingers. Our pores Exhale steam. Our body-bricks Are glowing. The bolts burst From heat. Our coupled limbs Swept away From the body Flicker On the cross Of lightning. The sky over us, Scarlet-red. We are pried open like the outside, Clenched into a fist.
Ruven Ludvig (1895–1926)
also: Reuben Ludwig
born in lipovets, kiev district, Ukraine. Studied in heder and in a Russian high school in Kiev. At age fifteen, immigrated with his mother and two sisters to join his father in New York, where he studied in an English school. Published an English poem in the Socialist daily The New York Call. Shifted to writing poetry in Yiddish; published with the poets of the Young Generation, then joined the Introspectivists. From high school on, suffered from tuberculosis. In 1918, moved with his wife to Arizona, then to New Mexico, California, and Colorado. In 1925, Ludvig joined his parents in Banning, California, where he died. Posthumously, his widow published his Collected Poems (1927), edited by the Introspectivist poet A. Léyeles.
Who Shot the Leprous Nigger Bones roll, white-white bones, Rattle-dee . . . rattle-dee . . . rattle-dee-dee . . .
Who tossed White pieces of clouds On a black-red sky?
Seven, oh seven, come beautiful seven. Seven, come seven, oh come good seven!
Who scattered White sailboats On a deep-red sea?
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548 Introspectivism Who lost? Who won?
Who crumbled Bits of bone marrow In a blood river?
Hey— Who shot to pieces the leprous nigger?
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Bones roll, white-white bones— Rattle-dee . . . rattle-dee . . . rattle-dee-dee . . .
Who broke the brown jug And spilled the red wine?
Seven, oh seven, come beautiful seven. Seven, come seven, oh come good seven!
Who built up the island of mourning In the dark sticky water?
Who lost? Who won?
Who sealed up the bright mystery Behind black-gray mountainous lips?
Hey— Who shot to pieces the leprous nigger? 1923
Daisy McClellan Daisy McClellan, barren mother of the town. Her wedding-bed stood in open doors. And will remain, standing in open doors. Faithful is her body, yielding to take in the refuse of life. Ready is her body, patient to be the bedrock for the unborn. Two generations of semen lie dry in her womb. Two generations of semen rot in her guts. The semen of pioneer fathers And of curious ever-searching boys.
Ruven Ludvig 549 With strong hands she bound sturdy sons to the raw earth. Wild fires, self-devouring, flared And cooled in midnight silence at her wedding-bed. Stubbornness, patience, were honed at the shores of her wedding-bed. Stubbornness to be, To strike roots in the raw earth and endure. Lust to win, With heavy hands under heavy hail—to stand and win. Patience to build. To bear mothers, to bear sons and daughters, And build, build, Build. Daisy McClellan! Why won’t they let your hands stroke the towheads of children? Why must your fingers not caress the bright-eyed faces? Why should your lips not touch the brown-freckled cheeks? Daisy McClellan— Barren mother of the town.
Indian Motifs Oh, you palefaces, Oh, paleskins, Do not aim Your curiosity at us. May your feet not draw you To the low hovels, To the dirty-yellow, clay-built, To the adobe dens Of the small Pima tribe, To the village of Kamatuk. May the rattlesnake Make your step tremble. May the Gila monster Scare you with its poison. May the Estrella mountains Block your way. May the hot desert sand Dazzle your eyes Redden them with blood, Eat them blind.
550 Introspectivism Oh, you palefaces, Oh, paleskins, Did you come to seek your calm, Your long-lost calm, In the barren, dried-out, in the fenced Desert fields Of the village Kamatuk? Or did you stride here like victors, To fill your hearts with joy, For like sand at your feet Lies the pride Of the small Pima tribe? Or do you come wondering How strong brown bodies, Muscles of bronze, Tense and yearning, burst From their light, shabby garments To the freedom of bygone days— To streams of warmth Of the sun? Or perhaps you came to divine Where, in what corner, The last of the exiled, Of the crowded into a homeland, Will stretch out his bones With a last gasp, The last breath Of the Pima tribe? Oh you palefaces, Oh, paleskins, Do not wake the wounds in our hearts. Do not bring the grief of mourners, Do not wander in sand and desert To the small Pima tribe, To the village Kamatuk.
Ruven Ludvig
Steps in Sandy Trails Desert Full brims of a broad tray Overflow with light— Here lives the sun. Trails Long serpents with yellow backs Carry off our heavy disaster, And bring it back. Joyful Calm White flowerings of what is ours Bud through the hot sand. Oh, golden calm. The sky may close off its grace— We do not want to pluck the ripe fruit. Night Shining ships of the sea Lie in the depths. Stillness. Waves do not caress the shore. And no one calls for help. A Group of Rock Hills Caved-in castles Of a lost tribe Gape with open mouths. Quiet old men, Hunched with years, Dream in a sunny doze. Distant Mountains Bared breasts Of the desert earth Bathe In ink-blue waters. Us See, the desert too has little yellow flowers, Red and blue little flowers. That’s us—
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Introspectivism Among our savage neighbors. Fear Past our open eyes, Mountain lions rush Seeking our flesh. They are scared rabbits dashing Like arrows, to their holes. The Eagle Black wings Hover like winds Over empty burrows. Not cactus needles Shed the blood. Sunset White bodies Of frivolous children Fell unslaughtered On the sky-seam In the west.
Mexican Shacks on the Canal Song of muddy water Between low narrow shores— To distant eternity. The foamy wave at the Woolworth Tower Does not break like this. Oh, glitter-guide of gray sails Like bright doves in blue sky— To dark eternity. Weary swallows on the window shore of wide Lake Michigan Do not scatter like this. Plink-plunk-plink, jolly guitar, Dancing feet on sunny roads— To deep eternity.
Ruven Ludvig Gray shadow-march under walls of cities and towns Drags on, drags on, And does not carry like this. Like this: Plink-plunk-plink, jolly guitar, With light dancing feet Over wide bright roads— To the distant, to the dark, To the deep eternity.
Old Levi You will not be My hero for a legend, Old Levi. Long ago— Old pioneers tell— When you were In your thirties: In one night you squandered on a spree The bags of gold dust You mined for five years In a desert pit. Anyone drinking in the saloon Was your guest. All fifteen loose girls Were waiting for you In the attic. And the only fancy street In town Did not know There was a night on earth. And now— Old Levi, Your evenings pass at the piano, Your old shaky fingers Play for the brown Mexicans
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Introspectivism In the backroom Of the old saloon. They leave their coarse talk, Cluck their tongues And wink to one another: Oh, how sad he plays today, Padre Antonio, Father Antonio. Old Levi, Why should they call you: Padre Antonio, Father Antonio? And I will not reveal the secret Hidden even from yourself: That you play for them every night The melodies of your tribe— A song of the Levites. For I am the only one Who saw, When his pride crumbled— How his hand reached out And begged. And you yourself, Through the mists of death Veiling your eyes, You will see That your life was but One long sinful moment. No, You will not be My hero for a legend, Old Levi, Padre Antonio. 1920
Ruven Ludvig
The Last One Foul winds roam in our hollow brains. Do we take in the crying they bring from dried-out fields? In the gray fields wails the last one of our generation. When the healing caress of his fingers Became like stinging needles to our body, When the comforting words of his lips Became the salt to our wounds— Then he fled our borders, Then he exiled himself to his doom. How could he not lament, the last one of our generation? For our own hands carried the fire To the wood of our thick forests. Through the smoke of the burning forests No light broke through to our roofs, And yellow and sticky became the brown skin of our faces. How could he not wail, the last one of our generation? For the running rivers we tried to dam up Exchanged their bedrocks For deep underground pits, And the stagnant waters where we quench our thirst Erode the marrow of our bones. Why do we still put mirrors to our breath? Why do we pinch our flesh to see If the color of life still plays on it? For the pure skins of our sucklings Were like leprous hides to their shining eyes. And the smell of our yellowed bodies Chased away the last one of our generation. May he not have to carry the dismembered limbs— Our bunches of bones— To the black mouths Of hungry graves.
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B. Alquit (1896–1963)
Pseudonym of Borukh Blum, later Blum-Alquit
alquit was of the younger g eneration of the Introspectivists. He published poems in In Zikh. The poems selected here are from his only book, Lider (Poems, New York, 1964). No personal information about him is available.
To My Brothers 1 If you look at my hair and my upper lip I am from a different race— (Where did I hear it?) That’s what I write to my brothers. On the other side of the ocean I have two poor brothers— One with a fiery beard And the posture of a wall Looks like Wothan the German And travels with his barrel of butter From shtetl to shtetl. My younger brother is blond And trades in flax. To them, and to the row of hills Sleeping like green cows In a field against the Khelm moon, 556
B. Alquit I write a letter with my estranged hand— I your devoted brother: It is a long white winter night. Shadows of trees spread Like frozen deer on the snow. Ice ignites blue fire-flowers Smelling of distant childhood. But my heart is a wild chimera (Do you understand what it means!) Incomprehensibly dark is my wondering. In the Babel of tongues And from one thought to another I am a deep dark cave Where sometimes I can hear the roar of a beast— If you look at my hair and my upper lip I am from a different race— (What will you say about it?) I your curly brother. 2 Between sky and snow nothing but night, Its diamond draws a new plan of beginning And see: already the blueprint cuts a wound. Shall I give you the squeak Of my first boy’s boots? In the beginning there was a village— And the end is a Jew With no bread for the knife in his hand. The moon turns his beard into mercury, And the frost on the walls. A Polish Jew alone in a village And he is my brother. A white Jew who didn’t own One thread of Job’s riches, But no one else’s words Can understand him so well, And his wife is his only consoler. Wife’s voice is his Eliphaz, His Bildad and his Tsofar. Shadows of sleepless peasants Lying like fallen trees on the snow—
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Introspectivism There was one cow in the world, Did the Jew steal it? A bloody finger crosses the windowpanes. Was it Jesus? Is it his idol of this town? Cold clumps of darkness Lie like a choked chicken In all the corners of a house.
Us We are like silent crosses. The beauty of life Is nailed to our body. How amazing we are. For some, autumn sings The song of full barns. For some, their song clutches Like children’s fear To the rotten wood of crosses Somewhere, on the desolate roads.
For One Moment Only For one moment only, turn away your lucidity That darkened the light of my eyes— For one moment. My senses grow weary In the rustle of your footsteps. My arms Hang down ashamed. My cold lips Thirst for your silken underwear And cannot reach it.
B. Alquit
Ladies Middle-aged ladies you often see in picture-galleries. Middle-aged ladies with blue withering eyes looking And their bodies exude words like golden flies in dreamy summer-days. This is still life. And this is Cézanne. Warm creases of wind under silk. The shimmer of a tiger floating through the sun. The day is usually green, autumnal, whistling with wind, smelling of first snow, of salt from the sea. The night is cold and dark green like old bottles with the odor of wine and smelling of first snow. Middle-aged ladies often smell like hot mother-animals in picture-galleries. Middle-aged ladies love velvet fingers and Blue withering flowers in the eyes of drunken Modiglianis, They radiate so many Whys. And when I see the middle-aged ladies In a modest circle around a nude— As naked as mother bore it— Who knows better the sorrow and the joy Of carrying and of bearing.
Your Grass I think of your grass, Whitman And I hear the swell of the immense Stone forest Manhattan.
White Night A voice without words woke A distant ancient East In my mind And brought me to a small shul Lying white and quiet As an egg in straw.
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560 Introspectivism I stayed overnight And got out to greet the red beards, Tin robes, women in muddy boots, Homeless guys with ringing fists, A friend chewing on chalk. I saw the full moon on the mountain— A stone for honing the nightly knives over them. Is this the moon that once upon a time We caught in a barrel of water? I saw my father over a candle Of sheer wick and sheer fire. On mama’s bed, the whiteness Of the walls lay like a skeleton. Beams dripping rusty tears Over the sleeping children. Home. Mountain. City of world fools. Mayse shehoyo, a legend that was. A cow with horns chewed The straw of my bed. Your name is an old Jewish Stevedore. And when we three brothers, three dots of a segel Fell apart in the wide world— How did we carry your Tatters of a legend.
Mayse shehoyo. But where from, ha, Where from comes a Jew? So you’re yourself clever, nu, you’re clever. We crowned ourselves With the laughter of a goat. But a word bloomed here, A plan that is still growing in me. In every foreign land, there is a man That when he dies he dies A man of my hometown.
The sound e is represented in the Hebrew segel, three dots in a triangle.
B. Alquit White night. The face of the night A widow fades out, what remains In the whole emptiness of the sky, alone— A feather, a quiet Soyfer’s writing feather Over our street. Nail-water. Morning-signs. Page-remnants. Here, to be rich meant to eat a fruit And stepping on a crumb of bread Was a terrible sin.
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part five
On the Left
Left-leaning Yiddish writers and artists in New York, late 1920s— no later than 1929—when Leyvik, Halpern, and others abandoned the left in protest of the Communist support of Arab pogroms in Palestine. lower row From right: M. Shifris, Khaver-Paver, Alexander Pomerants, A. Rosenfeld second row Yuditsh, Zaltsman, Lifshits, Shakhne Epshteyn, M. Olgin, Meylekh Epshteyn, Avrom Reyzen, William Gropper (painter) third row Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Menakhem Boreysho, H. Leyvik, Peysakh Novik, Kastrel, Blekhman, Rachel Holtman, Kalmen Marmor, Dr. Elye Vatenberg, Talmi, Almazov upper row Mandlboym, Bukhvald, Yukelson, Leyb / Lev Faynberg (Yiddish and Russina poet), Dovid Manevich (painter), Michael Gold (American novelist), Sultan
Moyshe Nadir (1885–1943)
Pseudonym of Yitzhak Reis; used dozens of other pseudonyms, among them Rinnalde Rinaldine, Dr. Hotzikl, Dilensee Mirkarosh, Der Royzenkavalir, M. D’Nar’Di
born in narayev, eastern galicia, then part of Austria. His father, among other jobs, taught German in the home of a Jewish landowner. Yitzhak studied in heder. The father left for America and brought his family there in 1898. They lived on the East Side, father supporting his sick wife and five children by peddling liquors. Nadir had many odd jobs. From 1902, he published poetry, prose, and satire. Edited and wrote for such Yiddish journals for humor as Der yiddisher Gazlen (The Jewish Robber), Der Kibitzer (The Kibbitzer), and Der groyser Kundes (The Big Con Man). In 1915 published his first book under the name Nadir, Vilde Royzn (Wild Roses), mainly erotic miniatures. Coedited with M. L. Halpern the collection Fun Mentsh tsu Mentsh (From Man to Man), then regularly published lyrical-philosophical miniatures in the daily Der Tog. When the communist newspaper Frayhayt appeared it offered him a regular job. He did not exactly fit the party line, but they forgave the famous fellow traveler and even invited him for a tour of the Soviet Union in 1926. He wrote plays, several of which were staged in the Yiddish theater. Nadir was extremely prolific in many genres and excelled in sharp and witty reviews and humoresques. For a while, he opened an artists’ café, Nakinka (Nadirs kinstler Kafé). Translated into Yiddish works by Anatole France, Jerome K. Jerome, Mark Twain, Eugene O’Neill, Gerhart Hauptmann, Lev Tolstoy. Wrote essays in English. In 1939, after Stalin’s pact with Hitler, Nadir finally left the Morgn Frayhayt, claiming that he did not participate in “the treacherous politics of Stalin’s party” after 1936. Died in Woodstock, New York.
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566 On the Left
Fists and Flags A Night in the Open Field 1 In the beginning there stood a silly excited sun And a scared, stubborn moon. Like two cocks, one against the other—a yellow and a white one; —Look at her, she too thrusts forward with her twisted legs! —Look who’s talking! —Look who doesn’t like me! —I’m gold next to you! —And I’m silver! “Silver”. . .“Gold”. . .“Gold”. . .“Silver”. . . The sun saw it was getting late and who was she arguing with? With a moon dragging around all night long In the darkest places of sky and earth? . . . So the sun went down beyond the mountain, Like a head going down a butcher’s bloody block Into a woman’s apron. 2 I felt tempted to kiss that head And smear my lips with the blood of the sun, I felt tempted to put the seal of my lips on the sun’s goodbye in the mountains, Looking like a cheap postcard You sometimes see in a display window of a Rivington Street bookstore, Depicting a sun red as sealing wax, sprinkled with shimmering sand. I felt tempted to kiss the sky and earth With the trees, the cows, the well, the squirrels, With the earthen jar a farmer hung out on his fence, With the thick farm wife bursting all her dresses at the armpits, The scruffy dog on the chain barking just to please his boss. I felt tempted to embrace the she-world with both paws (A pox on her!) Like a healthy, plump, panting bride, and say with a silly face: “Oh, my darling!” But I calculated that someone had already said it. And why repeat? Why repeat?
Moyshe Nadir 567 3 Between me and her, between chats about Communism and honey cake, She pinched a scrap of moon and Said and sung and sifted light, As you sift noodles in a tin sieve. Worlds like golden walnuts Flickered in the sky-bowl, Flashed and trembled and fluttered with points of shadows In the folds of the trees. A rent of a long piece of bark shines with naked “sinning” whiteness. (Can wounds be sinning?) Worlds fluttered with pointy specters And said and sang and sifted light As you sift noodles in a tin sieve. It was white night in the Catskill Mountains. The straying life Washed up in porcelain dishpans with moonshine. Her eyes misty with tasteful brown weariness— After a day of work in the hotel, baking pastry, cookies, and challahs. Oh, brave maiden of kitchen and bakery! How I feel tempted to kiss your chafed hands, Rough, dirty and hard, and smelling of Flaming ovens, narrow, deep with homey spades and pokers and hearth brooms. But you sang with eyes like almonds and white-flour honey cake, In the calm of night and mountains, steeped in great dreams: He who is afraid of bullets— Go under your mama’s apron! He is not a Bolshevik, He is not a Bolshevik, He will die with his own death. And the moon calmed down after cursing and chasing out the sun, In the meantime, said and sung and sifted light (As you sift noodles in a tin sieve) Onto your brown wreathed hair smelling of kitchen, With strength and cooking oil. Oh, let us catch a full Net of stars—and fall asleep! 4 In daytime, starvation gnawed the roots of plants Like teeth of berserk brass mice. The earth—a skinny dry mama, burning with thirst,
568 On the Left Sadistically sucked the glue of her children’s bones Instead of giving them a breast full of rain and dew. And the earth became burning and blue to its roots. Lips of plants languishing and black as the earth— They grow sharp to reach mama’s nipples, And come back with wounded lips bitten by mama’s poison. Death, oh death is outside! With clanging shoulderblades He struts over swooning fields, His rusty scythe on his shoulder, Oh, tormented day of parching and emaciation! When panting heat Scorches man and earth, cattle and rivers, Dust—thin, searing, falls like embers on leaves Which should have been brand-new and sticky with sap and youth. Oh, tormented sister! In the stinking hotel kitchen Like a scorched garden you lost your flower and freshness, oh, sweet sister, That your eye is like an almond in the rye honey cake of your honest face! Your mama, sickly and tired, like fields with no rain or dew, Sucked on your little bones instead of nourishing them. Oh, tell me, tell me, lovelife, my comrade! Tell of your shtetl Eredshi, in the land of the Magyars, Where flaming heads of poppies round out the seams of gardens, Where vines and soap-flowers get under the gums of the mountain rocks. 5 I spread for you a bed of words, smelling of hay And like the golden stamens of onions. A green rampart of tall syntactical stalks, Thin as red silky threads. Tell me, oh sister, of those lost days of suffering and fire, That planted red banners in gardens, like roses. And Buda and Pest flamed with fiery wings Of red eagles! Armed Béla Kunists Hungary’s bloody roses in swampy garbage. Until the white pigs trampled the roses—the red banners. Bats slapped their wings in blood And choked the fire. The bloody hangman choked the fire at the neck. And Black vanquished Red, and night vanquished day.
Allusion to the short-lived Soviet Communist republic in Hungary in 1919, headed by Béla Kun and crushed by the White Army.
Moyshe Nadir 569
A Chimney Sweep And if you have to be a chimney sweep—so what! What is the shame, and what is not nice? If you want the fire to burn, you have to See that the smoke has a place to go! And if you have to dirty your nose—so what! Children laugh, the wicked laugh, the fool laughs; But you, who spend a while in the black abysses, Will be rewarded with a bright flame. That is probably how it should be, That he who sweeps the chimney gets dirty; But if you have to be a chimney sweep, so what, You climb through the chimney to the sun!
