Bluma

@bluma.bsky.social

160 Followers 81 Following

Werewolf advocate, Golem appreciator. Writes a little about H. Leivick on https://blumalangerobertson.substack.com/

Plough me with your eyes, baby. Or something much like that.
Don’t Look at Me That Way Don’t look at me that way, through clear windows, Look at me through fences, smoke and flames, Through walls with spikes and chimney stacks Of hellish ovens and through poison gas. Clouds are pulled down from above And lie piled in dense heaps, Bolts of ghetto-songs shoot into them, The words of a burned Majdanek poet. I don’t know how to go on living, And how to answer to all the martyrs; Guilty against all those slain like warriors, And still more — all those killed like lambs.
Elevenses bars. Ffs.
Wedding Dresses in a Camp Seven wedding dresses Hanging on rack. One not short — not shorter, One not long — not longer. Seven bridal dresses — Camp possessions, For its daughter’s processions, For its mother’s processions. Seven wedding dresses White as moons, For the people’s orphans, For the people’s widows. Seven bridal dresses — Musicians play for them, To soothe their whiteness, To quiet their pain. Seven wedding dresses Dancing camp shers, So the people of Israel Might grow and increase. Seven bridal dresses Fluttering in horas, Mocking the bunkers, Death by gas, crematoria. Seven bridal dresses Sleeping on the rack, Dreaming and smiling At the chuppah-bringer.
Diagrams of hydrogen atoms, as Tsukunft explains the H-bomb to its readers.
A Yiddish poem, ‘The Gates of Heaven’
The text from a Yiddish trading card of H. Leivick
Leivick in Brazil, serious as always. A nice white suit.
Radium soap!
I return to the depths of the crowd — a second man approaches me: “Pardon me,” he says,” I want to ask you something. But before I ask, I want to tell you something. This year on the First of May, we had two First of May demonstrations in the camp. One demonstration was carried out by the Bund, the Communists and the Leftist Poale-Zion; The second demonstration, by the Zionist organisation, Hashomer Hatzair, and the partisan collective, Haoved. Both demonstrations happened at the same time, at ten in the morning, in two separate places. Around a thousand people took part in the first demonstration; around seven hundred in the other. You’ll probably ask why you need to hold two demonstrations in the same camp? “Why can’t a Jewish DP camp, who eats the same UNRRA bread and the same sour soup from the same bowl, make the First of May one united celebration? The First of May is a holiday of unity, of brotherhood, particularly here, in a camp of KZniks, who Hitler whipped with the same knout and burned in the same crematoria fires. I ask you. And don’t forget that it’s scarcely a year since the liberation. Hitler’s lashes are still hot on our bodies, and his numbers still smoulder on our arms. How has this come about, you’ll ask. I’ll tell you: The reason there couldn't be one united demonstration lies — do you know in what? In the flags. Better to say: In the Jewish flag. Even better to say: In the blue and white flag. Do you understand? The Bund, the Communists and the Leftist Poale-Zion wanted the red flag to be carried at the demonstration and nothing else. The other side wanted to carry the blue and white flag as well as the red flag. The first side argued that even in Eretz Yisroel, only the red flag is carried on the First of May, because the First of May is a completely Socialist, not a Nationalist, holiday; the other side, however, argued back that even if that was the case, it wanted to raise the Jewish flag at every holiday precisely because we’re in a camp
First of May — New York, 1935 In Union Square march the Communists, On Fifth Avenue march the Socialists. — And between both camps — mounted police. The riders have an order — alas! — To mind that the proletarian legions Should not throw themselves upon each other’s flags, And should not, in an outbreak of brotherly fighting, Bloody the holiday-time streets. For today the First of Ma — the holiday of brothers, Of solidarity and International songs, The day of red blossoms and wondrous liberation — Hence and therefore, they march separately! In Union Square march the Communists, On Fifth Avenue march the Socialists, And between both camps — mounted police To stop them from falling upon one another — Because the First of May, you see, is come today A day when the weak unburden their anger On those as weak, as helpless, as themselves, On their own blood and bone — Because the First of May is no longer beautiful May. It lies on all the squares like lead, And laments beneath the tread of those who march, And strikes at the ankles of their leaders in grief; Because hate instead of brotherhood has been planted In the heart of the worker, to hate the worker unto death All the days of the year. Therefore they march separately, With collective contempt for one another. In Union Square march the Communists, On Fifth Avenue march the Socialists, And between them — to avoid a brother-slaughter — The police — alas! — stand guard and watch — For today is the First of May, the day of red banners, The day of brotherhood and hope for change, The day of ‘Proletarians of all countries, unite.’ The day of singing out the song select — Hence and therefore, it seems, they march divided. 