Display Windows of New York The wax head with the apple-green hat and a silver earring Like a deadlock, in the display window of women’s dresses, turns and turns and turns around automatically. The display window is up to its neck in the blue light of two diagonal neon tubes like swollen veins of fire-blood. A wax leg, a leg for its own sake, an egotistic leg makes Sabbath for its own sake in a brand-new stocking. And has no place to go. It’s beneath it to deal with the legs shuffling around on common sidewalks. “$1.95 going-out-of-business sale. Our loss—your gain!” A dull fleshy woman—if a cannibal saw her, he’d have a fit— Stops. Pinches something from a deep Coat pocket and tosses it into her gaping mouth, Full of gold and a perfume tongue and an oily laugh. A one-sided, parchment gypsy, Jewish, moving With a swish, head sideways, right shoulder crooked, Herself on the side— Swishing by with shining black locks, noisy shawls, lantern earrings And with “don’t-forget-who-I-am” in her eyes, her weeping, romantic, dramatic eyes. And the head turns, turns, turns around automatically. A bulldog-faced, chemically blonde female With a flea-collared bulldog on a woven leather leash, casts a glance
570 On the Left With small button-eyes and walks away with: —Here, Poopsie . . . Here little son . . . Here . . . Here! She shuffles off to another window of a bird store. There monkeys are picking lice. A little monkey with a tiny piece of flesh between its legs And with a drooping bag, looks with stocking eyes At the women surrounding him and giggling. He gets sick of it. So he throws up and goes to sleep. A young man with a sharp crease in his pants and a hard bucket On his sleek velvet head, hastens somewhere, Suddenly stops at the bird store, furtively glances At the squirrels, white mice, and splattered screaming parrots. He spits half a cigar And thrusts his myopic long nose— Hard up to the windowpane as if he wanted to drill a hole through the pane to the white mice and dirty parrots. The commotion moves like a swampy river. Does not diminish and doesn’t grow shorter. It splinters acrobatically into light colors coming from the display windows And stops for one half nervous minute When the red traffic-eye of an electrical law Lights up and sways over the streetcorner and warns: —Let the breadth go through the length! And when the length starts moving again, the sidestreets stop like a crazy, noisy cross, whose length flows and breadth gells. Two workers come with a wheelbarrow full of iron tools: Screwdrivers, pickaxes, lanterns, axes, welding torches. One climbs into a pair of rubber boots which serve as pants as well And lifts a sledgehammer Like an iron banner. The other takes out a welding pot, an acetylene torch, Dons yellow fire-goggles like a mask and welds something. Both standing in the gutter where a lantern burns with a red light. The one with rubber boot-pants takes the iron cover off the manhole, Kneels down and peeps in. He prepares to crawl into the stinking sewer, To repair the pipes that might pollute The drinking water. Might poison the air, might bring an epidemic. Might fill the earthenware sewer-guts with gas. Might explode Like dynamite and destroy several streets.— A gentleman with a silver pince-nez and a bamboo walking stick
Moyshe Nadir And pocked pigskin gloves, and a tiny moustache Under his nose, like a fly, and a bunch of flowers in greenish Tissue paper, rolled like a cigarette, walks by With swift, lacquered steps. Bangs his nose on the worker in the rubber pants. —I beg your pardon, sir! —Go to hell, sir! The man in the rubber pants smiles, mimics the jerk with the flowers, Shows a row of sharp, white, pointed teeth. The dandy turns pale and flees with a polite snort, Accompanied by the acetylene light that hisses like a green fire-serpent In his dead-scared face. Firemen fly by on a kettle firetruck with a whistle and tin-tin-tin of a shining, swinging bell, pulled by a blue sleeve. The long street holds its breath, salutes the firemen, makes way. The tin-tin-tin drills its sharp whistle somewhere around Central Park West. A moment later, only a ribbon of smoke remains, like a torn banner over a battlefield, Where the dead rise up and scream and laugh and beat each other And flee in all directions, with a plop and a screech and a whistle— And soon come back—like a mass scene in a Yiddish theater. On a bench in the island at Broadway and 75th Street, Under a dusty tree, lies a tramp with a mossy face, his hands under his head, dozes off. His hairy, bare, wide chest is itself an island In the wastelands of rich New York. A tall, thin philanthropist with a stiff chignon under an old-fashioned hat Passes by with a little do-gooder, stops at the dusty tree where a discarded, homeless man is lying And turns to the little woman: —Too bad for the tree! So dusty. —A tree should never be born in a city. The tramp lifts his disheveled head and says, dramatically and sore: —Nu, and I? Say . . . Listen . . . The two women are scared and bustle off with mincing bird-steps and delicate bird-talk, about “Lord Jesus” and “Isn’t this unemployment terrible? . . . ” And the head in the display window Turns, turns, turns around automatically. And the sick monkey’s asleep.
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572 On the Left And the white mice caper joyously And a splattered parrot squeals: —America, I love yo-oo . . . Krrr, —America, I love yo-oo . . . Krrr.
Opportunity —Where do you live, comrade? —I live (and work) near Riverside Drive, In a room as big as my luck. Shining pearls are the lights on millionaire’s avenue, In my corridor a ten-watt bulb smokes Like a glass tear on the face of a giant, who holds a finger in his mouth and cries: Ma-ma. They say that up there in the rich apartment buildings They pay five to ten thousand dollars a year rent. My, those are some buildings! One: like an accordion with gilded seams. Another: a waterfall frozen in midfall. A third: Alpine snow glowing on mountaintops in midsummer. A fourth: A Bedouin’s kaffiyeh. They say: in the penthouse over there, on the roof, Real gardens bloom with lemon trees. (You can travel in New York itself to Eretz Israel, be in the mountains of Judea, and breathe calm mountain air!) Down below, close to the ground, it’s a different story, Here they rip up the guts of the earth with steel sledgehammers, They melt asphalt with acetylene torches. The channel-guts smell of rot and bacteria and an acrid stench. Yesterday I strolled in the valley between Riverside Drive and the Hudson. It was in the month of September, the year 1930—the year of great heat And drought in the fields of Dakota. Spread in the grass, shadows of bums, breathing their last (The shriveled September fried the leaves of the trees and left them hanging between life and death.) How beautiful is the Drive at night! How beautiful it is! The water splashes and cools the air, Labyrinthine steps lead down to the yacht club.
Moyshe Nadir Young waves slap each other in their little behinds and have fun. The park is a lung pumping air into the body of New York with such unholy courage! I sat down in the dark, where the hoboes come to use their love—far from a lantern And I saw flickering fires on the Hudson. And when I see the fire glimmering on the Hudson, my green eyes are like scared fish, looking for water. I stretched out on a bench, coughed up the weariness and dust and smoke and the turpentine taste Rising from the staircase Of my house, where the water closets are always broken down And the stairs are sour, And the air is stale And the heart is embittered. I wanted once and for all to roar Into the night—like a bear who tore off His chain, and exclaimed: Waaaa, waaaaf! — When I heard a locomotive seething below on the rails, And I saw a coupler with a lantern Signaling to the tall one on the caboose of a freight train.
One of 365 Days New York, Winter, 1932
A shriveled little woman at the cafeteria On 72nd Street and Broadway, All packed up in a dirty seersucker shawl, Calls under her nose, with a Yiddish accent: “Chinavor . . . Late’s Edition . . . Getchacopy” . . . Opposite her, the man of the apples, sitting on a thin, tall crate, Steeped in his beard and in melancholy And singing: “Appleslikehoney . . . Tangerines . . . Twoforanickel,”. . . Both calls blend together: the “Appleslikehoney” With the “Chinavor,” And each shout takes the other by the arm Like a childish bride-and-groom And begs: “A piece of bread, oy, a piece of bread”
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On the Left (With Hoover’s two-billion-dollar dole for the bankers You can’t cook supper, And there is no work, there is no work. Just take your hands and throw them into the ground!) At the United Cigar Store a little Negro polishes a big yellow shoe, With three creases in the middle as on a wise forehead. The little Negro looks up with big eye-whites To the small, hard Homburg over there, high-high-up, Smoking a cigar and spitting cockeyed . . . The black child thinks that when he grows up, he too will be a “Jigger,” Wear a checked suit, with a bamboo walking stick, And he too will wear such a Homburg And smoke a cigar And spit cockeyed. A thin little streetgirl walks by And, chasing after a piece of bread, loses The word “Honeyboy,” Like a bird with a worm in its maw Loses something underneath. Over the eyeglass seller’s shop A pair of wooden spectacles tremble And look—eyeless—into the flaming sign Shimmering with the name “Mandelbaum.” From “Stueben’s Restaurant” emerge warm meat smells And a pleasant sound of glass beersteins; A chef with a white hat Forks up choice pieces of meat. He prepares the sweet-coated roasted porkchops Shining with sugar-sauce and sweet potatoes. (The nickel bands of the stony jacket In which Mr. Chryslerbuilding welcomes the shining day Are now darkened. Only his silver sleepyarmulke— Shines with electrical moonpeaks.) On the cellar steps of a subway station: Two excited guys With caps pulled down, Show each other something,
Moyshe Nadir And you can hear: “Double-crosser, don’t you dare doublecross me.” “Shut your face, will ya?” “Come on, shake a leg!” A dazzling sign stretches over Park Central Hotel— Changing three times; First three separate lines in white flame: —Park —Central —Hotel Then in redflash: Park Central, Then: Suddenly, in green firescript: Park Central Hotel— From Sherman Square a motor truck drives up, Transporting three new shiny black automobiles, one on top of the other, Like cattle fornicating. (The comrade walking with me tells how he became a heretic: His papa told him that, if you look out from under the prayershawl, you go blind. So he thought: “I’ve got two eyes, I can risk one, And peep out” . . . Ever since, not only didn’t he go blind, But au contraire— Only then did he begin to see and to see and to see!) A crippled young beggar arrives on two wheels, Pushing with two poles. He is in a good mood and talks to himself And plays with his tin can at his heart, And smiles with a mist . . . An abandoned, consumptive unemployed man Stands at the semicircular entrance to the gigantic shoestore, Shakes as in a dream, Looks with hazy, sleep-covered eyes, Over a narrow, dead nose, And seems to be jealous of the cripple with the poles . . . Sweaty bourgeois come out of “King’s Tavern,” Pampered women with skins of blue foxes and rabbits,
575
576 On the Left Men in white silk scarves, chinchilla coats and spats, They inundate the streets with their sated, impudent laughter. In the window of an oyster bar Half-alive crabs lie on the ice, They barely scrabble . . . Black lobster-moustaches Run around and sniff and run back With bad news . . . Fat bluepoint oysters lie between boxes of strawberries And young mushrooms; White Rock bottles shine in the gleam of glass pipes Filled with blue-flowing neon light: —“Dinner a Dollar Fifty” . . . A boy almost a child, Harnessed to a pushcart, Drags a mountain of paper cartons, And gets in the way of screeching, whistling death. A lopped-off dumb woman, Propped up with bosom down to her belly, Leads a little dog with an angry nose and amber eyes. She comes on an elderly tallish gentleman With a pince-nez on a black ribbon, Who is leading on a plaited leash A woolly, gray-bearded dog With a nervous tail. The dogs—a he and a she—strain Toward one another, Both dog-owners stand still, They don’t want to disturb the mating, And they are ashamed in front of people. The dogs sniff each other nevertheless And express their “feelings” As much as they can. (Where do we now take Joel Slonim, who could squeeze His lyrical glands and sing: I love that it’s cranky and hanky and panky, I love that it’s trat-tata! I love that it’s petting and wetting and getting, I love that it’s tra-ta-ta-ta!) Meanwhile, the old gentleman sniffs
Moyshe Nadir With his eyes, The lopped-off woman, Propped up with her bosom down to her belly. The bourgeois street stops for a moment, Forgets the bitter crisis, And enjoys the dog romantics . . . —Chinavor . . . —Appleslikehoney . . . —Hotel Park Central . . . —Honeyboy . . . —Shut your face, will ya . . . A piece of half-dead moon scrabbles In the electrically confused, cold New York sky, Like a lobster on ice . . . Outside a dry iron cold sears, Turns your ears and pinches The blue, hungerburned bodies of the unemployed, Red noses nest in the faded collars. Hats slide down over ears. A lackey in an emperor’s uniform Runs out of a hotel lobby, Spins the door For the arriving bourgeois in a beaver fur And runs back fast . . . A blocked Ford backfires Like a rifle, It seems: an iron stubborn mule, a “dybbuk” Went out of his mind And wants to make a hole in the world With one single penetrating word: “No And no And by no means no. —Chinavor . . . —Mister can you spare a nickel for a cuppa coffee . . . —Dinner a dollar fifty . . . —Buy a paper, mister . . . In the evening paper: Picture: Chinese killed in Kiangwan . . . Picture: Japanese planes drop bombs . . .
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578 On the Left Picture: Seductive women in bathing suits in Palm Beach . . . Item: Four Chinese medics carry a fallen soldier and weep . . . Item: Chinese national posters with inscriptions: “You’re hungry, eat the Japs” “You’re thirsty, drink Jap blood.” Editorial: Japan puts a brand on China’s heart. Editorial: Stimson thinks peace pact in danger . . . Foreign Correspondent: A Chinese sage flees Smoking heaps of human flesh, Carrying in his hand an empty parrot cage, Lamenting the dead parrot . . . Foreign Correspondent: An old woman sits on a heap of rags in Chapai And won’t leave . . . In her lifetime many misfortunes have befallen her, Rarely had misfortune avoided her And now, that the great flaming misfortune comes to her, She won’t run away. She sits And her mouth curses. And her cried-out eyes curse, And her bitter heart curses, And her big dirty venomous nails curse. And the holes in her cheeks curse, And the hungerpit between neck and breast—curses. A woman is a curse! (Oh, if only this curse had linked up With a million other curses And from the grain of sand became—a mountain, And the cursemountain had One gigantic fist, rising like the sun In a plague-ridden land And descending like a marvelous earthquake After which the earth brings forth New vineyards And shining loaves grow on trees, And big, costly palaces that were asleep in the earth!) Close-out Sale . . . Close-out Sale . . . A shop, a street, a city, a country for sale! Cheap . . . Cheap . . . Cheap . . . Every day cheaper, cheaper, cheaper . . .
Moyshe Nadir 579 In all show windows—mountains of superfluous wares! In all streets—mountains of superfluous workers. Wares fall, rot, mold, get lost. Men fall, rot, mold, get lost. Men and wares— Longing for each other, But between them stands the black, Bloodsoaked wall of Capitalism And won’t let them touch. A poster: “Did you say ten cents?” “Yes I said ten cents.” “He wore a hard stand-up collar and got the job.” “Don’t offend your neighbor with body odor.” “A nigger will fight a Jew—get your tickets now.” “The eastern prophet Shandi will speak Sunday on the radio.” A pretty, modern speakeasy in black-and-white décor, With quiet black little doors in the Ark-of-the-Covenant style, With modernistic metal bottles in the Ark-of-the-Covenant window Beckons to you right in the middle of the broad street . . . In the Ark-of-the-Covenant doors, once in a while, An angry, hollow man jumps in Full of depression and small change And walks out filled, happy, Emptied of his change and all heavy thoughts— About the bitter crisis. The pink tabloid newspaper: “Hoover looks younger and healthier today than in 1929. “Washington hotels are filled with bankers— Coming to gamble for Hoover’s two-billion-dollar dole.” Picture: A naked, wild woman with clumsy breasts like rubber bottles. Picture: “Hoover no longer wears a double-breasted jacket.” Picture: “Jimmy Walker has invented an original beret with a visor.” Headline: “Chapai, a heap of smoking human blood” Headline: “Steel stocks rise on Wall Street” . . . Headline: “DuPont gunpowder factories employ new workers” . . . In the Jewish papers: “The Jewish Judge Cardozo . . . Great honor for the Jews . . . We Jews” . . . “Bialik . . . The Prophet Bialik . . . Cantor Rabbitchele Bearshit” . . . “Sexton . . . Sholemasch . . . Bride from Suffolk Street” . . .
580 On the Left “Again the Bolsheviks” . . . “A Discussion between Dr. Cluck and Mr. Shmuk on the issue: “Should a Jew?” Dr. Karalny pulls up his lip And pours dirty intentions in a river of words . . . A small ragged girl washes with her big blond eyebrows The warm windowpane of a popcorn store, And says: “Oh, mother, look, look!” But the dirt-gray doughy mother Pulls the excited child away From the golden popcorn hail, And leads her to another show window, Where they’re selling irons and washboards. She says to the child: “I’d better buy a new washboard The old one . . . is worn out . . . My fingers are rubbed to the bone, look!” She shows the blond child a calloused hand, And with the same calloused hand, she straightens The child’s trembling blond tresses— Over wet grayvelvety eyes. A lantern-clock at a jewelry store Insists for a minute: “Fourteen minutes to eight.” On Columbus Avenue, in the heart of black poverty, Lying at the feet of Broadway, A bathtub blew up with such force that it shook the nearby lobster-zone. A manhole cover of a sewer shot out in the air And almost killed a street cleaner. Now it floods noisily and haughtily Over asphalt and gutters . . . The steel cold catches the hushed, dark water On the sidewalks, Kisses it on the mouth and it turns into glass. A slippery glass path leads to the shimmering Prosperity-signs of Broadway, To the lobster-palaces, To the West End apartment hotels, To Kings Tavern.
Moyshe Nadir On Times Square a bread line shivers A mile long. Hearst’s New York American distributes mugs of warm dishwater, with rusty rolls. Like a magic belt of deception— The gilded philanthropy girds The sick loins of dying Capitalism. (But the philanthropy will not save from death! . . . ) Hunger—a flabbergasting exhibit In the richest street Of the richest city Of the richest country. (As Barbarians hang The heads of their victims On poles in the marketplace!) The hungry wolf in the paper cage (Painted in steel color) Is violated, his eyes pricked with umbrellas, And is pulled by his mane And applauded for his trained patience. Oh, wolf! wolf! hungry wolf! If only you knew That the grip of your claws is a million times stronger Than your cage, You wouldn’t have let them violate you And prick your eyes, And pull your mane, And salt your appetite with the bloody bone Of your devoured child. Oh, wolf, wolf! See what the foxes have made of you, wolf! Like a squirrel you spin around in your cage. And they laugh at you, wolf! Like a beaten dog Blocks of pus hang on your eyebrows And the spears in your eyes have gone out, wolf! Roar, wolf, and, with your smoking scream, rip up The paper cage, which, for generations, Was dyed the color of steel, The color of your might!
581
582 On the Left Raise your bloodied, humiliated head, wolf! And look at your brothers’ hungry eyes— As in a mirror, And see what an unvanquished might Is yours. WAKE UP! WOLF!
In the Library (In the Department of Old Classics) From papyrus leaves where Pharaoh-King-of-Egypt used to record his greatness, To chopped-down forests, crushed into pulp, steamrolled into book paper Bearing the blood-sweat of Canaanite slaves in lumber camps, Surfaces the word about the green forest, The song of a finch, Killed along with the forest. Word orgy. Leaves shuffle, fingers leaf, leaf. Eyes eagerly guzzle the poison That shrinks the gray matter of the human brain, Parches the antennae of thought— Which move from blind snail shells into the light. Books, books, books. Thought-swords ring bloodied, Speech like gilded arrows. Rivers of blood reflect, gold of crumbled crowns, Priests’ stoles, Costly altar hangings, Naked passions hiss like dogs with severed tails. Gladiators, circuses, human butcher shops loom. Rome emerges, Canaan, Byzantium, Athens, Macedonia and Troy, Corinth, Babel and Carthage— All arise and bloom in the splendor of blood and gold. Books, books, books. Books exhale the breath of mausoleums. The “melancholy Greeks” are bleeding, Milton’s elegies slumber, Virgil’s pastorals, Lucian’s and Demosthenes’ orations.