A very long Yiddish poem about the divisions between the socialists and communists in New York, and how the police have to keep them from tearing each other apart on May Day in 1935 that evokes the political actions and events of May Days past.
Gefilte fish, ginger ale and sherbet. Tonight we feast like slightly lactose-intolerant kings.
A collection of ads for no-hope parties
‘Do you know, Mother, what happens to us today Here in this world, In the days of a Majdanek, a Treblinka, In days of…oh, forgive me, I’ve said this to you for no reason at all. Because in truth the world is very well today And very peaceful. Yes, yes. No pain, no murder. The sheep lives together with the wolf Just like it says in Isaiah — Yes, yes — just like it says in Isaiah. The people live happily and satisfied with each other, In all the corners of the world. Just like it says in Isaiah. Yes, yes. The land of our people drips with red honey, With sticky-sweet, wonderful honey. All the nations surround it with mercy and love And throw whole suns beneath their feet. On all the trees hang their stars of David, In all the fields lie their Torah scrolls, And on the Torah scrolls — man, wife and child In all sorts of forms, sleep sweetly and peacefully. In peace, just like it says in Isaiah, Yes, yes, as it says in Isaiah, Yes, yes, in absolute peace. None of them moves a muscle, And no sob or moan is heard from any, They lie still. They all lie very still. There is peace amongst them, Mother, forever and ever. And I, your son, also benefit from it: In all the attics, in all the deep cellars, My poems grow in tall, plentiful heaps, And good winds come from all directions, Streaming into the attics and cellars, And there’s such a frolicking of wind and word — Such dancing, hurling, plucking, Until the revelling, dancing winds Get bored of playing and race off. It becomes still again in all the attics, In all the cellars — because it’s peace, Mother. It’s peace over all the earth, great peace.’
A little cartoon of H. Leivick, which is rather charming, from a Hebrew paper. It is quite possibly the best caricature in that it doesn’t make him look like Gary Oldman in Dracula.
And here is a letter, a reception of my book Emil and Karl, which is dated and belongs to that period when Leivick was in a celebratory mood because of the commemorative publication of his collected poems: 3 April, 1940 My dear Glatshteyn, thank you for the book ‘Emil and Karl.’ I have read it in a single gulp. You will certainly, and most of all, be interested in the critique of my Shmuel (12 years old). He read the book with tears in his eyes, and when he had finished, he threw himself on his mother and said: It’s good to have a mother who feeds you and puts you to bed.
Fates loom over me — mine and not-mine, Not-mine weighs on me more heavily; I would argue, I would be able, the line: Why should not-mine torment me more? I would ask: Why strike the shore of the sea, And why sink innocent ships? If I were no more than one who merely asks, And not also sunk to the bottomless depths.
A postcard for the dedication of Leyvik House in Tel Aviv in 1970
An open book with pen and ink style illustrations. The Fey of ‘fon’ is elongated into a flag.
A very pretty two-colour title page and a Yiddish dictionary that is he,d together with gorilla tape and prayer
The Idyll In the shop-window of the beautiful world All kinds of ends arranged on display That it, the beautiful world, Had planned for the people of Israel, The endless people of Israel, To stoke its desire, To enchant its heart, To catch its eye, With the beauty of the ends: Spring pogroms, Brand-new gas-chambers, Flaming furnaces, And easy deaths Of all kinds, Of all kinds. And Israel was mesmerised By the beauty of these ends, And all stood impatiently At the shop-window of the world, Dancing all over (‘Us, dancing, singing, Us, festively’) He danced into a death-camp, Into a festive gas-oven, And caught light and burned. And the world stood by With a camera in hand, And photographed this wonderful scene — The image of the flickering fire, The image of Israel’s clothes And of Israel’s shoes, As they lay nearby, tips up, And gave praise to the beautiful world.