Moyshe Nadir The delicate splendor of Tutankhamen’s glitters, Of Caesars And Bourbons, Of Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs. Books, books, books. Mute as spies, Stamped, leather binding, Epaulettes and preface-medals. Euripides, Sophocles, Empedocles of Agrigentum, Milton, Lycidas, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, leaves of books are smooth tongues of serpents. Like hail on green stalks they pour silver lies On newly sprouted thoughts. Books, books, books. My spirit takes a stroll in my body as in a park Where the trees are chopped down And logs lie strewn about. My spirit stumbles and falls, Gets up and stumbles and falls again, In the library. Thirsty fingers leaf. Eyes search, search In the leaves, in the leaves. But hands steeped in the marrow of our bones Wipe themselves clean in white leaves, In dead forests. And make the white leaves red With our blood. Books, books, books. Eyes radiate, hot magnet spears Pick up, Collect The words, the thoughts, All poisoned, And want more, more, more. Books, books, books. The dead scream from the leaves From the paper bars:
583
584 On the Left “We, we, we. Just we!” Crusaders, Vandals, Hangmen, Mandarins, Robbers in golden mantles, All, all— Adorned with peacock feathers of the “spirit,” Sword and crown, Toga, and scepter— Fill the long hall with the breath Of ancient graves. Turtle shells smoke. Empty slave-skulls are goblets. Wine sprays and boils. Fresh human livers hanging on pikes, Dripping red On auto-da-fés . . . A reading room? No. A battlefield. Bloody, bloody, bloody. Bloody with the blood of Generations, generations, generations of slaves. Oh, come to my aid, masters, Consolers: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg— Let my right hand lean on your pillar, Do not let me fall Here where tree and forest tortured in dead lies Sing the song of the finch And the forest . . .
Menke Katz (1906–1991)
during the 1930s, menke katz was a stubborn voice for a Yiddish poetry freed from political dictates within the New York leftist Yiddish writers’ group Proletpen, from which he was briefly expelled after his first book, Three Sisters (1932), offended the party line with its erotic and mystical imagery. Katz emigrated to America in 1920 and studied modern literature at Columbia University, doing rabbinic studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary with a specialty in Kabbalah. A larger scandal erupted on publication of his two-volume epic, Burning Town (1938), which told the story of World War I in his hometown, Svintsyán (now Švencˇionys, Lithuania) and his mother’s shtetl Micháleshik (now Michalishki, Belarus), where he spent the war years. He responded to the attacks with a poetic manifesto for a free Yiddish poetry, “The Brave Coward” (1938), which provoked a series of sharp attacks on the poet in the Communist Yiddish daily Frayhayt. After years of poetic loneliness, his life changed radically in the 1950s. He remarried, severed all ties to the left, and spent three years in Israel. In the early 1960s, he turned to English, where he found rapid success with publications in the Atlantic, Poet Lore, and other poetry journals. He founded and for thirty years edited his own English poetry magazine, Bitterroot, and published several books of poetic dialogue in English with Harry Smith. He used various European strophic forms with free variations, notably the triolet and the sonnet, and introduced several novel forms, including the Menke Sonnet and the Menke Chant Royal. In his lifetime, he published nine books in Yiddish and nine in English. The translations here are from Menke: The Complete Yiddish Poems of Menke Katz, translated by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav (Brooklyn, The Smith, 2004).
585
586 On the Left
Three Sisters (1932) * So many V’s burning Vis-à-Vis When strong nights huddle threefold And all are mine mine mine And in eVery V embedded Is eVery sister—my ViVid poem. A lonely spider dreamt them up On a blind windowpane in my hollow house. Cracks catch their shadows, Reincarnations that fled from somewhere. I love all three of them, And walk, with open distances, Past nights in love.
* One appears before my eyes A last twilight in a death chamber. I walk toward her as through a mirror With steps of an alien visitor And pry her open like a sealed wonder. She hears in my walk— The clang of a gravediggers’s spade, And she declines as languidly As the fluttering of a dying crow In a lonely nest somewhere.
* One with transparent loins Clamoring to roll up her dress Is bent with ripeness Like full wheat before the scythe, As if soon—no steps, no words— Someone will emerge from lustful nights
Menke Katz 587 And violate her in the street Against the sun.
*
And the third, In her autumn, unheard, With a blank gaze At the march of time, Turned gray in the haze Of seeking herself With no reason or rhyme.
In the hunchbacked dark—extinguished days Concatenated in a row. My shadow—spiteful corpse Mocks me on the crumpled pillow. The three sisters—my most beautiful poems Grow ripe in my dream, brown and blond, And I, with lustful limbs, With the sorrow of two starving days On my sleepless bed, I sing the song of the three And sense, Vis-à-Vis, On the dirty linen, the moon Dreams of my songs.
The First Sister Boy from the land of night— Tear off my sheer gown, Naked—shameless shall I lie before you. Just the narrow band, green in my hair, Will watch our game in fear. The moon split in half, Hugging our cloth on the floor, Hiding in every fold. In ripe verses of an infant poem Take me apart. Let wonder not be ashamed of wonder.
588 On the Left I lie open before you, glowing, I hear The whispering of limb to limb. Find me In the distances of a dreamed-up world, Crumble over me As a belated rain over a thirsty field. Dissolve me in worlds of madness, I shall darken extinguished on your bed And look long, With blank gaze, At hours that passed. As a stopped clock hand — — —
* A shadowy lattice of all three Trembles on my walls As expiring glimmer. One makes my winter house blossom with May— The living odors of her brown body. One, with the semen of lice-infested soldiers, Appears pure— A twelve-year old girl With green bands in her blond braids, Appears pure As I—the bum with the innocence incense. And one scatters in stars, In silvery shimmer on my ashen gas-pipe, Wants to hear, Star-eyed and calm, The distant voice of future generations. So many springs in my winter house Dissolve in aromatic limbs, Naked and slim, And are felled like mown fields Ripe and languid— And I walk wild to,
Menke Katz 589 And I walk mild fro, And sing the song of brown and blond. Like a wonder orchard, full of sap and sadness, am I: Once upon a time, Green and drunk On my bursting manhood, On my twenty-five summers, Once upon a time, My own shadow scares me, Moving faceless to a gallows, And suddenly dancing—chattering and mad, As the midnight drip drip drop Of blind, hoarse faucets.
Dawning Man (1935) Dusk Steel glows like smithies up on high, The wind in fire dazzles like a bellows— Towers cannot reach their own end, Sun erects barricades—lightning walls. The city sings a story of once-upon-a-time: On Broadway, deer were leaping. Oh city, your heart a wheel, your marrow steel. Your torso, the bricklayers’ blood. I shall frame your greatness in small poems, Measure your height in hot verses. The day burns out in flames of frost, Chimneys are nests for the stars. The homeless night of stone and gloom Carves on your builders her own doom.
590 On the Left
Night A bright desert—the endless city. The buildings—mirages of steel. Homeless steps sowing desolation. Clothes on bodies—ripped-up bandages. And hands that are: suns and stars, The song of cities and of fields of rye, Lie stiff, frozen to the stones, Blood and veins to be swept into the dung. The city beats with giant limbs. Tree, man, stone—a blazing grid. The wind rushing with death—with whips of steel. People go dancing with the frost. Cats desolately wailing to the rhythm. The homeless wake through nights of Raamses and Pithom.
Zushe in the Smithy of the Worker-Poet
Like a blacksmith, I shall learn to forge my poems— Let my poem be strong As the touch of white glowing iron— Let my poem be simple As the swing of toiling arms. I shall collect my words like naked sparks And glow them white—and rush them in the storms.
1 All that remained Of Zushe the fine carpenter apprentice: A head with homeless nights in the brain, And arms on weary shoulders Like tongs on abandoned workbenches. He let go of the reins of desolate life, He lies—a board, not fully sawed, Holds the fingers in his hands like freezing nails, And chews the cold darkness with dancing teeth.
Menke Katz 2 I take the loneliness of freezing Zushe Into the heated smith-shop of the worker-poet And forge the frost into flaming hatred: Verses fuse under the band of my hammer, Words sparkle on the searing anvil, Hot is the steel of glowing poems, Lines bend—white-hot stabs, And words stand lined up like red frontier soldiers. I take the loneliness of freezing Zushe Into the heated smith-shop of the worker-poet, I forge the frost into flaming hatred: And every word is loaded with shrapnel, Every letter stands naked in the fire— The poems—raging Bolsheviks, And rigorous words know: When we need, we are blacksmiths— When we need, we are spears.
The Lynching Crow (Fragments)
1 The fields taught her to love. Poverty taught her to hate— The blind hatred of fire to water. In the Louisiana fields, Tilly Picked her love for John And her hatred burned the boundaries of races. And though her father’s strong semen Gave her her Jewish pedigree And John’s skin is legendary night— The most beautiful pedigree is—life, And human being—is God’s name. She’s drawn closer, closer to John: She sees her father with devouring eyes, In the steel factory, he bore with lightning through the bars. And her mother bent Over her as over a corpse.
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592 On the Left She’s drawn closer, closer to John: She sees an orgy of auto-da-fés dance over him, And she caresses him with questioning fingers— Oh John, who destined it so That your labor smells of cornfields And your body—of bitter blood?
* At hot cauldrons, Tilly’s father Melted his years. As through a swamp, He carried for strangers— Suns like golden scythes That carved creases in him. His days—devoured in the steel ovens, Evaded the sun. About his life— Ask the wheels in the steel factory. Now he gets burned in the sun Like an empty stalk longing for grains. He expires weary and quiet. His body dries Like bark on a tree, sawed down, Twitches with the nerves of melting steel. In the house Sad candles wait for awakening. Poverty spreads out leisurely in the corners. Hungry mice gnaw dry rolls.
* Friday evening. Tilly’s Mama, the old bagel lady welcomes the Sabbath With fragrant Challah and Yiddish prayers. Her wig is festively combed. Candles flicker, Sway around her old world And expire With small shtetl fires A festive white bread, especially plated for the Sabbath.
Menke Katz In the small house—in big Louisiana. On the gas stove, the old teapot Rusts at the patches of old tinmakers. The bagels in her basket dream of buyers. In the house, quiet and clean. The cat washes and promises guests: Tilly sneaks to John in the field As through enemy lines— Her walk scares the cotton flowers, A starry veil covers the day.
* For a long time, on Friday evenings, As if the Negro John observed the Sabbath, He’s waiting tall at his door. All the windows are open for his guest. Anxiety sways and rocks the waiting calm: Tilly lights up toward him— Barefoot, she rises from the river With the river’s evening gold. Oh John— So much night and mountain for both of them, Let pure beauty speak for us: Your pedigree is cornfields and proud cypress trees, So what if you’re as dark as primeval forests, God plucked us from one human trunk. Should your blackness stand Between you and your world, I shall make you shine With my blond. Take me like a sickle takes a field of stalks. Unfold my years In nineteen flowers, You sawed your body inside me— And the courage of your race spurts in me. Summer, I’m pregnant, I walk blond and blooming And wait like raw pumpernickel for a ripe harvest.
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594 On the Left
* The mountains all around, embracing like lovers. John meets her at the river. Scared, he smiles with full lips. A boat is waiting with restless oars. They bring the night in the boat, Till dawn, shuffling through the forest As through dangers. They move as mute as the oars, The boat races through blue foam And carries them lucid—to a secret shore. Suddenly— Suspicious noises hover, And Tilly whispers, death in her voice: John, my John! Lynchers lurk at your life! 2 When Tilly’s boss Smelled human blood like a wolf, He took Jesus as his witness— That the nigger John carried Tilly to an attic And raped her all night long. From village to village The mob carried John’s verdict, And John: His body—night struggling with sun, His eyes—fear of jungle-nights, Scared, he huddled with horses in stables, Then—galloped to the wild forest. Monkeys in love embrace in the trees. Here—traces of devoured humans, There—empty dens of bears. Night hangs on every tree like a crucified nigger. John sniffs like an animal in a dark lair Hearing the steps of the hunters. He is awake—with the anxiety of a head in hangman’s hand. Around him— Ancient forest dance and rape of drums call: Lynch! Lynch! Lynch!
Menke Katz
* Somewhere, a mother demands of her icon: My child, The white God of Lynch looms horror over him. My child, Not for gallows did I grow your curly head. When of dear John Tilly found A rivulet of blood, And a moon above like a guillotine-lamb, She whispered softly: I shall still love you, l-o-v-e. And people collected for good luck Pieces of rope. Sap runs down the trees like tears— In the beautiful spring of the South. 3 From work— It’s good to see the evening light of streets. With heavy day on her shoulders, Tilly likes To lie on the free floor, Listen for the shadows Creeping from corner to corner— And think That night sucks weariness out of your bones. Loneliness dozes in dark cracks. In Tilly’s body— A child is hiding—a little John, unborn, Locked up in her womb, Waiting To meet the world with fists of rage. Somewhere, a violin laments John’s lynched years. Through the distant tones, A magic giant Dazzled her with its lights, Sparkled with its steel— New York.
595
596 On the Left And Tilly roared through the steel: “I’m coming! Coming! Oh, tallest climb-city, New York! New York!”
* Footsteps plow the green dust of plants, And shoe-steps blossom on the roads. Orchards carry Summer’s plenty like a feast, And in hands Tied in fingers— Juicy fruits. The borders of the South Lulled in Genesis songs. Chunks of evening meandering in branches Like scarlet rays in intercourse. Tilly sees: In the South, John’s brave body burns, Ignites lynching cities With his burning hands. 4 The silence of a cave woke New York’s night, Scared the city roar with calm, Making stone beds everywhere. Tilly huddles to the dark. Frost glues every stone. Above her— A chunk of homeless sky hangs like an icy patch. When Tilly remembers her home— Wounds are red in her dream, She sees her dear John—a lynched nigger. It seems to her, he’s now The stone and loneliness of the frosty alley, And like a mourner, A crushed barrel sits shiva for him.
Guests and family sit on the floor in seven days of mourning for the dead.
Menke Katz 597 Tilly dreams: Her crying mother Collects her scattered years, John— A torn limb of an ice-tower Falls through slippery abysses, And falling, dances the dance of a sinking ship. Tilly dreams: Giants lead straying stars, In John’s hand—dazzling spears.
* Tilly hears— A child turns inside her, But the lynching crow chokes her joy— For here too John’s race is a sin. And like fleas, the pity of philanthropies skitters over her. In a deep vise, the child holds John’s Negro pedigree—hidden in Tilly’s womb. Wind and marrow and steel Scream above Tilly. The child—a painful question-mark in her body, Pounds its head like a fist: Mama, how far is the world? And Tilly’s “Oy” answers: The world is not far.
* In the hospital, the night is long. The cot cuddles her pain. The white covers look like shrouds. The nurse is good, Braids the hair of a dying girl. In the hospital, the night is long. In the sleeping potion someone counts The shadowy steps of night-walkers. The child cuts a road to the sun through Tilly— Through her limbs— Pushes out to the world
598 On the Left A hero of tomorrow, Black and courageous as John’s brothers. 5 The days walked a hundred strides. The child, half-negro, strong, With Tilly’s blond shining— Like his lynched father, is called John. And the world Doesn’t spare him poverty: His street climbs dark on crooked walls—stuffed with smoke, Generations have gnawed at the bricks— In midday Night sits in blind homes, Hiding from the sun. At dawn, Tilly leaves him in the public childcare home And takes his crying with her to the shop. The unsucked milk stings her breasts And flows through her blouse. She sneaks out and taps John’s lunch into the trash— If only a kitten were here. At night, little John is Prince of the Gray House, In Tilly’s arms, the world is free. Spring unrest plays through Tilly— The eve of May.
* May Day, Day liberated from fetters— Gathers us And dons our joy As a bare forest puts on the first spring leaves. In incense, on silver altars, Kneeling praying men writhe like old worms; Scared “Gods” lie In Stars-of-David, in Crosses. May Day. In the shop, Tilly’s senses hear:
Menke Katz 599 Unfolding marches—endless columns Walk to a shining goal. Her machine hushes the song of the squares: —Today, the sun bore the day for us, Brothers of shop, street and sad house, Don’t dare to pair your poverty with loneliness. Who will linger with hunger today in lonely home, When in hot blood—restless anguish, And every one of us—a May song In red, banner light? In the shop, Tilly’s senses hear: Unfolding marches, endless columns Walk to a shining goal. Her machine hushes the song of the squares: Oh comrades of factories and shops, And you, the homeless, with a stone for a bed, This day of joy and hatred Will embrace the black might in flames.
Burning Town (1938) Burning Town (Fragments)
*
In Mikhalishek, a spasm of silence. The huts huddle in danger. The town Stuffs itself on calm as on a last supper— Calm screams the coming of blizzads. Night lies in pieces, sawed up by crickets. Virgins cower in attics, Shuffle the spiderweb with scared steps. All around—
A small town in Lithuania (today Belarus), where Katz spent his childhood with his mother and siblings
during World War I. His father was in America prior to bringing his family over.
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The Viliye with gushing water, Peels the bark of fresh-chopped trees. The raft is moored, the guard has gone. At the restless midnight vigil—Jews hear: Over the nearby graveyard The wind says Kaddish through the grass.
* Pig Alley lit up with early spring. Twigs grew blue with lilac blooms. Mikhalishek holds its breath And listens— Suspect breezes whispering: They go! They come! Who? Where? The German, huh? The German what? Sh-sh-sh! Hush! In the prayer house, in starry loneliness— The light of torn holy books. The tabby cat, dozing on the fence— Wakes with a start, Claws ready to pounce on Death. From somewhere, a rider Gallops by through the fear; One hand reins the nimble horse, The other—loaded lead. Bent over his obedient horse, Vigilant to bursting, the rider sneaks by: He is all—ear, he is all—eye.
* Time Condemned the town to death. One day of fire consumed the sleep of generations. The wreath of huts—crumbled in slivers. In the church, crucified Jesus burned. Wringing hands gleamed in face of the fires: The river flowing through to Mikhalishek to Vilna.
Menke Katz 601 “Sa-ave us, sa-ave! Our God forgotten in the church.” Horses whinnied in flaming stables. In ash of Torah Scrolls, Jehovah—a sitting ember.
* Cannons hurled the dawn up. Mountains rolled down to valleys. On the earth—stray roofs point: Here was an alley, Swamps, frosted with blood, point: Here were people. Sooty window shards recall: The sun was seen through them. In lairs of the Zabortshe Forest, Children and mamas and stars in hiding. Death grazes on fat wolves, If someone screams to the wasteland He will be relieved by the wolves. But somewhere, a single hut, saved like a bad miracle— And Dveyrke dreams there in Eltsik’s lap. Louder than cannons, they listen to the softest murmur: “Holy is our oath, Till death shall we love.”
* At dawn after the battle, people found Mikhalishek—ground through a firemill. Of man and house—blood and smoke remained. And Meyshke the Rascal sits shiva for them all— Just he and Pig Alley, shielded by the Finger of God. At dawn after the battle, Badunah found Her dead sister’s arms—clutching a baby boy. As if she wouldn’t let the sorceress, the sun, Tempt her child into such a world. Badunah brought her sister to her grave, And to her children—a new little brother.
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* When even Death grew weary In the cannon fencing, Bleeding rye rustled in the Kumsa— Flickering ashes glowed Like a rainbow after a storm. When even Death grew weary In the cannon fencing, For three days and three nights, the German— With rifles, songs and Russian prisoners— Marched through the demolished town. And Jews— For three days and three nights they thought: Like Jacob’s found son The boy should be called Yeysef. And women babbled like water, Each one heard a rumor: The boy is a reincarnation fled from hell.
* For two lunatic years, the war Spun the town in bloody spiderweb. Man and horse and crow in a whirlpool— The Viliye flooded and swallowed.
* Midnight. Badunah hears— A choking scream at the neighbors Cuts the thick air. Cold fencing of swords— Someone falls, someone calls: “Sa-ave us, sa-ave! Oy—vey!” Across the way—at the neighbors, A German hunting a whore, Selected a child And ordered her love! Love! Badunah prepares for battle with candlesticks and pots. She inhales the helpless scream
Menke Katz 603 And hides Her only daughter’s black braids under a gray wig: Blumke sits, a tiny grandma, Or a dog for the dogcatcher.
* Extinguished October night— Lithuanian, weeping desolation. Rain pours clots of clouds— Soaks the dead in the field, And cries over the living in the trenches. Through scorched ruins of Vilna Alley Strayed Russians plod on, Death hidden in their rifles. Man and wind and scream of rain. Mikhalishek howls—a wolf with stabbed limbs. Dveyrke hides from danger In Eltsik’s strong arms: “My only one, my love, Courage rises from your body, From the light of your brown forelock. Like your silent mandolin, You are filled with sad songs.” Extinguished October night— Lithuanian, weeping desolation. Here and there: The lightning of a bullet slices the dark; Here and there: Crooked huts awaken And tremble—from their depths to their pockmarked roofs.