Writers who are Nazis today. Writers who give their approval to the destruction of our people today. It deals with Hamsun today. And it deals with Wagner, because although he is no longer living himself, and doesn’t directly take part in Hitler’s atrocities, Wagner’s outspoken hatred towards us is exploited by Hitler. He serves Hitler as an inspiration. He serves Hitler as though he were a living, active influence. I argue: and what if Hamsun’s novels and Wagner’s music give much joy and pleasure? Well, so what? Reject that pleasure! Where is it written that you must have every pleasure? According to Tsebion, it appears that when one rejects writers like Hamsun, we start down the path of the Nazis. I don’t understand how such a conclusion can be made. We do someone the same harm, then? We only want to be able to do without the work of writers who become Nazis. That’s all. We don’t want to receive any pleasure from such writers. We don’t want the happiness that their work creates. And if without them, our lives become impoverished, so to speak, we will make do with our poverty. We don’t want their riches. I wish to ask all the readers and particularly friend Tsebion, who thinks that the that the artist and the creation must be separated, even when the creator is a Nazi; how would it be if Hitler, for instance, had an exhibition of his pictures — he’s a painter, they say — and how would it be if you had an opportunity to go to the exhibition. Well, would you go? Will you enjoy it? Will you hang a painting of his in your house, over your bed? He paints, they say, pretty landscapes, gentle nature pictures. And how would it be after the exhibition, if he is a great painter, almost a Raphael, a Leonardo Da Vinci, a Rembrandt? And how would it be if he wakes up one fine morning and starts to compose music, like Wagner, and even greater than Wagner’s? — What would you do then? —— Well, by all means, hang his work over your bed!
What is an Age What is an age? What does an age mean? Must I only belong to the present age? Doesn’t the mark of old Cain’s forehead Burn on the face of a new reality? Does Abel not lie on my doorstep now? Is my table not Isaac’s Mount Moriah? Do I not carry the order From David to kill Uriah? Is my bed not spattered red With the blood of the concubine of Gibeah? Does my gaze not wander, even now, Over the slain in the desert at Meribah? Does Moses not die in my attic, as on Mount Nebo, Far from the tribes and their banners? Do I not stand myself in the ranks Of the spies, the profaners of his dream? Am I not myself Titus, who burned God’s house? Do I not also save the Western Wall today? Do I not sit in a grave, covered in ash, And not lament the lamentation of the Eicha-prophet? Am I not the comb that tortured Akiba’s body? Am I not myself torn into a thousand shreds? Does the storm-wind not carry me up To swing on Lekert and Botwin’s gallows? Do I not hear how, in fire, on my threshold, The blood of Zechariah and Yosef Chaim Brenner boils? Am I not myself the smith who forges Picks, chains and redemption flags? Do I not bore through a whole four thousand years With my stamped, hardened forehead? What is an age? What does an age mean? Must I belong to it alone?
The Path of the Righteous Across the evening streets, over the snow, To meet the light of the street lamps, We carried, the two of us, The rebellion of our faces. A stone bench, Off to the side, beneath bare trees, Waited for us with devotion — How many days, How many weeks — But both of us betrayed the bench, And sinned against one another. I wanted to say Plain and simple: — Take me, Have me, Before the last moment of day is fled… …(Oh, now, late at night, I say it openly to the writing desk, the lamp, To the white of a sheet of paper, Oh, now, late at night) But I spoke differently then, jokingly: — Our path in the snow Like the path of the righteous walking to Paradise, With quiet, sacred step — And peace and joy to us both. You replied sadly: — There’s no joy around us, There’s no peace in us. And I said: — Everything that can be avoided, We have, it seems, avoided, And yet our hearts Are still full of weeping and suffering. You remained silent. I went on: — On the bare branches of trees Perch my words And sit, like hidden birds, And watch with glassy eyes As we go separate ways On the path as cold as the one to Paradise. You remained silent. I went on: — There will be sung, will be sung songs About the sacred joy of the righteous; There will be sung, will be sung songs About the sacred death of the righteous; There will be sung, will be sung songs About the sacred path to Paradise.