* Midnight. All around, vigilant silence— Crazy Amah crawls in the graveyard. She brought her dead musicgrinder a flower. She tells him How many huts were leveled with the lake— The bathhouse gelled under water-mould, And when the new moon hangs shroud-covers
604 On the Left On the ruined prayerhouse, Frogs bless the new moon to a godless sky, For God wallows in tatters of the Holy Ark. She tells him That swamps stand in the place of his house: “Oy, Todres, Black is my luck, like the soil of your grave. I have grown crazy and weary, My period is coming on.” She strokes the hard earth: “Oy, Todres, I want to be a pillow for your head.” All around vigilant silence— Crazy Amah crawls in the graveyard. She brought her dead musicgrinder a flower. The flower freezes in her fingers, The petals glide down to his grave. The living dread of the graveyard—is she.
* The moon seeks a way through patched-up windowpanes. Bearke at the oven—with lime and smoke, Looks up to God. Badunah thinks: Didn’t evil tongues curse the Master-of-the-Universe, Is even God A doctor great enough—to heal the sick world? Badunah thinks: Death will never leave this place. For eternity so, Head and heart will seethe in the cannonfire. For eternity so, Hunger, seared into your flesh, Will gnaw your fainting bones.
Menke Katz 605
Dawn * Again dirty bombs illuminated small towns. Lost somewhere, Deaf Mikhaske stands at the bomb-thud And sees in Jesus’ sky Flying huts of magic, With stars instead of windowpanes. Flying everywhere—entire cities, Making the sign of a cross over the awesome sky, Wonderfully igniting all the distances And hailing sparkling dust down on the snow. Hot smoke rises from the snow like magic. Who are they, where from? Deaf Mikhaske doesn’t know That airplanes are now sowing death, That the Emperor’s robbers sent them To change the human race into dung.
* And Badunah wanted to roar in fury: Hey, airplanes, hey, crazy heroes, What fortress are you flying to conquer? The filthy poorhouse of the moldy Pig Alley, Or the babies in frosty cradles? Hey, airplanes—hey, crazy heroes, What fortress are you flying to conquer? Amah the sleepwalker of the graveyard, Or the three unslaughtered soldiers On the new Viliya Bridge? One with a piece of head, His helmet bloody and crumpled, Seeks a thimbleful of strength— To plait for himself— From God-and-Emperor’s-belt—a rope. One with shot-off toes Pulls the stubborn trigger of his rifle;
606 On the Left And the third with dying eyes, Prays a final prayer: Come, good death, oh come— I shall give you my Emperor, my God and my fatherland. Come, good death, oh come. Badunah wanted to roar in fury: Hey, airplanes, hey, crazy heroes, What fortress are you flying to conquer?
* The bomb-thud flees far away, Wrapped in the last pieces of night. Through the shot-up silence, The cow screams for help: Badunah mooo, Badunah mooo. Badunah shuffles her low shoulders, Past the cold wall to the barn: In the shed—dawn tiptoes shivering, Ray after ray, like first steps— And reddens the paleness of her broad cheeks. The cow—a dream in demented brains: On one horn Swaying like a starvation banner, an empty bucket: The other one, Broken in its deep rings. The tail like a whip hidden under the belly. The tongue, superfluous, poking out, Dripping nauseating foam. A cold breath congealed in her mouth. The white and yellow stained bones—bitten by gnats. Cross-legged, like a human’s wringing hands, She stands facing Badunah—a ghost! A ghost! The ghost-tidings—scattered the poorhouse. People came Running in white sacks like shrouds— One with an evil tongue, one with a prayer, one with a stick. “The Prussian King” His goiter always tearing at his Adam’s apple—
Menke Katz 607 Sways his tin crown, And the little bells serve him obsequiously: “Tinkle-tinkle, snort-snort, The ghosts are chased out.” Chaim-Meyer of Svir crows and struggles, As a tied-up rooster flutters his wings: “More than once have I ridden a ghost, And more than one I choked in my sack. Ghosts, like tears, multiply and multiply— With my long beard, like a broom, I can sweep them out.” Yeshiye the Blinker with trachoma eyes Blinks fearfully— Half a Torah in his frozen arms: “The burned parchment says: Chichlah the witch changed the cow into a ghost— We must drive out her ugly spirit with the blessing on excretion; When the cow undresses her skin And remains—a naked ghost, I’ll kill her with a broken windowpane! I’ll kill her!”
* Crazy Amah drove everyone away: “I sick my waste years on you all, Ghosts, lepers, are you yourselves. My Todres from his shining heaven, Through the holy cow—sent us an angel.” The cow tottering, The rump bones cutting through her hide— Facing Amah, the bucket on her horn prays: “Hush, At night, When God will write the first stars on the firmament And the angel-cow, God willing, will die, We shall have to— Wash her with untouched snow on a purifying board And with a tallis in a coffin, Bury her next to Todres, the saint.
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* Then the children recalled That somewhere far away there is a papa; Neither the strongest eagle nor the fastest train Can reach him. And where is America? Mentke tells That he saw America in delirium— When he lay sick at good Aunt Beylke’s. Bearke mumbles— As if confiding to the oven, That he flew to America in a dream; He recognized his father in a palace And stroked the golden walls with his hand— The dream brought him back on foot And the sea—drowned on the way. Eltsik swears He can count the steps to America; He takes the children over the seas Riding on words of clever books. Blumke plucks pieces of straw from the bread That never knew any rye. For a while, she stares, steeped in melancholy And then, as in a disaster, With a crooked little laugh—she laughs and laughs And claps her hands till they’re sore: Faster! Faster! To papa, to the palace in America.
* Badunah, like the caw-caw song of a crow— Full of tears and disaster, Suddenly jumps up like a madwoman And attacks The last Torah Scroll in the yellowing shul, And, with her weak feet, tramples her strong God: “Now, dead God, Now—burn, now—scorch.”
Menke Katz 609 Suddenly, like a madwoman She harnesses the skeleton of a cow to the wagon And packs her children and her tatters: “Hey, cow, hey, carcass, Carry us someplace, carry us! Giddyup, here! Giddyup, there? Somewhere there must be light, so much light!”
* Crazy Amah—over a snowed-in grave, Hears her Todres speak as through a hurdygurdy: “Dear Amah, my shining heaven, Do not say farewell to the poorhouse and graveyard, You are destined to die in Pig Alley.” Crazy Amah—over a snowed-in grave, Hears her Todres—a weeping from the Other World: “Dear Amah, Do not leave me alone in my grave.” So Amah took a clod of dirt from his grave, And hit every door with the Sabbath-eve stick: “Good people, Let me take on your evil lot, Let it enter my every aching limb. May you not be afraid of rifle, hunger and battle. My Todres will bless you all, He will be our father, He’ll intervene for us! He’ll save us! Amah, with a lament as from the Other World, Rushed through the town: “To flee Mikhalishek Is to buy hell. Mikhalishek is holy. He who deserves the happiness of my Todres— Death will reward him, And he who is not worthy of his beloved name— Let him get used to life as to leprosy.”
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* Mikhalishek freezes with corpses: Under the ice of the Viliya, At the rotting fence of the graveyard. Crazy Amah— Queen of the dead and of Todres’s grave, Alone through shot-up fields, Plods—an invented Golem, And tears her garment in mourning for everyone, Even if God cursed him to be a Goy. Three times a hundred rips Mourn on her tattered dress. Crazy Amah, stooped over everyone’s disaster, Laments— Chicks devoured by frost, Laments— People that war will yet shoot.
* My poor Lithuanian earth— Of Svintsyan, Mikhalishek and Svintsyanke, Sown not with rye, not potatoes, But with nettles, carcasses and worms— A sick sun Dries the dead guts Of children, soldiers, horses. My poor Lithuanian earth— Shimmering with pitch and sulfur, Is not worth: a head of cabbage, A loaf of rye bread.
* The year—One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty. A wagon crawls to Vilna. All around, fire tries to put out fire, Though somewhere, they say, The weary swords already rest in their sheaths. Bearke scares Blumke That the corpse of a horse
Menke Katz Will not breathe as far as America. Badunah resounds with shining laughter. Mentke and Yeyske, led by a single longing, Fly on an invented star And dream up the good luck destined for real brothers. The whip dances in the carter’s hand, Cuts up dust from the grandmotherly mare. From the other side of the mountain, The children, with a last gaze, Carried Svintsyan as far as America.
The Simple Dream (1947) On Bicycles Through Central Park Triolets At Dawn City at dawn, we ride bicycles through Central Park. In the fires of windows, New York burned the night. Oh, what light, what spring is as bright as your heart? We ride bicycles through the dawn of Central Park. Hey, bicycle, fly—through valley under valley, through hill over hill. Hey, bicycle, carry us downhill with arms raised so light. I hear my childhood rustling through the woods of Central Park. In the fires of windows, New York burned the night. Eternity sets, an hour with you will never die. See, here are shadows—ghosts, here shadows become beams. Dark is shaking over dark and falls. Eternity sets, an hour with you will never die. The day comes toward us with the tremor of a baby’s sigh. A generation in love waits for every moment of the day. Eternity sets, an hour with you will never die. See, here are shadows—ghosts, here shadows become beams. We ride bicycles through a bygone tale. Girl, you’re in love with me—a long departed sun.
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On the Left Miriam dances through the ages against God and light and victory. We ride bicycles through a bygone tale. Caves cry eternally and resound with God’s healing voice. As many birds so many songs my people spun. The brightest morning bursts out of the darkest vale. Girl, you’re in love with me—a long departed sun. What is more beautiful than you and Isaiah’s dream, If not my people—a childish dawn through horrors of ages. We ride bicycles through endless wastelands. What is more beautiful than you and Isaiah’s dream If not my people through night, through vision and jackals howl, Hunted by wild Amaleks, chased by sand storms. What is more beautiful than you and Isaiah’s dream, If not my people—a childish dawn through horrors of ages. I see my people—my young, my ancient people, With confident tread over slippery rocks. Old wolves etch their teeth in the rock. My people stride—my young, my ancient people. One straying step, one frozen stare— And of Isaiah’s dream no trace is left. But eternal are my young, my ancient people, With confident tread over slippery rocks. I see you in the east, girl—a bold morrow. We ride bicycles through rocks, through woods, through dreams. On a bicycle—a chariot of fire, the sun rides out. Let us ride, my dear, to the boldest morrow. Hey, bicycle, run, flee to that joyous age. Oh, through insolent thorns—you are the modest rose. I see you in the east, girl—a bold morrow. We ride bicycles through rocks, through woods, through dreams.
Evening-Bread (For Ethel)
The night smoothed the hours with lunar hands. In the secret of our bed, only Genesis and I and you. The little room—a paradise with no serpent and no fig leaves. From somewhere the screeching city breaks through. Around us shadows stray from Adam’s world:
Menke Katz Adam, I too, at the Tree of Knowledge, would have betrayed God. Oh, not eternity, God, give me a fruit of the sinful field. The smell of coffee rises from my tenth cup. Light, casual chats—long, talkative letters. When only mourning grass remains of us, Who will babble the chats—the long, talkative letters? Ethel: behind you, a golden goblet filled with tears. Facing you: a poet’s little window filled with stars. Childhood cannot create old age. Not old age, it is love that gnaws at your whole heart. A touch makes the thorny years bloom. From every star pure childhood emerges: Fifteen springs, seventeen springs, how much light? Girl, I hear you, panting, telling me a secret: “Oh, my dear, my beautiful beautiful boy, A dream comes from an old blue flame. “And from an old blue flame, You brought me in our little room again, Just such a moment—an enchanted dew, A basket full of roses, kisses, and poems.” Fifteen springs, seventeen springs, how much light? Oh, my dear, beautiful beautiful boy in the night.
Midday (1954) Yiddish May in Mikhalishek and in Svintsyan What would May do in Mikhalishek, If not to show what is lonelier than a stone. And if King David’s violin is in the wind, King David’s violin can weep here only in Yiddish, For only in Yiddish did my people see here the sun, Only in Yiddish was the world here a story.
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614 On the Left In my town a prayer remained, A prayer like the hand of a blind beggar, A prayer that God may curse and may bless His hatred and his love in our only Mama-tongue, Our mocked-at, cried-in mother-tongue.
Tsfat (1979) The Tiny Land Great, oh great is the tiny land of my people. The smallest path—infinite as God. A sunrise like the eternal Burning Bush. Great, oh great is the tiny land of my people. A first ray is a shining prophet from the past. New, as of tomorrow’s generations, every step. Greater than all lands is the tiny land of my people. The smallest path—infinite as God.
It Was Good, Oh Tsfat, It Was Good The lights of Broadway, the splendor of Fifth Avenue, I traded them for Messiah’s poor donkey of Tsfat. Even if Fifth Avenue were more beautiful than all gods, Messiah would not ride on the Empire State. Legends of New York are told by steel, Fires of night smoothed by blisters. The builder’s heart beat in shining stone and iron, But in Tsfat, hands are poets of the saw, the plane, the chisel. If legends of thousand and one suns are night in New York, All the light of the Humash is in the sunset of the Galilee. I love the distant, night window panes of New York, And my own are Abraham’s stars in the Galilee. In electrical legends, New York is infinity, But in the light of all Sefirot, God says: It was good, Oh Tsfat, it was good.
Sefirot—the ten emanations of God in the Kabbalah.
Menke Katz
Menke Sonnets Clouds Over Tsfat Autumn. In mountains, Tsfat—clouds, valleys, And jackals. The clouds Have long since grown weary Of the high skies, they came back From their long wandering, falling And hugging the grandfather mountains. The clouds, the sinners, are eager to leap, Embrace the simple earth, be comrades with all The houses, the people, the stones, not in heaven, Far from holiness, distant from God, they tell that man Himself escaped from the Garden of Eden. Longing, they Call home, to Tohu-va-Bohu, chaos before Genesis.
Children of Tsfat Children, barefoot kids in barefoot Tsfat, their mouths full of a tasty, gourmet Yiddish, as if you shook the rustle of my little town over Tsfat, I imagine you’re the children of Ponar, my friends from heaven, entirely Yiddish, stripped now of death, Germans and fear, the soil under you becomes—sky. From neighboring cemetery, the Holy ARI glides out, follows you in the late sunset, step after step, teaching a new Kabbalah of Mama-Yiddish. Over Tsfat now, Yiddish is Menke’s invented form of 14 lines increasing or decreasing by one syllable in every line, from 2 to 15 syllables in either direction. Ponar near Vilna—a mass death factory for Jews from Vilna and the small towns. ARI—acronym of Rabbi Itzhak Lurie, the sixteenth-century founder of Lurianic Kabbalah, who lived in Tsfat.
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616 On the Left the eleventh Sefira. Yiddish: the sorrow, joy, dream, reality of my people. See, my little town falls into the sunset, as in a bonfire. My brother Elijah flies in a fire-chariot to the Shekhinah of Yiddish. Through his crying, through God’s name, children come back from the ovens of murder. A slice of moon is a mail of a child’s hand that leafs through the skies of Tsfat, as through the white leaves of a starry new Book of Splendor, only the dead children understand.
In the Lucid Land Clouds—boats waiting for us in the sunset, Let us travel, my dear, into the lucid land: Take off your dress, take off your body for the sunset, Let us come lucid to the lucid land. The land is Mikhalishek, the light of my eyes, So hurry, girl, hurry, choose a boat, my love, Before the only oar—the rainbow—falls, Before the sunset capsizes the last boat, Before night covers the two of us with all its sorrow, Let us run, run, overtake God himself in his path. Look, my little town takes off all sorrow, In the Galilee, every alley floats toward us. Night. My little town is paved with stars instead of stones: Hurry, my bride, the saints will lead us to the wedding canopy.
The feminine emanation of God.
Menke Katz
Against Lock and Rhyme Brother, poet, see the poem lies behind rhymes like bars, wants out of age-old yoke. Poems still sit in the rhymes like man, bird and animal in cages. I saw Samson the Hero, with feasts and mouth of a raging lion, writhing and twisting under the burden of rhyme. Courage enmeshed, ensnared in the sonorous chain of rhyme, languishing for the fire of the word, the word that will burn the rusting of rhyme forever. Rhyme stays moldy, even when filed by the subtlest syllable file. Let the word dazzle free, a lightning flash through clouds, crash rhymeless like thunder, over a languid field, a blessed herald of rain. An antelope pursued through the fear of the forest will not escape the hunter through rhymes. Tombstones, gloomiest stones on the face of earth, do not mourn their dead in chiseled rhymes. Hear, laughter will not ring free, like the spring, through rhymes, even if reflected through the transparent crystals of the most chiseled verse and refined. The rhyme smoothed out, rounded, and polished, still cuts the flesh of a word like a wound, like a precise, choking hoop. If the poem is eternal like thirst, a spring, the sun, the storm—who would lock up the sun in the cell of a rhyme? Who sentence eternity to a measure, lock the storm in a tight, quantified unrest?
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618 On the Left For man, garbage, roses, scabies, God does not give the light of May in measured cups, so poems need no measure, as beauty needs no scale, as the roaming wind, the wandering bird, need no compass. A dawn locked up behind rhymes will not stop longing for a rhymeless ray of light. Oh let the word be as tasty as in my hungry childhhood a fresh slice of bread. Oh let the word roam in infinity through time and space, talk face to face, heart to heart, with men of the farthest, brightest generation. Conflagrations of war, burning nations are not flaming in matching rhymes. An airplane shot down to the ground, a wounded eagle, do not fall into rhyme. No storm will uproot a flowerbed in rhyme, oh, brother poet.
Summary The sea in full rage is certainly a bold, rhymeless call for such a distant day without prisons, locks and bolts, with no fetters, no chains, no rhymes.
Menke Katz 619
To a Butterfly See, the butterfly is ready to pass away at its first glow of being born. Oy, so many shadows rush in the twilight to assault a single butterfly. Your holy day, your great life: the world sets with your evening. Oy, butterfly, at the end of your day, I become like you an unbelievable world, where there is no sky, no earth, no life, no death, a world of nothing. Butterfly, we two will remain in the wind chasing yesterday’s day. Such a night is waiting for us, blind, barren female, that cannot give birth anymore to a dawn. Oh, Butterfly, I too rose in a lucid beginning. And like you, with hands like yearning wings, at a windowpane, I shall expire. Without you, without me, the darkness will grow even darker. Like you, I shall become a twin brother to the high air. What will remain of me is my love at a cedar tree, with the kisses of my mouth, and she will dream of me. And I will be the brightest tear in her deathful wide eyes.
I. Y. Shvarts (1885–1971)
also: Israel-Jacob Schwartz
born in petrashun, near kovno, Lithuania, under Russian rule. His father was the Rav of the town. Studied in heder and yeshivas. In 1906 immigrated to America. Taught in Hebrew TalmudTorahs (religious schools) in New York. From 1918 to 1928 lived in Lexington, Kentucky, where he owned a big store. Then lived again in New York, and in Florida. Published with the Young Generation but, unlike most of them, was steeped in Hebrew literature and Jewish tradition. A master translator of Hebrew poetry into Yiddish, notably all of Ch. N. Bialik’s poetry and an anthology of Hebrew poetry of medieval Spain. Shvarts translated poems by Milton, Whitman, and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Hamlet into Yiddish. Published lyrical poetry in Yiddish, yet his first original volume was the book-length epic poem Kentucky (New York, 1925), describing the life of whites, blacks, and immigrant Jews in the American Midwest.
Kentucky (1925) (A Cycle of Scenes from the Epic Poem)
Chapter One A. After the Civil War Wide, open, free, lay the land, Spreading to far-off horizons. The sandy-red trail stretching Far, foreign and lonely, seamed
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624 Narrative Poetry With rows of low, wild plants And strange weeds with broad leaves. Free expanses of land, Never touched by the blade of a plow, Raw, abandoned, with thick lush grass; And moist, untamed patches of woods, Where one tree grew into another, roots entwined. All this swelled, hot and foreign, With an unfamiliar savor Of blooming and luxuriant rot. And over it all, Rosy, in cloudy waves, arched The twilight sky of southern land. The whole landscape grew bright, Enclosed in itself, with red trees And pink plains. And from the blue eastern horizon, His face to the burning west— On the red trail, the Wanderer came With his pack on his shoulders. The tall bony figure was stooped— Tramp-tramp, tramp-tramp in the soft red sand. From head to toe, from the old kettle-hat To the hard, dried-out boots— Baked in the flour-white dust. The yellow, pointed goatee bleached by the sun, The eyes tense, bloodshot, A well of grief in their rosy depths.— Tramp-tramp, tramp-tramp in the soft red sand.
Came a Jew from afar to foreign parts, With bleeding feet and anguished heart, With pack on shoulders, with stick in hand To the new and free and enormous land.
Blue, wondrous, the night descended. At first the colors went out one by one, Violet blurred with blue and red, At last, one color clasped the whole world: A deep and dense dark blue. Only in the west A scarlet stripe still gleamed on distant Black mountains. The first stars,
I. Y. Shvarts 625 So close and red, winked to one another. And with the coming of the southern night, Freshness rose from the earth: The soil breathed with sap, streamed With hot earthy odors, flowed Wide in the cool blue air. And it was like water for the thirsty, Like strong wine for the weary. And the Wanderer walked and walked. Suddenly, at the bend of the road, A settlement sprang up before his eyes: Out of the quiet blue darkness Of woods and fields, came a wave Of sound and song and red fires. From the low huts, people spilled out Into the street, young and old, Whistling, drumming on brass and tin, Strumming banjos, dancing strange, frenzied dances With every limb of their half-naked bodies. Black faces with red-veiled, heavy eyes, Shining red in the glow of fires. The fiery home-brewed drink Was passed hot from mouth to mouth. And heavy Negro women with red earrings, Hoarse and hot, waddled around, Slapping their thighs with laughter. And naked children with black woolly heads Leaped over the fires, raising clouds of dust Up to the red and black sky. Big black dogs barked And fat cats slithered into the bustle. And through this red-black fog Walked the Jew with his heavy pack— And it seemed to him strangely close, Familiar from old times, as if he himself, In days gone by, was part of it. And he walked through the red dust, And strange dogs barked at him, Black children called him names, Heavy women laughed at him,
626 Narrative Poetry And red eyes gleamed at him— Until he went out to the dark field Strewn with low old farmhouses. He took the pack off his shoulders And knocked at the first door. From the house came a commotion: The heavy bolt was loosened, The door opened cautiously, And in the black hollow of the opening Appeared a tall, white male figure With the dark barrel of a rifle Pointing forward. A voice, Hoarse and sleepy, muttered: “Who are you?”—And the man with the pack replied: “A Jew, looking for a place to rest his head. I am tired from the hard road.” — “How came you here?”— “I carry my trade on my back, Night fell, my feet are bleeding, let me in, I’ll give your wife something from my pack.”— The rifle was lowered, The voice came softer: “Wait.” Then, the figure in white reemerged, A lighted lantern in his hand, He raised it to the Jew’s eyes, examined him From head to toe and tossed out: “Come in.” He led the Jew to the stable, Pointed to a bale of hay And blurted: “No smoking, You don’t want to burn up the stable Along with your pack and all the cattle. Be careful.” He slouched out of the stable And locked the gate behind him.
B. A Night of Dreams The stable was cozy and sharp, Smelling of dry warm hay And the sweaty odor of cows and horses. A cow chewed her cud sleepily,
I. Y. Shvarts 627 A horse snored and lashed out with his tail. Crickets chirped away in the night, Carried on monotonously, stopped a while, Listening to the silence all around, And again pierced the night with their chirping. In the distance, another kind of singing echoed, A sleepy sound of a banjo. A late moon, bright, came out And through the slits in the roof A glow fell in white squares; And on the haystack where the Jew was lying, Each blade of hay stood out in relief Looking like a silver thread. Fresh breezes roamed about, Blew on the Jew’s face, feet and hands, And, as if he were sinking Into fresh, cool, soft waters— His every limb relaxed, loose, He fell into deep sleep. A night stretched into eternity: Pieces of broken sun, Tiny red, blue and green stars, floating In a chaotic sky of blue fluid. And in the pale blue fluid, Green-red thick beams Swam together and blended Into the rainbow rungs of a ladder Hanging with its top in the void. On the ladder, little black demons Crawled up and down, up and down, Their red eyes sharp as lightning. Their airy-supple, agile limbs Radiated a black-and-blue fluid; They rocked and swung nimbly on the ladder, Stuck out their long red tongues, Reveled in loud, savage screeching, Poked at him and tugged at his coat. Then it all vanished: darkness Covered the world. Thick and heavy and palpable:
628 Narrative Poetry Black glass, with red stars set in black. And suddenly, out of the darkness Arose a forest—a cold forest of shining rifles Moving on him from all sides, Cutting off all roads; All his limbs tensed, His heart stopped beating, And he rose, light and free, floating in the air. His body melted away. A mere wave of the hand, A shove of a foot—and he swims, swims And touches red stars And pieces of pale cooled suns. Through the long tangles of the night, In the back of his weary mind His grief did not relent, His longing for his wife and child. Every limb craved in his sleep As a thirsty wanderer craves water, And his heart was heavy, Bursting with a mute humming. And like a child complaining to his father, He complained before the Lord of all the worlds, Cried out his heart, reciting Psalms With all his soul, with every limb, With every drop of his marrow. And reciting, he heard the melody, The old, solemn tune of Psalms, And tears, mute and silent, Welled up in his tight shut eyes. And a plea grew in him, stubbornly hot, The old prayer of Jacob Coming to a foreign land: “Give us bread to eat and clothes to wear”— For him, for her, for his pale children. But as the blue morning closed in And birds began calling to one another— His sore heart was soothed. He saw himself in a green field, Suffused with an immense brightness: It sprouted, greened, bloomed, flowed with bread,
I. Y. Shvarts 629 With forces of the seven days of Creation. And lo! He clutched the ground, The black, fat, untamed soil. He felt he was striking roots in the earth: An oak tree, spreading wide, With fresh, young branches, green-covered With soft fragrant young leaves. And fresh breezes roamed above him, And birds twittered and nested in his head. A cool round sun hung over him, Stroking and caressing him with thin rays — — — Now he lay quiet in the hay, In the green-blue light of dawn, He opened his eyes wide— His heart pounded with excitement And from his heart arose a song, A prayer to his Lord: “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Who led Your servant To these parts, You who will lead me on— It seems to be Your wish and Your will To plant me in this wilderness, To make Your name ring among the nations. Do not hide Your countenance from Your servant, Lead me through danger and suffering in darkness As, in days of yore, You led Your Chosen People for forty years To the Promised Land. Amen.”
C. Daybreak The Goy opened the stable gate And the red light of the newborn sun Poured into the cool dark. The new, fresh and alien world Flashed in the stranger’s eyes With blue skies and thick grass, A distant forest crowned with green leaves, Nearby fruit trees covered with dew, And whitewashed house walls
630 Narrative Poetry Awash in greenery up to the windows. The woman of the house came calmly, Wearing a yellow straw hat with a wide brim; She flashed at him her kind eyes, Her open, suntanned face, The white linen of her simple frock— And sat down to milk the cow. The foaming white rivulets of milk Drummed, singing, brisk, Dancing on the bottom of the shining tin, Smelling of warmth and plenty. The Goy led him to the well And, as the stranger rinsed his face In cold clear water—the daughter Came to him with a homespun towel Of thick white linen. The small children, fingers stuck in their mouths, With prickly tow hair and blue eyes, Shyly observed the stranger; Like geese, they waddled on brown legs, Pinched each other, thrust forward, Until the host shooed them off And invited the stranger to the table. The Jew thanked him and explained That he first had to pray, to praise the Lord. He wrapped himself in his tallis, The big white shawl with black stripes, Put on the four-cornered cases With dangling black straps. The man and wife and their children stood still, Gaping in astonishment. The odd man Turned his face to the wall, Closed his eyes and feverishly Swayed and rocked his bony body. Then he washed his hands again And recited a brief prayer— And only then did he break bread. The meat he didn’t touch at all. He sat with his hat on his head, Dipping black bread in milk.
I. Y. Shvarts Then the host began to talk with his guest Of all the amazing wonders He saw here for the first time. He had been around, he said, But had never seen or heard such things. The garment with the stripes—that he could understand, But why the boxes with the straps? And do all Jews pray like this? At this, the Jew smiled gently: A pious Jew, he explained, must do What is written in the Old Testament, As God commanded His servant Moses. When the meal was done And the Jew shut his eyes And began again his quiet whispering— The Goy winked at his wife: A pious man, he never stops praying. As the first astonishment wore off They all felt more relaxed. The Goy lit his short black pipe, Good-naturedly and freely, and the Jew Began talking, unburdening his soul. He came, he said, from Hell, a city Where people do not live, but collapse under the yoke. He suffered in that savage city, Tailoring away for fifteen hours a day. Groveling in a narrow pit— Not a drop of air, not a beam of light. His body started drying out, His every bone smelled death. Then, in his heart arose a weeping For himself, for his youth, and pity For his living orphans Whom he hadn’t seen in years Of wandering in search of bread. So he went off with his pack on the road— Where at least he could have the sky over his head. The world is wide and people are kind, A Jew will not get lost, as you can see.
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632 Narrative Poetry The Goy puffed quietly, musing, Covering his face with veils of smoke, Putting a word in here and there— And his wife wiped her eyes. However, he went on, a Jew lives on faith, He believes that God will not forsake him— After all, does he ask for a lot, for riches? Money? He simply wants to cast his anchor in some haven And know this is the harbor God intended for him. He’s tired now, His every limb calls for rest, A roof of his own, a corner of his own. He yearns to work by the sweat of his brow. Does he want more than a piece of bread? He has roamed the length and breadth Of the big new world, he said. The land is rich, So fresh and young. The men are raw, But under their hard shell, a good heart Is hiding, with kindness for the stranger. He saw the first Jews Settle among Christian neighbors— Busy with the trade of the land. You buy a pelt, a skein of wool, furs, Metals are plentiful—you trade, You work hard and you can make a living. The Goy sat still and pensive, Peering at the Jew’s weary face. He stood up slowly, Tapped the gray ash out of his pipe And clapped the Jew on the shoulder: “You shall stay here today, Jew; I’ll meet with my neighbors, We’ll talk it over, we’ll see.” And from the door, he called to his wife: “Don’t let the Jew leave.”
D. The End of the Pack As the day neared its end And rays fell oblique and pink,
I. Y. Shvarts Neighbors gathered in the house. Burly heads of households came in, With rough, clumsy hands, Flaming red faces and necks, All wearing loose, white trousers, Shirts unbuttoned, chests bared, And broad, high straw hats. Only the tall lean pastor Stood out, clad in black, Buttoned up to his throat. And behind the men Came their pious, docile wives With thin, tight-laced lips, Withdrawn and quiet; only their eyes Spoke, lively and curious, Darting from one face to another. They sat themselves down on the porch, Menfolk on one side, women on the other And soon smoke began to rise, Each man puffing on his pipe (Only the lean pastor didn’t smoke). The hostess brought a heavy jug Of cold cider up from the cellar, Bubbling to its black brim. She circled with lowered eyes, Serving the smoking men. Stranger that he was, the Jew sat still And alien in this strange group. Shyly, from the corner of his eye, he observed These men, oaks rooted in the ground, Heavy, stocky, thick-necked— He was almost sorry about the whole thing. Watching them, he felt helpless, weak. So he sat sad, steeped in his thoughts, His head down, his neck bent, And didn’t dare lift his eyes. The host began speaking Quietly: “Neighbors,” he said, “I’ve told you all about the Jew. Here he is, a stranger in our midst.
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634 Narrative Poetry What can we do for him?”—The pastor Responded calmly, soberly: “First let us listen to the Jew, And then we’ll see.” They liked that And muttered: “Right, right.” So the Jew told his story once again. But more than his words, what moved them Was the grief radiating from his eyes, The frequent silent sigh that punctuated The familiar words, pronounced so strangely, With a strange melody. Yet the grief Of the forlorn and homeless man was felt In every tone, in each unintelligible word. And when the Jew stopped talking They sat silent a while: Heads Bent in the red twilight glow, And spoke wordlessly, heart to heart; hardened, Tough as iron though they seemed, Their hearts went out to suffering. For they themselves in childhood Had known the taste of despair and distress, Had heard from fathers and old grandpas— Those early pioneers in struggle For life-and-death against the Red Man— About sleeping with rifle in hand, about fear Of sudden fires and tomahawks. And the grief of this forlorn stranger Moved their brave, mute hearts. Then the lean pastor rose from his seat, Stroked his high pale brow And clearly, sedately, began his speech. He started with the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He told of Joseph in an alien land, Of the prophet Moses and the Ten Commandments, Of old King David and the Psalms— Until he came to the Son of God, The Lord Jesus Christ. “Therefore,” He concluded, “Thou shalt open Thy gate to the stranger who knocks.” Then spoke one of the neighbors,
I. Y. Shvarts Old Thompkins, with the face of a lion, Gray-haired, with gray brow and beard: “My old barn at the water’s edge Stands empty and forlorn—let the Jew Move in and trade from there. I won’t charge him for it— Later, if he can, let him buy it, I’ll sell it cheap.” “Good, that’s good”— The host thanked him warmly— “But isn’t the place too old And in danger of collapsing? We might kill our Jew— He said in jest. “I’ll give wood, As much as you need, to restore the house,” Responded the wood dealer. “And we’ll fix up the house and the stable”— Called voices from all sides. “But you need money to go into trade”— The host did not relent. “I’ll sell the merchandise in the pack, That’ll be enough”—the Jew put in. “Fine, fine, a splendid plan. Hey, mother, bring the pack.” Right away the pack appeared And she started to unpack. From it Crawled out into the wide world: Knitted jackets for women, Of blue, red, pink, green wool, Dresses of flamboyant silk, Blue-and-red checked tablecloths With thick golden tassels, Colored striped shirts for the men, And pipes of golden amber, Heavy silver watches like onions And long ropes of glass beads In rich rainbow colors. White silver pocket knives With green-misted steel blades, With seashell, mother-of-pearl and ivory,
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636 Narrative Poetry Green and pink toys for the children, And all kinds of baubles and eyeglasses. They all shimmered in the burning scarlet Of a great red flaming sun, So bright the people squinted And shaded their eyes from the flames. The men looked on, dazzled by the din of colors— Only later did they smile into their moustaches. The women stayed silently in their chairs; Like geese, they craned their necks from a distance. “Hey, women, it’s your turn now, come on— Show us what you can.”—Then the women approached, Humble and meek, at first restrained— But soon the fair flared up; Each one became merry and free, Their eyes lit up, their voices came alive, Their hands worked fast and deftly, And each one made herself a bundle. The hostess’s face was flushed, She ran busily among the customers, Returning again and again to the Jew To ask the price of something: “You just tell me what it costs you And I’ll set the price myself.” The Jew sat there shyly Among the joking, smoking men. It grew dark. With the sun, The fever and hilarity also set. The women cooled down And retreated back to their corner. Faces grew serious, people stood up, yawned, And silently began to drop off, The men in front, with puffs of smoke, And behind them the women with their bundles. Someone patted the Jew on the shoulder: “What’s your name?” “Joshua.” “Fine name. From now on, we’ll call you Josh.” And they walked off into the night.
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E. In the New Land of Canaan On the fresh clear summer day The clang of iron resounded. The big yard was full of junk: Bits of rusty old iron, Thousands of dusty used bottles Gleaming silvery and green In the glow of the hot southern sun. A dozen chickens pecked around the yard And a turkey-cock with spurs Strutted like a lord and surveyed them. The old barn was heaped With rags, old paper, horse bones. In your nose, the sharp smell of Wet-and-bloody salted pelts; And clouds of buzzing flies. The old ruin at the entrance to the yard, Supported all around with leaning rails, Glittered young with shining panes, And pushed smoke up the new chimney. In the shadow of the old barn Stood two stooped figures: A big black Negro on his knees, Half-naked, gleaming, his red tongue Clamped in his grinding teeth, Gripping a piece of iron in his hands; And the Jew clattering on the iron, Swinging the heavy hammer and hitting hard. Each time the hammer fell And struck the gray iron— The Negro flinched, Not taking his heavy red eyes Off the hammer flying through the air. The Jew’s face was burnished, His yellow goatee blackened By dust. But his eyes Had a new, free light. The tall, pale, silent Jewess In her black wig Runs out of the house looking for
638 Narrative Poetry Little Yankele. Now he’s climbing up The big heap of iron, Not knowing how to get down, Now he’s strolling on the narrow beams Of the high old barn, jumping in the wool, Turning somersaults there, he’ll break his neck. And often she finds him, of all places, on the back Of the tall, burly, gleaming Negro. He sits astride his neck and drives him, Spurring him with his little brown legs And chattering in a weird tongue. The Negro prances, dancing around the yard And leaps with black, iron legs Over glass bottles and thorny wires. The mother’s heart sinks, trembling Lest the savage black man Should, God forbid, hurt the child. But when the Jew looks over this scene He recalls that night in the stable— He stands there, transfixed, And sees in it God’s hand.
Chapter Two C. Neighbors Raw, strong and hard were the folk, With the instincts of wild bears and wolves Still living in the forests; Swift and cunning like the Red Man— Their fathers had wrestled With his strength and had triumphed. It was a young, fresh world With the first, gushing passion Of the Titans, right after Creation, When one force warred against another And one force swallowed up the other. It fermented, boiled, foamed, simmered,
I. Y. Shvarts 639 As in a new vat of yeasty brew: Just touch it carelessly—and it’ll burst. Thus the young fresh earth, Which they conquered with their feet, Fermented and brewed in hidden streams; If you pounded a pole too deep— It started shooting up yards high In thick, dense greenish streams Of dirty, stinking oil. Hot, fearsome, with pulsing hatred, And furious, ruthless in its rage Which was quenched and calmed only On their enemies’ blood. There were No prosecutors and no judges: Each man Bore his own judgment in his hands; If anyone stepped on someone else’s rights, One man stood against the other With knife and rifle, fire and smoke. Right or wrong—his brother and friend Joined his side at once; Whole families, young and old, wife and child, Fought for generations in ancient strife. The cause of the war Long forgotten by the warriors: Was it an old broken axle, A girl hotly contested, Or a word, a cockeyed look, in a tavern Over a drink, in drunkenness, Or a passport of a neighboring country— Blood flowed hot and red. And in the hot, black summer nights, The sky often flamed with red arson, Ripping open a black stretch of night With red and murderous fear. And rifles often thundered, And wild excited horses trampled With black riders on their feverish backs. And Sunday, when from miles and miles around The people gathered in the town To hear the word of God from pale pastors— Then the big marketplace in front of the church
640 Narrative Poetry Turned into an armed camp Of big, broad, swarthy men, With hands of iron, faces of bronze, With heavy beards of black, brown and yellow, With fierce fires in stern eyes, With hot-colored kerchiefs round their necks, With wild, hot, whinnying horses, With black barrels of polished rifles Slung on the glistening saddles. In the beginning the Jew was like a wonder: It was hard to grasp his ways, His alien garb and alien tongue, His every movement announced foreignness, Stood out to strangers’ eyes. But as they grew a bit used to it And the first distrust melted away, They all became talkative, intimate. Lo and behold: He understands everything And knows all that is happening around him, And for everything he has a friendly, fitting saying Which is both foreign and familiar. A man like any other man, works day and night, Collecting old scrap iron, bones, and rags, In fact, he lets you make a buck too. Yet they couldn’t understand: How can a man work on Sunday? Once, on a nice day, The pastor came into his yard, Hands clasped behind his back, smiling, He said a kindly word to the Jew, asked How things were going, patted the children’s heads, Bowed to the humble Jewess. Later, a few neighbors Dropped by, they all sat down And lighted up black pipes, as usual. Afterward, the pastor talked quietly, Dragged out his words with a churchy cadence, Showed his mastery of the Old Testament, Mixed in some verses from Luke and Paul And the Church Apostles
I. Y. Shvarts 641 And wound up with a quiet question: How come he works on the day of rest? To this the Jew replied gently That he was a Jew and believed in the old faith As commanded in the Old Testament: Six days shalt thou work And on the seventh, the Sabbath Day, Shalt thou rest and sanctify it, You and your child and your ox and your ass. At that the pastor stood amazed And shook his head with pity: Doesn’t he know that Jesus Christ, the Son, Annulled the Sabbath rest, Placing the Sunday in its stead? To that the Jew responded humbly That he didn’t study, didn’t go to school, He couldn’t carry on a dispute With one so learned. He merely followed in the path of his fathers And did as they did.—This Pleased the lean pastor mightily, He stood up, shook the Jew’s hand, Bowed again to the Jewess And walked off with measured steps. The neighbors, too, stood up, Patted his shoulder: Well said. The next day, the Jew received A thick, soft-bound book: The Old and New Testaments together— A gift from the lean pastor.
Chapter Five A. Joshua When Josh bought old Thompkin’s place— He suddenly felt as if he Had sunk deep roots into the earth.
642 Narrative Poetry All at once his look was confident, Grew good-natured, clear and smiling; His firm step in the big yard Resounded with confidence and courage; His face became cheerful and open And a touch of a smile played In the folds of his nose and lips. A chain of tranquil years full of work Unfolded before him. Steeped body and soul in his business, He himself did not notice how, with time, He grew planted in this earth, How everything around him felt like his own. His English tongue was liberated, Free with each twist and idiom of the neighbors; He had a joke for everyone, A kind word, a clever parable, Borrowed from a wise Midrash, Which his good neighbors heartily enjoyed. If there was a hospital to be built Or a new church to be erected, they would Come to Josh for a donation. They started listening to him. Faced with a dilemma, they could come To old Josh for advice. And if neighbor quarreled with neighbor, Josh often brought the two sides together, Made peace between them with a compromise. And then, as new best friends, They watered the peace with a drink, Amazed at their own ways: Why had they quarreled in the first place? The issue seems so clear and simple. A babe in arms could have understood it. And when the cups overflowed, They would kiss each other through hot tears And go on arguing excitedly: Ah, that Josh, he’s got a head on his shoulders. Even later, when Josh began bringing
I. Y. Shvarts 643 Cartloads of red bricks to his place And set about erecting his new building— They stopped altogether, patting Old Josh on the shoulder. A thick foundation was laid Of large squares of heavy gray stone; And then, walls grew up Of new red bricks, row upon row, With straight white lines of high windows. And when the red roof of heavy tin Finally spread and shimmered— It covered a big, brand-new building, Four stories high, Of amazing length and breadth, With wide, solid iron gates On both sides of the building, Big elevators to pull up merchandise, Bright spacious cellars Of iron and concrete, for storing pelts, Presses and packing machines, And a big bright office Where a quiet relation sat Digging into thick ledgers. When Josh finished his building, His head was streaked With iron gray lines; his face— Baked into a bright brick-red, With deep creases around his strong mouth— Smiled with a secret confidence. The house and yard were full Of slim, strong, athletic sons And young, slender, prudish daughters In white dresses and with long braids, With cleanly chiseled brown faces. But those were already strange and distant From the old stem; even he, the father, Became in time estranged from everything, Indifferent and cold to his faith. Satan, when you give him one finger, Will soon demand the whole hand: first
644 Narrative Poetry He skipped one prayer, then another, And soon it all became so hard for him That he stopped praying altogether. On the Sabbath, he still kept his business closed— But he drew no joy from that. Instead of resting and reading a holy book, His head swam in thoughts of business. And the more his business grew, The more the Sabbath became a burden for him. Often on a Sabbath, unexpectedly, He could catch himself figuring with a pencil— For a moment he was ashamed of himself, But soon he was lost in business again. The only one who sighed over it Was his tall thin wife: She still kept the Holy Sabbath as of old, Blessed the Sabbath candles, said the woman’s prayer, And longed for the good old days. But the glow of the blessed candles Could not drive out the foreign everydayness. The heartfelt supplication of her old prayers Fell shyly on the distant ears of strangeland sons And on her own estranged flesh and blood. The slender daughters with their foreign tongue Who read by the Sabbath candles Unintelligible and distant books. By then, the name of the Jew Resounded far and loud over the land. Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana, To Illinois and Kansas on one side, And to the farthest northern states On the other side—from all over They sent their trade to him and trusted The Jew’s word and deed and punctuality. His word was a word: calculated, Reliable and strict with himself as with others. His motto: “Mine is mine and yours is yours.” And his business spread, branched out, And his scope and possibilities grew. It was a wonderfully exciting game
I. Y. Shvarts 645 Of money and mettle and nerve, And Josh, the head, the builder of it all, Stood calmly at the helm And steered to the destination. And like all men of energetic nature, He didn’t like to stop and talk Of the forlorn, distant past. If a neighbor who remembered him From those days of the heavy pack Blurted out: “Josh, by God What a building you built yourself, What a heavy pack it was You carried to our place . . . ” Josh would convey a hint That made the Gentile’s tongue stumble And leap to another subject.
part seven
Women Poets
Yiddish poetesses. sitting From right: Ida Glazer, Sarah Reyzen, Tsilya Drapkin standing Berta Kling, Esther Shumyatsher, Malka Lee
Anna Margolin (1887–1952)
Pseudonym of Rosa Lebensboym
rosa lebensboym was born in the ancient Jewish Lithuanian city of Brisk (Brest-Litovsk, now in Byelorussia), famous for its fortress. Her father was a Zionist who lived in Odessa and Warsaw. She studied in a secular gymnasium. In 1906 came to America. Lebensboym was a “liberated” woman for her time and had several love affairs with prominent personalities and Yiddish writers. Worked as secretary to the Yiddishist theoretician Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky and secretary of the anarchist Yiddish newspaper Fraye Arbeter Shtime. She also lived in London and befriended the anarchist theoretician Peter Kropotkin; as well as in Paris, Warsaw, and Eretz Israel, where she left her son with her first husband, the Yiddish and Hebrew writer Moshe Stavski-Stavi. In 1914, Lebensboym finally settled in the United States, where she published articles, short stories, and poems under several pseudonyms and edited a weekly section “In the Women’s World” in the New York Yiddish newspaper Der Tog. In 1919 she married the journalist and poet of the Young Generation, Ruven Ayzland. In 1929 her only book, Poems, appeared in New York (a critical edition, including several additional poems, edited by Abraham Noversztern, was published in Jerusalem, 1991).
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650 Women Poets
Once I Was a Slender Youth Once I was a slender youth Among porticoes, at the feet of Socrates, And my bosom friend, my love, Had the finest torso in Athens. Caesar I was. A bright world I built of marble—I, the triste. And I selected for a wife My stately sister. In a wreath of roses, with wine, till late, In haughty calm, I heard the news About the weakling from Nazareth And wild stories about the Jews.
Mother Earth, Sun-Washed, Trodden by Many Mother Earth, sun-washed, trodden by many, Dark Maid and Lady Am I, my love. Out of me, the low and somber, You grow, a mighty trunk. Like the eternal stars And like the flame of the sun, In long, blind silences, I circle Through your roots, your branches, Half-awake, half-adream, I Seek through you the vaulting sky.
Years Like women often loved and never sated, Going through life with laughter and with rage In eyes of fire and agate— Were the years of our age. Like roving actors, with half a heart Playing Hamlet in market squares; And in a proud land crushing a revolt, They were the grands seigneurs.
Anna Margolin See how humble they are now, my God, Like smashed pianos, mute. Accepting every sneer and shove, Searching for You, never trusting You.
My Race Speaks My race: Men in damask and velvet, Long, pale-silken faces, Lusty, languishing lips. Thin hands caress yellowing folios, Deep into the night, talking to God. And merchants Going to fairs in Leipzig and Danzig. White cuffs. Subtle cigarette smoke. Gemore -jokes. Polite German manners. Their gaze, wise and dim, Sated. Don Juans, traders, God-seekers. And a drunkard. And a few converts in Kiev. My race: Women like idols bedecked with diamonds, Darkened red of Turkish shawls, Heavy folds of satin-de-Lyon. But the body of a weeping willow, But dry flowers the fingers in their lap, And in withering veiled eyes Dead desire. And grandes dames in chintz and linen, Broad-boned, strong, set in motion, Soft, mocking laughter, Serene words and eerie silence. At dusk, in the windows of the lowly house, They grow like statues. International fairs in Germany, where wealthy Eastern European merchants went to trade. Popular name for the Talmud, connoting here learned jokes and textual allusions for the scholars.
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652 Women Poets And through twilight eyes, flares Awesome desire. And a few I am ashamed of. All of them, my race, Blood of my blood, Flame of my flame, Dead and living blended together, Gloomy, grotesque, great, Trample through me as through a dark house. Trample with prayers and curses and wailing, Rattle my heart like a copper bell, My tongue clatters, My own voice is a stranger— My race speaks.
Eyes Half-Closed At a low table in the gray hall, Languid, unsettled, huddling in my shawl, Do I look at you? Do I call you at all? But my mouth is red And the eyes half-closed, Foggy with smoke. Flooded with noise and light, Through the fog, I see your face And on my lips, the hot taste Of sun and wind. Stifling a scream, I swim up, let go, Fluttering, feverish, I grow, And it hurts to grow. Tucked into a corner of the gray hall, In the long, flaming folds of my shawl, Do I look at you? Do I call you at all? But deep down, painfully, blind,
Anna Margolin 653 With eyes half-closed and thin I sucked you in.
Slowly and Shining Slowly and shining You bent your heavy forehead to my brow, You sank your black fire In my blue fire. And my room filled with summer, And my room filled with night. I closed my glowing, crying eyes. Softly I cried in my late summer. * So long I strayed, my love, Through strange and gloomy lives, Through hearts like ruined countries— Be good. A thousand deaths I knew, my love, And was chased back to life By my evil blood, By the iron whip of desire. You of the quiet voice, You of velvet and steel, Bend deep over me, Cover the world from me, Cover my own blood. Be good.
You With barbarian brilliance, I go through you as through a conquered city. Four little Negroes bear the train of my gold-woven coat, embroidered with peacocks and poppies. In my wake, warriors glimmering with short swords, bare arms and knees; priests in white linen; a flock of poets in black silk and purple; and heavy elephants trample the road and carry on their backs the joyful gods of my homeland, holy monkeys and colorful birds: sweet and wild, they scream out under alien skies.
654 Women Poets I go through you as through a conquered city. Jubilant voices hurl my name, a devouring flame to the skies, and it falls back splintered in dancing sparks. Sapphires, emeralds, rubies you mined from your depths, lie in heaps, still covered with mud and blood and grief. But Oh, those dark and winding streets I fear to walk. That vigilant silence in you, where my name never sang. Those shadows, that do not bow to me . . . My conquered city you are. In your dour and desolate shrines I placed my gods. The hymn you sing to them in a wavering voice is like sun and love. But those quiet and lonely corners. In the dark, I saw mocking eyes. The glimmer of a knife. And when you embraced me in the night with a thousand arms, in all your thousand arms was destruction.
In Copper and in Gold In copper and in gold of coins, Cool and clear, the visage of a king. And the world lies at your feet, enchanted By the distant, shining image of the king. Engraved on all the things, the bright and dark, The visage of my king. And all the things are golden-heavy now, And gold, the world blooming in my heart, Enchanted by your distant shine, my king. * I heard your footsteps and was startled— I did not know my own voice. Oh, my dear and desired, In that immense sorrow Why did eyes Meet like enemies, Words like swords? In wasteland nights, Cut off from you, My heart cries out for you As the call of frenzied bells
Anna Margolin In a burning city, Rushing wild, scared to death. * Maybe this was my happiness: To feel your eyes Bend over me. No, this was my happiness: Silently, to walk to and fro With you in the square. No, not that, not that. But thus: When smiling, above our joy, Death bent over us. And all the days were purple, And all were heavy.
Poem Your slender profile, your smile, False and faithful again. And the day is blue and fragile As porcelain. All that I hoped so long, All you forgot, perhaps, Comes back unexpectedly now, Spins us in sunshine webs, Cradles us, rocks us, ignites Like a fiery potion, in thrall, And shoulders play with wind, With memory and recall. The linden trees watch us coolly, Whisper and hurt with pain: The magic is quiet and fragile, He will forget again.
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656 Women Poets
You Kissed My Hand You kissed my hand and looked around, To see if we were alone. Your voice trembled with love, But cautiously, you shied away From a passerby. “The day, my dear, was beautiful, Too beautiful, too good to return . . . ” And your every word was filled With intimacy and desire. But when the first soft stars came out, You straightened your hat gone awry, Bade me farewell, excited and dumb, And piously shuffled off To your accursed home. I’d rather see you a drunkard, Wallowing with women in the streets. * No, say nothing. Just bend Full of light, Of pure joy, To the grief in your eyes, To the guilt in your eyes And say to you . . . No, say nothing. * Ancient murderess Night, black mother in need, help me! Ensnare him, entrap him, swallow him, beat him dead! And I— Tears were my potion, Shame my bread— Languidly now, Eager and long Will I drink Like a love song His wife’s tears, Childrens’ silence, The whisper of friends
Anna Margolin 657 In his wake. As after a long illness, I shall arise, A black monster in the red of dawn, I shall bow to all four corners of the earth And sing, sing to life A hymn to death. * When I walk with my love in the dewy spring evening, Do not smile, passerby, stranger who knows He doesn’t love me, my love. For the night hangs deep on my darkened eyes. And velvet-soft, the stony roads Spread out in the night. And flowing with pity and love, Kissing me with bitter lips, Calamity Bent over me.
Ghosts Whistled Sadly in the Dark I walked into the park as into a disheveled cloud. Ghosts whistled sadly in the dark. Stars burst bleeding, grew ripe. Mocking eyes rushed by. Voices, sneaky, snaking, stopped me. A thin, flaming mouth bent over me— So-o-o slo-owly. Ghosts whistled sadly in the dark.
Beautiful Words of Marble and Gold Beautiful words of marble and gold, Not you that I wanted, not you that I called. These were not the poems I called. But others—like fire, like merry storm, That burst open, rip up the transparent form. Too late.
658 Women Poets If only I were different with people. But even now I am hardly prepared To love all and sundry. If only I could forgive My tormented life And walk up to X and to Y, The wicked, beautiful, dream-inspired, World-losers, world-vagabonds, And say: “Let me give myself to you. Let me squander myself Like saints in legends. Let my virtue rise over you Glowing and rich . . . ” Too late. I often hear uncanny steps. I think of the last exit And I swear By Else Lasker-Schüler, Rilke and Beaudelaire: I will be mute, I will not wail. Proudly will I bear the last insult of the flesh. In those hours perhaps I will dream, perhaps grow, See worlds whirl on their axes, My home in morning-red, fields in slumber, And, in a distant, burgeoning city, My sad child kneel. I will shrug my still-beautiful shoulders, Force my trembling lips Into a smile and I’ll pull it off. And smiling, breathless, At the monstrous iron mask of the sky I’ll blow the feeble smoke of my last cigarette.
Snow Snow blossoming today on all the trees. So why are you somber, my snowy, My distant, absent woman? Dropped your thin arms, Shut your mimosa-eyes,
Anna Margolin 659 Rocked yourself, locked yourself In shivering shadows, Feather-light, listening, A little white bird. Like snow-birds shot down, Snow falling today from all the trees.
Brisk Old city Brisk, a town so small and gray, Now dead like Athens and like Troy. But loving, somber, with soft breath, I conjure up her shadow in my heart: The streets more slovenly, no will, The scared, eternally surprising Aprils, The rain suffused with sun, the fortress menacing And mute, the weary wings of two old water mills. The oaks wandering out of the Tsar’s Park, The oar still throbbing in the river: “Hark, hark.” The empty boulevards yawning, and the mighty Stream of tea from shimmering samovars Over blessing-candles, supplications, grandchildren— And grandmothers’ bows and knots in an orgy And thin lips whispering the names of our fathers. At tables, fingers steeped in beards and open Shas, The melody weaves in with a student’s bass. In little gardens—sunflowers, roses, poppies, Blond braids, ribbons, poems of Pushkin and Nadson. And in twilight red, when words grow foggier, softer As after an invisible violin, Couples wander off into the field. And over it all, spring’s sad glimmer. The scent of jasmine.
Brisk (Polish: Brzes´ c´; Byelorussian: Brest). In medieval Poland a central marketplace on the river Bug,
one of the four capitals of the Jewish parliament in Poland. Under Russian rule became a provincial town. Alexandr Pushkin (1799–1837)—major Russian ninteenth-century poet; Semyon Nadson (1862– 1887)—Neoromantic Russian lyrical poet popular with Jewish readers at the beginning of the twentieth century for his sad sentimentalism and painful Jewish origins.
660 Women Poets 2 At night, young women on thresholds, Absorbed and dignified, talk about Their men in Germany And ghosts and gypsies. Children lingering in the shadow, Hover and hope That a gypsy will steal them away. Little Cleopatras, Fifteen-year-old virgins With gloves and parasols Swim comme il faut in the boulevards, Lift and lower their voiles, Grimly listening to words that kiss And to “Unossi moyu dushu V tu tshudnuyu dal” Dazzling middays. All shopkeepers nap. All wanderers dream. Sometimes A pious Tsadik flies by With scorning eyebrows, Like a storm. The streets bow. Young guys Hold their breath. In the background, soldiers, officers Stain The Jewish landscape. On the humped highway A lonely carriage Thunders like a subway. Oh, soft sands of my city. Oaks and tea roses. Like the fragrance of fresh bread A Romantic Russian song to the words of a poem by A. Fet: “Carry my soul/Into that enchanted distance . . . ” Holy Man or Hasidic Rabbi.
Anna Margolin 661 At every daybreak In all the streets And homes— Your “Good-Morning!”
The Masquerade Is Over I too saw Titans in the clouds. Elves meandered on the asphalt. Stars blossomed on steel trunks. An alto swinging high From a dark bush. The night, a young Negro with a rose, Bent over me, laughing. Now I am old— The masquerade is over. I lie at the roots of things. Their pulse beats heavy in my stunned heart. Swelling, growing, noisy vigilance, Painful climb to light, through ore and rock. Solemnly, the earth circles, bearing all her dead, Her sick, dreaming cities, Mountains and forests and the pale Glimmering girdle of waters. And above her, fiery, unfamiliar signs Of stars, sunsets, morning-red. Amorphous nights expand and have no similes. Fear of death screams from all the depths. And softly covering them, the gold of songs, bright myths. All lives are rich in sorrow and alike, And everything is big, incomprehensible.
Ruven Ludvig Heavy day among graves. The sky is leaden. Gray. I’ll walk in the street and maybe I’ll meet Yiddish poet (see in this anthology), died at an early age in Arizona.
662 Women Poets Ludvig and his pretty wife. His coat draped over his arm, We shall walk among poems, as among lindens strolling, And he’ll ask tenderly and simply: “So, how are you doing, Margolin?” He was a lyrical gypsy, a man from the south, Stormy, proud, gallant. Coat draped over his arm. Broad-brimmed hat. Among poems, as among lindens, we were strolling . . . And his voice, impetuous and sweeping, Clumsily mixing in a crucible Red earth, clouds, extinguished joy, The Mississippi, tribes and valleys. Never was he a tremulous flute, Not an angel with noble wings, Not one of the lackluster symbols. Simple, warm, pensive. And we loved him like that. And we shall remember the black-skinned fighters, The mountainous lips of Negroes, Daisy McClellan, the barren mother. Maybe just that, maybe nothing more. For Ludvig, weary too young, Was more beautiful than his song. Among poems, as among lindens, we’ll be strolling. Tenderly and simply, he will ask: “So, how are you doing, Margolin?”
A character in Ludvig’s poem.
Anna Margolin 663
Marie What Do You Want, Marie? What do you want, Marie? Perhaps a child slumbering in my lap. Mute, deep evenings in a severe house Alone. Slowly wandering. Waiting, always waiting. And my love for the man who doesn’t love me Will be calm and great like despair. What do you want, Marie? My feet rooted in the earth, Alone in a dewy-bright field. The sun going through my body as through a young world, The smell and ripening of a dreamy field. Suddenly, a wide wild rain rushing on, Hitting and kissing me, noisy and heavy, A storm like an eagle soaring, Screaming, sinks into me, bending me to and fro. Am I human, lightning, the unrest of roads, Or dark, groaning earth? I don’t know anymore. With tear-heavy eyes I yield to the sun, the wind, the rain. But what do you want, Marie?
Marie’s Prayer God, meek and mute are the roads. Through the fire of sin and tears All roads lead to you. I built you a nest out of love And of silence a shrine. I am your guardian, maidservant and lover And I never saw your face.
664 Women Poets I lie at the edge of the world And you go through me dark like the hour of death, Like a broad flashing sword.
Marie and the Priest Marie, you are a goblet with sacrificial wine. A delicately curved goblet with wine On a desolate altar. A priest Raises high the crystal goblet With slow, slender arms, And your life quivers and burns In his eyes, in his hands. In ecstatic, heavy happiness, It wants to be shattered. Marie, Marie, Soon, in bright tears, Your life will splinter. And your death will dye The dead stone Hot and red. And the forgotten gods will smile Hot and red.
Marie and the Visitors Marie walks to and fro in the rooms, Sets out fruit, wine, slender flowers, Bows, smiles in confused desire. And the house is empty Though all of them came. Should she now mind that the years of her youth Flickered out in the old man’s sunset? Should she mind, she who once sat breathless At the tragic drama of life, now as it dies out In despair and in lightning thought? Long afterward, he was the great shadow Over them all—dreamers, lords, slaves—
Anna Margolin 665 Whom she knew in the nights. Silent, dark boy, Stranger, strayed from a star, You were my night in a white room, in spring, The mystic-dark wine in a tall goblet. And you, half-saint half-sinner, Or maybe poet. Remember the sharp joy, Eruptions of endearment and rage And then, the legendary voyage Through summers, through dreamy cities? And you, and you, and you—a long chain. And the child is here. Came to mother’s door from far away. Hid in a corner, small and sad. Deep in himself, calm and white. Eyes, do not accuse me. Eyes, do not turn away. Welcome, beggar! Ugly and dark as a crow. But I saw you laughing with light like a god Once, in storm and snow. And again: a green star, two jasmine bushes, A well in a courtyard—visitors from Lithuania. And a wedding, desire blossoming, people packed tight. And traffic in the streets, and long-congealed fires. And a giant elm pressed between walls. And, cut out of the wildest dream— Dizzy winding stairs. In nocturnal sorrow, in a far-off city, They would ascend from her longing blood And lead her up and up— Where? Perhaps to that low hut, Where, near and nebulous, Paling in the lamp, Mother’s gray head, Mother’s calm hands. Eyes, do not accuse me. Eyes, do not turn away. Whisper. Rustle. Quiet mocking. Marie walks to and fro in the rooms. A cold calm descends on her. The visitors grow ever stranger, distant.
666 Women Poets Who are you? And who are you? And you? She is alone. At an alien feast. She was never their friend, their wife. She never lived her own life.
Marie Wants to Be a Beggar To be a beggar. As from a sinking ship, To throw all treasures into the wind: The burden of your love, the burden of your joys, And not to know myself anymore— My good or my bad name. To be a beggar. Sneaking in silence over gray sidewalks, Black shadow of all bright lives. And for tossed pennies To buy yourself a game, A mad and quiet dream, Spinning silvery in opium smoke. To fall asleep in a street under the sun Like a tired stalk in a field, Like a dismembered flower, Withered and impure, And still godly, Still with a few lovely silk petals. And to light up in the sick lantern-light, To unwrap, out of the mute gray night, Like a fog out of a fog, a night out of the night. To become a prayer and become a flame. To give yourself away softly, burning, awesome. And be alone, As only kings and beggars are. And unhappy. And to walk like this with wondering eyes Through immense mysterious days and nights To the high court, To the painful light, To yourself.
Anna Margolin 667
Marie and Death Marie bade farewell to the house full of light, Bowed to the walls, and left in the night As into a forest, where God’s breath is near And every figure foreshadows fear. Soft on her sorrow, row after row, The night fell like black, caressing snow. And behind her, in joy, in colorful bond, Walked a beggar, a drunk and a vagabond. Like birds sick with love, sad and opaque, Invalids limping in their wake. And bashfully, lepers came round, With hands covering their naked wounds. And ahead of them all, yearning and mute, The slender youth Death with his dark flute.
On a Balcony From a distant summer, a hot laughter Of two small gentle women Came flying to me. Leafing through a picture book. Their hands meet in longing. Soft shoulders seek each other, tremble. Light-tainted bodies swell, confused, Over a thirsty, orange-red landscape. Above them, a mighty man, towering With heavy grace, Like a magnificent, superfluous decoration.
My Venus Wears Silken Slippers My Venus wears silken slippers On her dazzling, bare feet. Her lap a purple iris. Her hips broad and refined.
668 Women Poets From her bronze hair, In murmuring chorus, Pearls creep, flutter And kiss her pendant breasts. On pale, lyrical lips, Melancholy and lust. Flash in her eyes, Mist and smoke, Softly shadowed By a black, feather-trimmed hat.
Forgotten Gods When Zeus and Phoebus and Pan And Venus the silver-legged goddess, World-arouser, world-guardian, All enveloped in silence, Came down from Olympus, In their long and bright journey Through generations, flickering and slowly dying out, They lit torches and built temples In the hearts of the lonely Who still bring them offerings and burn incense. The world is deep and bright. Old winds rustle forever through young leaves. Fearfully, I hear in my soul The heavy steps of forgotten gods.
Her Smile Her smile, the light of autumn over her world— Cool and tired, illuminating Her toil at home, the years in harness, The eternal innocent dialogue With child and husband. This, in daytime. At night, locked in sleep, Her face is a stranger. In a thick linen nightgown, She dances in a tavern with soldiers and sailors. Hot hands hurl and catch her body.
Anna Margolin 669 Furtive eyes pierce her. Heads of oxen bow their tense necks, Stamping heels, shoulders, elbows— Whirl around her, Ever more menacing, tighter. Teeth flash, Teeth bite into lips. Here, blood yearning to be spilt And love is like a battle. And love is a smoldering torch, turns The road eerie and bleeding. Conjures up A barbaric city in the night, a street, a house, Girls in a ring, And she, brown and light, in the middle. Slowly, her rosy-painted fingers touch. Her girlfriend’s tiny, erect nipples, Descend, rest In swooning happiness. And song and weeping In the submission of hot fingers. And painfully, eyelashes flutter On a face turned to stone by a God. A beautiful wild legend you read And break off, musing About a solemn, steel night Holding the last secret in her lap, Where all legends disappear— Thus she sees her life. A tall flame, Congealed in a golden dance, a dead flame. And gray wind, gray sea, Gloomy gold rolling off the evening-red, And she walks, freed of joy, To the last, icy loneliness, Unaware of the man, awake at her side. For him, her face is a locked door, Fears lurk behind it. He watches and suffers. His lips wake her soul on the dark roads. Her lips, moving in a dream. Slowly, she smiles to the man And comes from far away.
Tsilya Drapkin (1888–1956)
also: Celia Dropkin
born in bobruysk, byelorussia. Studied in a Russian school, finished a gymnasium, was a teacher in Warsaw. Drapkin was a close friend of the Hebrew impressionist writer Uri-Nisan Gnessin, who portrayed her in one of his major stories, where he included his Hebrew translation of an erotic poem by the seventeen-year-old Drapkin. In 1912, she came to America. She wrote poetry and short stories, first in Russian and after 1918 in Yiddish. She was close to the Introspectivist poets. In her later years, she became a painter.
In the Hot Wind (1937) Adam I met you on my road, Young Adam, Spoiled, Rubbed smooth by many woman-hands. Before I touched you with my lips, Your face, as pale and delicate As a slender lily, begged me: — Don’t bite me, please don’t bite. I saw your body Covered with traces of teeth. 670
Tsilya Drapkin I trembled And bit into you. You flared above me Your delicate nostrils And descended Like a hot horizon to a field.
You Plowed Open You plowed open my fruit-bearing soil And sowed it. Tall stalks grew up—lovestalks With roots deep in the soil And golden heads to the sky. Above your stalks, red poppies sprang In gorgeous flowering. Suspicious, you stood there And thought: Who sowed the poppies? A wind raced by. You bowed aside To make way for it. A bird flew by. You followed it with your eyes.
My Mother My mother, Twenty-two-years-old, Left a widow with two small children, Made up her mind not to be anyone’s wife again Quietly, her days and years dragged along As if lit by a scant wax candle. My mother did not become anyone’s wife, But all the many-daily, Many-yearly, many-nightly sighs Of her young and loving being, Of her longing blood— I soaked in deep, Absorbed in my girlish heart. My mother’s hidden, hot longing
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672 Women Poets Flowed freely into me Like an underground spring. My mother’s hot, holy, Deeply concealed desire Now spurts openly from me.
The Circus Lady I am a circus lady. I dance between daggers Hoisted in the ring, Their points up. My supple light body Eludes the death of falling, Barely touching the blades of the daggers. With bated breath they watch my dancing. Someone begs God for me. Before my eyes, the points Glitter in a fiery circle, And no one knows how much I want to fall. I am weary of dancing between you, Cold steel daggers. I want my blood to drive you hot, On your bared points I want to fall.
If Only I Could See I’ve never yet seen you Asleep. If only I could see you Asleep. When you lose your power Over yourself, over me. If only I could see you Helpless, weak, mute, If only I could see you with eyes Closed, without breath, If only I could see you Dead.
Tsilya Drapkin 673
I Am Drowned I am drowned In a deep well. My eyes can still see your blue eye above, Searching for me, wanting to save me, Or, perhaps, is it A piece of blue sky, Looking into the well Like your blue eye? The moldy sides of the well are slippery; My hands lose their strength Clutching at them. You don’t see me anymore. You take your blue eye from the well.
Do You Recognize Me I am a cheerful specter, Standing before you, Asking for a bit of happiness. You, blessed With beauty in every limb, With confidence in your gaze, Do you recognize me? Do you recognize my translucent hands? They are drawn to you for happiness. Once you were a proud king And I—your enemy’s beloved wife, Once you razed and burned Your enemy’s city, Your evil will Did not overlook me, But I, I was happy With your evil will, With your royal love. And now, a cheerful specter, I stand before you, Asking for a bit of happiness.
674 Women Poets
To Lucifer My beautiful Lucifer, Your cold gray eye Looks at me, unmoving. Twisted like a monkey, I am on my knees, Licking your skinny feet. My back is bent like a question mark, But I don’t mind. As long as you look Unmoving at me, My beautiful Lucifer, I shall crouch At your feet Like a gargoyle On Notre Dame.
In the Dirt of Your Suspicion Whatever I say or do, You dip it all in the dirt of your suspicion And mock it with heavy cold looks. Frogs suddenly leap out of my mouth, Worms crawl slimy from my fingers, My eyes—of a hideous witch, My hands are snakes, Want to choke you. But my timid feet Stand glued to the floor, In vain they try to escape Your cold mocking looks.
I Fall to the Ground Like juicy red apples, My cheeks swell up in the sun With red flame. But I can barely hold on to the tree. Today or tomorrow, I’ll fall to the ground.
Tsilya Drapkin 675 And if somebody, Dazzled by my red cheeks, Picks me up from the ground— With disgust and pity He’ll throw me back, Because my heart is eaten away by worms. And the fat worm—lust—Will never crawl out of My juicy body— It will devour me, a throwaway, To death.
An Evening in March You cannot understand any more Such wonderful things As a wet evening in March When just-lit lanterns Still quiver pale And reflect in the happy asphalt . . . Only of love you are thinking, of love, You silly, unfortunate woman! Lift your sad head and see How the El spins its black web And women walk up and down With eyes light as spring clouds, With painted lips and cheeks Like last traces of the sunset. Oh, you alone walk around pale, A gray shadow in the cheerful evening, Still in your winter hat and coat; And your big eyes betray the secret That only of love you are thinking, of love, You silly, unfortunate woman!
White as the Snow White as the snow in the Alps, Sharp as the mountain air, Spiced like ancient ointments,
676 Women Poets Your beauty calls to me. You dazzle like untouched snow, You catch my breath like mountain air, Strangely, my head begins to spin As with a strong, enchanted fragrance. But you’re just a boy from a small town, With a nose a bit too long. You will put a ring on your bride, And over me—the grass will grow.
Through Night and Rain Wide-open hands of trees, Wide-open hands of light, And your pale face Racing through the park On mirrors of black roads, Through rain and night. Trees in veils In the play of wet rays, The park is filled with rays, Milkways, comets, Golden stilettos, Golden webs Of red and green spiders: —Traffic lights in red, —Traffic lights in green, Rain and life Slapping in the car. The park is like a ballroom With a dark parquet floor, Trees as chandeliers, Blending their light With yellow carlights. A carnival of cars With no dancing, no confetti, In the enchanted glow Of black chandeliers,
Tsilya Drapkin 677 Of all, all the colors, Only black and gold and green, Only black and gold and red, And you in the car, Pale, almost like dead. Wide-open hands of trees, Wide-open hands of light, And your pale face, And your hands like trees And your hands like light.
Malka Heyfets-Tussman (1896–1987)
began publishing yiddish poems in 1919 and participated in some of the best Yiddish journals (In Zikh, Tsukunft, Yidisher Kemfer, the Warsaw Literarishe Bleter, the Toronto Tint un Feder). Her first book, Poems (1949), and the second, Mild My Wild (1958), were published in Los Angeles; four subsequent books of her poetry appeared in Israel. Heyfets was born in a village in Volyn (then in Russia), where her father was the manager of an estate. She studied with private tutors and in Russian schools. In 1912 she immigrated to America. Her first poems were written in Russian. She also wrote for an American anarchist journal, Alarm (Chicago, 1914). In 1924, she became a teacher in a secular Yiddish school in Milwaukee and attended the University of Wisconsin at the same time. Later she moved to Los Angeles, where she was an elementary and high school teacher and eventually an instructor of Yiddish language and literature at the University of Judaism. In her later years, Heyfets-Tussman lived in Berkeley, California. She was awarded the Itsik Manger Prize for Yiddish Poetry in Tel Aviv in 1981.
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Malka Heyfets-Tussman 679
Poems (1949) With Teeth in the Earth My cheek on the earth And I know why mercy. Lips to the earth And I know why love. My nose in the earth I know why theft. Teeth in the earth I know why Murder. What are words Compared to Teeth in the earth? What is shouting Compared to Teeth in the earth? And nothing is enough, And nothing is now And nothing is ever Like this. I know clearly. I know why The man Who digs the earth with his teeth And he Who tears himself from the earth Will always Oh, always Have to weep for himself.
680 Women Poets
Her Oak For Mother
Eight, we stand around our mother. Our mother is light as a feather. From where in such a light mother Does such heavy weeping come? Wisdom like a sunspot Flutters on her face— Flutters between eyelashes and mouth. And her wisdom, it seems, Counts us three times. And her wisdom, it seems, Points with her fingers: Eight, you are eight! My eight you are—chips. And he was one, One— My oak.
Mild My Wild (1958) Slavery A naked little bird just out of the egg— Someone unexpectedly put it in my hand. A shudder of amazement, a reflex Bent my fingers In a stiff half-circle Frozen into a bowl For the strange, blue warmth. What shall I do with a life in my hand? How shall I hold a life in my hand? How big, How big is a crumb of life? The tiny pulse in my hand Throbbed up to my temples, Stung the skin of my body.
Malka Heyfets-Tussman 681 The wee life in my hand Grew big. The warmth in my hand Towered over me fearsomely. I am bound to the helpless life in my hand. The twitch of nakedness Enslaved me. And I broke. I shattered.
Earthquake Bad hands tear me from Mama. I knot myself into Mama’s fluttering skirts And dangle over an abyss. My little hand tries for her kerchief. Soon, soon I’ll reach her hair. Her hair! A whirlwind breaks the knot and spins me In the void— Little fingers like butterflies Trembling in the air: Forsaken! Forsaken! The ends of Mama’s kerchief Flicker out. Sparks—my Mama’s hair— Dive. My Mama-god has cast me down. Mama-god’s face grows dim. A Mama-world drifts away from me. And I sob on a stranger’s shoulder. Stranger’s shoulder.
682 Women Poets
Leaves Do Not Fall (1972) Saw You Among Trees You withdrew, Departed. I spotted you among trees And you were more beautiful, Yet more beautiful among trees. I saw your crazy head Fall upon a tree as one falls On his mother’s pillow. Slowly Your head swayed To the beat Of my breathing And you were so quiet, So quiet by the tree. The city at night without you Is an ox, black, mute. I stray through The dark distances of Fear.
Thunder My Brother Thunder my brother, My powerful brother, Stones rolling on stones—your voice. Like a forest, forceful, your voice. What pleasure you take in making mountains rattle, How happy you feel When you bewilder creeping creatures in the valley. Once Long ago The storm—my father— Rode on a dark cloud, And stared at the other side of the Order-of-the-Universe,
Malka Heyfets-Tussman 683 Across to the chaos. I, too, Have a voice— A voice of fearsome roaring In the grip of my muteness. And there are commandments Forbidding me: “Thou shalt not, Thou shalt not” O thunder, My wild unbridled brother.
Under Your Sign (1974) Widowhood Do something With the W in “Widow” So it shall not be Like a beetle Like a Gnat It crawls over my skin And scratches “Death” And scratches “Death” Do something With the W In Widow.
684 Women Poets
Desert Wind Dusk comes on. We take a shortcut from Moshav Hogla To Kibbutz Hama’apil. The rickety pickup truck is Panting, bumping Over stones, sand and Clumps of red earth. Desolate desert—servile to The mad ruler—the wind. Desert wind rebels against the Creator. Here he mingles His paradise and hell: God formed mankind from Dust of the earth— Male and female to be fruitful And multiply. Here the desert wind forms His own creation: From hot sand he fashions Dazzling, rosy, smooth Female bodies, Makes them heavy with Passion, Symmetrically fits them into One another And gives them to Lesbian love— To eternal barrenness. Dusk: Colors of unearthly illumination Play a strange rhythm Over those bodies— An inkling of That other rhythm Before chaos was harnessed and tamed Into order. Israel 1960, written in California, 1973. A cooperative village in Israel. A communal village in Israel.
Malka Heyfets-Tussman 685 I gape And before the dreadful beauty I half-close my eyes .. .
Cellars and Attics My friend, the poet Ted, Has come to say good-bye, Has come to say “Shalom.” He likes the word; with enthusiasm he says: “Say Shalom And you need say no more. “From time to time I go visit my elderly parents Who want never to leave Their house near Boston. A large old house with many rooms, With tiny windows, A cellar and an attic And creaking stairs. “In the cellar it is good to touch The old oaken table, A bench with thick, carved feet, Great cast-iron pots and skillets That my mother Refuses to part with. They are, she says, A part of her liveliness, Her nimble hovering when She stirred delicacies in the pots With wooden spoons And happily fussed over Her family and frequent guests. She won’t let anything budge from the cellar. “ I take the kids with me. The house is deafened by their shouts In their grandparents’ deaf ears. Soon they set out running to the attic, Open the trunks with the wide iron bands And large locks that lock no longer
686 Women Poets But still seem to protect Great-great possessions. “The girls Throw themselves upon old clothes, Crinolines where The fishbones poke from worn brocade, Shawls with handmade lace. Whatever they see there They pull up. In their hair they stick combs, Brooches of different colors, And earrings that dangle Down to their shoulders. One grabs a spindle inscribed with the name ‘Tessie,’ And another a hymnal In faded print. “The boys drag from the trunks Military coats and uniforms with big brass buttons. They pull on tight hunting-trousers, Dried-up boots with spurs, And hang from their shoulders Swords, spears, all sorts of rifles— Weapons for war and hunting, And with revolvers in their hands They descend, stirring up A cloud of dust from moaning stairs. Grandfather and grandmother laugh, Wiping their eyes And shaking their heads. “So much history, tradition In old attics! Children should know where They come from.” “Yes,” I say, “Children are not radishes. Children have deep roots. “ I , too, will take my kids And travel to our old house.
Malka Heyfets-Tussman 687 In the cellar it will be good to touch My grandfather’s lectern with its broken-off feet, A matzo-grinder, Copper pans in which Grandmothers and aunts would make preserves. In the attic, spiderwebs cover valises Bound with heavy rope. My girls will race To great-grandmother’s things: A woolen cape trimmed with fur, A white cap with a kerchief, A Korbn-Minkhe and Sarah Bas-Toyvim’s litany, And perhaps, tucked away somewhere, a string of pearls That grandfather gave her for their wedding, And perhaps the earrings that she used to wear For blessing the Sabbath candles. My girls will take in their little hands The silver candlesticks with drippings in the sockets. “My boys will rush to Great-grandfather’s precious things: They’ll slip into the sable overcoat That grandfather wore when He traveled to the Chernobyl rebbe. There my boys will find A yarmulke, an arbe-kanfes, A white robe and a tallis, A set of Rabeynu Tam’s tefillin, 10 A small bag of soil from the Holy Land, A menorah and a snuffbox, A Kiddush cup and a psalmbook A velvet mantle for the Torah scroll, And also weapons: A shofar that can split the heavens And a little shooter—a spice-box for the Sabbath. 10
A woman’s prayerbook. A collection of prayers for women in Yiddish. The head of a Hasidic dynasty in the Ukraine. Pious undergarment, worn by men. White robe (Yiddish: Kitl)—worn by men on solemn or festive occasions. A special kind of tefillin as prescribed by the twelfth-century sage, Rabeynu Tam. Dead Jews were buried with their heads on soil from the Holy Land.
688 Women Poets Yes, children need to know where They come from.” And Teddy asks, “Where is your old house— Your cellar and your attic?” And I answer in a Jewish way— A question with a question, “Indeed, where is My grandfather’s old house?”
Now Is Ever (1977) Out Of and Back In Out Of the self, Away From the self Where to? At first Away from the narrowness Into void, into space, into expanse— To broaden the stride, To extend the glance, To swing the whole body From here to there— Roomy! My fingers— Why do my fingers tremble Like kittens still blind Abandoned in an autumn field? What do these sensitive fingers demand? They long: With fingertips They want to touch In a space you can’t turn in—
Malka Heyfets-Tussman 689 To sense The familiar narrowness. * Lord, my God, I—your little garden— Bring you the harvest of my soil— My bounty Ripe or not quite— All the same your boon. Accept it, my Lord, benignly But without fire. No fire, my God. It cannot be true that you delight In the smoke of the fat offering— Not true! And see how humble The years have made me: That for each drop of mercy I am thankful. Thankful.
Sweet Father And I call Him Sweet Father Although I don’t remember my father. But I do remember A thorn, A fire, A thunder, A mountain And something of a voice. When I think I hear His voice I shout at once Here I am! Here I am, Sweet Father! When a father abandons He is still a father,
690 Women Poets And I will not stop longing And calling “Here I am” Until He hears me, Until He remembers me And calls my name And talks to me Through fire.
Forgotten Master of the world! Creator, I stand before You with bared head, With eyes uncovered, Stubbornly Facing Your light. Not a single hair Trembles on my brow Before Your greatness. I place my Sabbath candles In candlesticks Tall and straight as a ruler So they may flicker toward You Without a drop of humbleness. I rise to You Without the slightest fear. For a long time I’ve sharpened my daring To stand before You Face-to-face, Creator, And to let my just complaints Open out before You From my mouth. Woe is me: I’ve forgotten! I can’t remember What I came to demand. I’ve forgotten. Woe is me.
Malka Heyfets-Tussman 691
In Spite You say: “You are a Jew and a poet And you’ve written no poems On the destruction. How can a Yiddish poet not, When the destruction is enormous, So enormous?” Simple: In spite of the destroyers, To spite them I will not cry openly, I will not write down my sorrow On paper. (A degradation to write “Sorrow” on paper.) To spite them I’ll walk the world As if the world were mine. Of course it’s mine! If they hindered me, Fenced in my roads, The world would still be mine. To spite them I will not wail Even if (God forbid) my world becomes As big as where my sole stands— The world will still be mine! To spite them I’ll marry off my children That they shall have children— To spite the villains who breed In my world And make it narrow For me.
Dream Mouth of the sealed well Forcibly broken open. There, in silver clarity
692 Women Poets I found my face. And I drank in my face, Drank in, Got drunk on The thirst for my face Drowned In the well.
Keep Me Keep me From saying Right now In the ripeness of years: 11 Unharness the horses, Mikita, I don’t want to go Anywhere. Keep me From saying Such things.
Out and In Again It happens with me that I become out— Out of the world Out of self No fear No joy No sigh, no tear— Out. Suddenly Like a new birth A Becoming-Again Comes with pious joy And tears As if in my house I beheld The holy Sabbath 11 A Ukranian name indicating a coachman in the poetess’s childhood landscape.
Malka Heyfets-Tussman 693 In the middle of the week. And I bless the Becoming-Again Always as new as the first time, As strict And merciful— And mercifully it hurts.
And I Smile (1983) My Persecutor Quietly— So quietly My speech, So that You shall strain To hear me. I need You to Hear me. You? And who are you, persecuted one, My persecutor You? Bow to my silence And listen, My persecutor You.
Homeless God Built a world And Has no place to stay overnight.
694 Women Poets
Faker 1 —And I ran away, Ran into my dreamland, And the bad dream Ran after me— Followed me a whole year In my dreamland. 2 And my big sons Write: —You left. We watched Your swift steps, Noticing for the first time How tiny you are, Marveling at How swiftly your small feet can run. Feeling abandoned We wanted to call after you, To catch your glance once more, But you didn’t look back . . . Now It’s time! Return. The distance Between us Is deaf and dumb And, you, too, are there, Alone. Come! Wherever your sons are, There is your home. 3 In the airplane: With closed eyes, Quiet, sunk into myself, Breathing deeply in and out, My breath piously says this prayer:
Malka Heyfets-Tussman 695 Sweet Father, give me Another five years— Grant me five quiet years, A bit of rest. 4 Now Seven years later: I see the shadow of His brow. (The shadow of His brow Is as wide as the world) I see The “I Am” smile at my tear: You faker, You knew that You would want more And more—
Songs Made to the Texts by Yiddish Poets english adapted to music in collaboration with adrianne cooper
The musical notes are from two collections of Yiddish songs: Pearls of Yiddish Song and Mir Trogn a Gezang, edited by Eleanor Gordon Mlotek. We are grateful to our friend Eleanor / Chana Mlotek for permission to reprint them here.
698 Songs
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Songs 703 And as the Rebbe Elimelekh Grew more jolly, the old fellow, Grew more jolly the old fellow Elimelekh, He sent off the Sabbath quick With his beadle, the antique— And he sent for the drummers, the two. And the drummers came a-drumming And the drums bedrummed their drummers, And drum-drummingly drum-drumming were they too. And as the Rebbe Elimelekh Grew most jolly, the old fellow, Grew most jolly the old fellow Elimelekh, He took off his festive gown And his hat he did pull down— And he sent for the cymbalists, the two. And the cymbalists who cymballed On the cymbalizing cymbals, Cymballed cymballing their cymbals did they too. And as the Rebbe Elimelekh Jolly drunk grew, the old fellow, Jolly drunk grew the old fellow Elimelekh, Then he yawned a big fat yawn And he said it’s close to dawn— And he sent all the Klezmers away. And the drunken Klezmer fellows Of the Rebbe Elimelekh Gave a finger to all poverty and bums. And the Klezmers did with feeling Leap as high as to the ceiling— And changed places with their fiddles and their drums. And the fiddlers drummed the cymbals And the drummers cymballed fiddles, And poured whiskey in their instruments have they. And the jolly Klezmer bands With the bottles in their hands Went carousing round until the light of day.
704 Songs
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Songs 705
To My Hammer Avrom Reyzen Oh, hammer, my hammer, tap-tap! Hit harder, hit nail after nail! There is no more bread in our home, But suffering, endless travail! Oh, hammer, my hammer, tap-tap! Soon it will strike twelve o’clock; My eyes, they are closing themselves— Give strength, oh my God, oh my Rock. Oh, hammer, my hammer, tap-tap! Hit harder the nails, one by one, By morning, it all must be ready— The rich daughter’s shoes must be done! Oh, hammer, my hammer, tap-tap! Don’t slip, don’t stop tapping my breath! My only bread winner are you, Without you, I’ll starve here to death! . . .
A shoemaker’s hammer with tiny wooden nails.
706 Songs
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Songs 707
Say, What Does It Mean? . . . Avrom Reyzen 1 Say, what does it mean, the rain? Say, what does it make me hear?— Its long drops on windowpanes Rolling down, tear after tear. And my boots are filled with holes, And the streets in mud do float; Soon the winter comes along— And I have no winter coat . . . 2 Say, what does it mean, the candle? Say, what does it make me hear?— When its wax is dripping down And its end is close and near. So I flicker in the shul, Like the candle of a mourner, Weak and dark, till I’m extinguished Quiet, in the eastern corner . . . 3 Say, what does it mean, the clock? Say, what does it make me hear With its yellow face, its heavy Ringing tone, so loud and clear? It’s a mechanism only, Has no life and has no power. Willy-nilly, it must strike Every hour on the hour . . . 4 Say, what does it mean, my life? Say what does it make me hear? In my youth, to rot and wither, To grow old and disappear. Eat in strangers’ homes in turn Sleep on fists till they grow numb, Killing This-World day by day, Waiting for the World-To-Come . . .
“Say, What Does It Mean?”—a leading question in Talmudic studies, here applied to the yeshiva student’s surroundings.
708 Songs
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Songs 709
Wild and Wilder, Wicked Winds Avrom Reyzen Wild and wilder, wicked winds, Stray throughout the world! Snap the branches, break the trees, Roaming free, unfurled. Drive the birds out of the fields, Chase them far away; Those who cannot fly afar, Kill them where they lay. Rip the shutters off the houses, Break the windowpanes; Where a candle lights the darkness, Blow out its remains! Wild and wilder, wicked winds, This is still your day! Long time will the winter linger, Summer’s far away.
710 Songs
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Songs
In Strife Dovid Edelshtat We are hated and hunted and driven, We bear the heavy yoke— And all because we love The poor, the languishing folk. We are whipped and shot and hanged, We are robbed of our life and our right, Because we demand for the suffering slaves Truth and Freedom and Light! But we will never be frightened By prison and tyranny, We’ll awaken the human race And make them happy and free. You may bind us in iron chains, Like beasts, our limbs you may sever, You can only kill the body, Our spirit will live forever! ........................................ You can kill us and murder us, tyrants! New fighters will rise and be— And we fight, we fight on till it dawns, When the world will be finally free. March 1, 1889
711
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Songs
My Testament Dovid Edelshtat Oh, comrades, friends, when I shall die, Come raise our banner on my grave, The free Red banner, waving high, Sprayed with the blood of working slaves. And there, when our Red banner reigns, Sing my free song that rose and flew! My song “In Strife” rings like the chains Of the enslaved Christian and Jew. And even in my grave I’ll hear My song of storm that rose and flew, And I will shed again a tear For the enslaved Christian and Jew. And when I hear the swords that ring In the last fight of blood and pain— From the grave, I’ll to my people sing And will inspire their heart again! March 22, 1889
713
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Wake Up! Dovid Edelshtat How long, oh, how long will you slave and still wait, Chained in shame and in dread! How long will you splendid treasures create For those that rob you of bread?! How long will you bow, unable to rise, Debased, with no home and no right! Day dawns! Wake up! Oh, open your eyes! Discover your ironclad might Proclaiming the freedom of strong barricades, Let war against foul tyrants be! Brave comrades, courage and will pervades And leads you to victory! The chains and the thrones must all fall away Under the worker’s sword! With fragrant flowers, in golden array, Freedom is the earth’s reward. And all will live and love and bloom In freedom’s golden May! Brothers, don’t kneel. See the tyrants’ doom! Swear you’ll be free as the day! Strike everywhere the freedom bell! Let suffering slaves feel their might! Inspired in struggle, struggle like hell— For yourself, for your holiest right! January 9, 1891
715
716 Songs
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Songs
To the Working Women Dedicated to the “Women Workers’ Organization”
Dovid Edelshtat Working women, suffering women, Languish at home or in shop’s abyss, Why stand at a distance? Why don’t you help build The temple of Freedom, of human bliss? Help us bear the red banner on high, Forward through storm, through the dark night! Help us spread, among ignorant slaves, The message of Truth, the message of Light. Help us raise the world from its filth, Sacrifice all that we hold so dear, Like lions, we’ll fight together for freedom, Equality, principles! Have no fear! Many times, those noble women have shaken The tyrant’s throne, and the moneybag, They’ve shown us that even in the bitter storm You can trust them to bear the holy flag. Always remember your Russian sisters, Murdered for freedom by the vampire Tsar, Tortured to death in cells of stone, Buried in snows of Siberia far. Remember the names, the holy names: Perovskaya, Helfman, Ginzburg, and more, Thousands ashamed to carry forever Obediently the yoke as before. Women heroes, they’ve stood in the storm, In darkness they’ve promised Hope and Light! They’ve meted out vengeance on murderous tyrants, Looked in death’s face, proud and upright. Remember them? When you do, let their lives Inspire you again! In triumph you’ll pass! Learn and think, fight and strive For freedom and joy for the working class! May 8, 1891 Russian women revolutionaries.
717
Glossary
Ahaseurus (1) Persian king in the Book of Esther. (2) See Wandering Jew. Asmodeus In Jewish folklore, the king of demons. Apreyter Yiddish pronunciation of “operator,” meaning a sawing-machine operator in sweatshops. Arbekan’fes (Hebrew: arba kanfot) Pious undergarment—a sleeveless undershirt with four fringed corners worn by pious Jews. Baal-Shem-Tov (BEShT) A popular healer, the founder of Hasidism. Bimah The raised stage in a synagogue where the Torah is read. Borscht Soup made of beets (“red borscht”) or cabbage, a staple of Jewish and Eastern European diet. A rich borscht would have pieces of solid food or an “eye” of a hard-boiled egg swimming in it. Challah Braided egg-bread, made especially for the Sabbath and festive occasions. Do’s and Don’ts Six hundred and thirteen positive and negative precepts (TaRYaG = 613). Echod (Hebrew: Ekhad) One, oneness. The ultimate attribute of God in Jewish belief; uttered daily in the Shema. Elul Month in late summer, before the High Holidays. Eternal Jew See Wandering Jew. Gemo’re (Hebrew: Gemarah) The main body of the Talmud, discussions of the Mishnah, encompassing law and legend. In Yiddish parlance, Gemore stands for the whole Talmud. Gemore-teaching represented a second level of education, after the Torah, which was taught in the heder. Golem (1) A soulless creature, created by magical means (e.g., the Golem of Prague). (2) Dummy. 719
720 Glossary Goy Gentile (frequently with negative connotation, but also with admiration), often indicating the peasant population surrounding Jewish towns in Eastern Europe. Hagadah (Yiddish: Hago’de) Liturgical text read at the family Passover Seder. Hanukah lamp A nine-branched candelabrum used to celebrate the eight days of Hanukah. Havdo’lah The ritual of separating the Sabbath from the week. Havdo’lah candles (Hebrew: Havdalah) Special braided candles for the ceremony marking the end of the Sabbath. Heder (or cheder, kheder) Primary Jewish school, providing all-day education for Jewish boys from the age of three or four. Holy Ark The cabinet holding the Torah scrolls in the synagogue. Kaddish (1) Memorial prayer for the dead. (2) An orphan. Kasha Buckwheat groats, a coarse porridge, mainstay of the Jewish and Eastern European diet. Khelm (or Chelm) The proverbial city of lovable fools. Khupa Jewish wedding canopy. Kibbutz A communal village in Israel. Kiddush cup A goblet used to make the blessing over wine. Klezmer A musical band performing on various family events. Kol Nidrey The opening prayer of Yom Kippur. The solemn, sad melody of Kol Nidrey was considered a masterpiece of Jewish music. Korbn-Minkhe Women’s prayer book. Kreplach Dumplings. Lamed-Vov (Hebrew: L"V= 36; Lamed-Vov Tsadikim) The Thirty-Six Just. According to legend, thirty-six righteous Jews live secretly among us and are the guarantors of the world’s existence. The expression “One of the thirty-six (Lamed Vovnik)” is used to indicate a saintly person. Landsman A fellow townsman encountered in a new place. Leviathan Great whale. Reserved as food for the righteous in the world to come. Matzo (Hebrew: matzah) Unleavened bread, eaten during the eight days of Passover.
Glossary Megillah (1) See Scroll. (2) One of the five little books of the Bible: Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. (3) Long-winded discourse, long story. Melamed Teacher in religious elementary schools (heder) or privately. Menorah A seven-branched candelabrum, used in the synagogue. Mezuzah A small container that holds a Bible verse and is attached to every doorpost. Midnights, Midnight Vigil (Hebrew: Hatsot, Tikun Hatsot) Midnight prayers, especially Hasidic, reading hymns and lamentations on the destruction of the Temple and Galuth Ha-Shechinah (Exile of the Shechinah, emanation of God). Midrash A literary genre including homiletic interpretations of the scriptures. Mimaama’kim “From the depth,” an allusion to Psalms 130:1, “Out of the depths have I cried on to thee, O Lord.” Minyan Ten adult male Jews, the minimum for congregational prayers; hence, the smallest number of people constituting a community. Mishnah Collection of oral laws that forms the basis for the discussions of the Talmud. A Mishnah-Jew is a simple man who can read the Hebrew Mishnah but not the Aramaic Talmud. Mitzvah A good deed. See Do’s and Don’ts. Moshav A collective village in Israel. Nei’le The closure of the Yom Kipur service. Pesach Passover, holiday of liberation from slavery in Egypt, close in time to the Christian Easter. Pious undergarment See Arbekan’fes. Pointing Hand (Hebrew: yad) A silver pointer used to read the Torah scrolls in the synagogue. Poroy’khes (Hebrew: parokhet) Curtain. Embroidered curtains covering the Holy Ark that holds the Torah scrolls in the synagogue. Rabbi, Reb “Mr.”—a title of respect or deference for a man, used with his first name. Rashi Acronym of Rabbi Shlomo Yitzkchaki, Rashi, of Troyes (1040–1105), the most famous, lucid, and systematic commentator on the Bible and the Talmud. His commentary became a mainstay of Jewish education, and the word Rashi became synonymous with commentary, explication.
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722 Glossary Rebbe Leader of a Hasidic sect, charismatic heir of a dynasty. Rov (Hebrew: Rav) Spiritual and legal leader of a Jewish community (American: Rabbi), ordained on the basis of study. Sambation A forbidding river, spewing boiling stones, yet resting on the Sabbath. According to folk belief, the lost ten tribes were stranded beyond the Sambation. Scroll (Megillah) The Bible is written on parchment scrolls. Shaytl Ritually prescribed wig worn by Orthodox married women. Shema, Shema Yisro’el The credo of the Jewish people, asserting the unity and oneness of God. The Shema is repeated before retiring and before dying. Shikse Gentile maiden (sometimes used with negative overtones or as a symbol of sexual attraction). Shkotsim (plural of shegets) Young Gentile men (with overtones of uneducated, unmannered ruffians). Shofar Ram’s horn blown as a trumpet, especially during the Days of Awe and the High Holidays that follow. Shor-Ha-Bar Wild ox. Promised to the righteous in the world to come. Shtshav Sorrel soup. Shul Synagogue. Sidur Prayer book. Simkhas Toyro (Hebrew: Simkhat Torah) A holiday celebrating the end of the yearly cycle of reading the Torah. Soyfer A professional holy scribe who copies the Bible on parchment with no blemish. Spice-box Used in the Havdalah service, marking the end of the Sabbath. Sukkah A temporary dwelling, open to the sky, used as a dining room during the week of Sukkot. Tallis (Hebrew: tallith) Prayer shawl worn by men, white with dark stripes. Talmud Comprehensive, multivolume basic book of Jewish law, comprising the Hebrew Mishnah, the Aramaic-Hebrew Gemarah (discussions of law and legends), and commentaries. Tefillin (or tfilin) Phylacteries. Small black cubes containing Bible verses attached with leather straps to the forehead and left arm for morning prayer. Torah, Torah Scroll The Pentateuch.
Glossary 723 Torah crown Silver crown on top of the Torah Scroll. Tsadikim (plural of tsadik) A pious and righteous man or a Rebbe, a dynastic leader of a Hasidic sect. Wandering Jew Eternal Jew, Ahaseurus. Legendary character doomed to live until the end of the world because he taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion. In Antisemitic literature, the Wandering Jew became a symbol of the “eternal” existence of the Jews, doomed to wander from exile to exile, and was adopted in modern Jewish literature as well. Yarmulke Skullcap, worn by men as a head cover. Yisgadal The opening of the Kaddish. Yom Kippur The Day of Atonement, holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
List of Poets
Alquit, B. (1896–1963), 556 Ayzland, Ruven (1884–1955), 169 Bovshover, Yoysef (1873–1915), 70 Drapkin, Tsilya (1888–1956), 670 Edelshtat, Dovid (1866–1892), 53, 711 Glatshteyn, Jacob (1896–1971), 10, 413 Gordon, Yehuda Leyb (1829–1892), 3 Halpern, Moyshe-Layb (1886–1932), 254 Heyfets-Tussman, Malka (1896–1987), 678 Katz, Menke (1906–1991), 585 Landoy, Zisho (1889–1937), 181 Leyb, Mani (1883–1953), 115 Léyeles, A. (1889–1966), 4, 353 Leyvik, H. (1888–1962), 7, 207 Ludvig, Ruven (1895–1926), 5, 547 Margolin, Anna (1887–1952), 649 Nadir, Moyshe (1885–1943), 565, 702 Reyzen, Avrom (1876–1953), 201, 705 Rolnik, Y. (1879–1955), 156 Rosenfeld, Morris (1862–1923), 13 Shneur (Shneour), Zalman (1887–1959), 701
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726 List of Poets Shvarts, I. Y. (1885–1971), 623 Teller, J. L. (1912–1972), 503 Tsunser (Zunser), Eliyokum (1836–1913), 699 Vaynshteyn, Berish (1905–1967), 8, 332 Vladek, B. (1886–1938), 177 Yehoash (1872–1927), 79