A woman who looks like she’s got to the end of the Seder and is looking for a real good time. Or an advert for horseradish, take your pick.
We met at the beginning of the First World War, when he first arrived in New York. And he arrived, insofar as I recall, in a week when a writer’s ball occurred. And indeed it was at the ball that someone introduced me to him. I was still, so to speak, a new recruit to Yiddish literature. Reserved, not very bold, filled with anxiety and with great awe for a Yiddish poet. The last, I pray, will never leave me.
Around a Table at Night We, brothers, sat around at table at night Eating a poor, ordinary meal. No one was teacher to anyone, No one saw a student in anyone, No one spoke a word to anyone, Until late in the night — No word of redemption and end of days, No hint at the Moshiach’s holy name. We all ate in solitude, Ate the poor feast. Certainly no one around the table thought That something might happen in the night To put each to a deadly test In the lonely hours of the night. Something did happen, however — The feast was the last: An enemy suddenly beset us, And all of us, to a man, Dragged into a green forest And without trial or sentence, Under a sky of woven branches, Slaughtered us all. Just then, the true wonder happened: We were again sat at the night table. We ate in the same tent, And one saw a teacher in the other, And one was student to another — Like good, close brothers We sang end-of-night songs To the sound of the Moshiach’s name In the light of redemption, of the end of days.
— Out of our whole family We are the only two left: I, Joel, and my sister Leah. Two days we lay hidden And didn’t sleep at all. On the third day, When the light from outside fled, We, frozen with hunger and cold, Embraced one another And fell asleep. Suddenly I heard in my sleep As the door of our hiding place opened — And he came in. I didn’t see him, but sensed him, That his face was the face of an ox, That arrows sprung from his body, That the grasp of his fingers was death — And he started toward my sister. I heard his step, heavy and dull. And my hands clutched at my sister’s body — Let us die together, Before he tears us apart. But he approached close. I felt As the nakedness of her body was revealed And heard her voice In choked moans and cries. I started to fight for her, And wild were her stifled screams, And strangled inside her I myself, with animal sounds, Bore his blows and the grasp of his fingers Until he overcame us, Overcame us both — her and me. Then I heard my sister sob, But my head was heavy And my hands didn’t move. When the greyness of day began to pour in, I steeled myself and opened my eyes. Her wet cheek stuck to my face, And I heard as she said: — Why did you do it? — I wanted to protect you from him. — From who? — From him. — But there was no one here. — No one? Confused, I took her hand, The sweetness of her body went through me And I remembered. I said to her: — Of all our father’s house No one is left Apart from me, Joel, and you, my sister Leah. The world is ruined and unclean,
My Mother Went to the Rich Uncle My mother went to the rich uncle And came back with a full sack. In the bag — my uncle’s old suit, And my aunt’s dress with jacket and train. The suit was cut for a dandy, And the dress and jacket — for a fine lady. My father was beset by an anguished trembling As soon as he stretched a hand out to the clothes. My father was an angry man, a Cohen, A Jew, as you know, with a flaming beard. His eyes flashed with brightness of snow, With the Belarusian snows of the northwest. And Mother was, like mothers, quiet — Squandering her life in shop and market, Her delicate face like a wronged prayer, No one saw, no one noticed. And I — a child — when I did see, Felt my mother’s beauty from afar, A word flowed into my mouth, And I didn’t know what the word meant myself. The house: four walls with winged windows, A baker’s oven, dusty as a mill, And sunbeams like golden doves Danced on the earthen floor in the morning.
My Bright Song My bright song flies away to you, My hand outstretched to your distance; Your trace in the snow — and snow filling my own — Your trace, though, remaining in all directions. I stood by your door and didn’t open it, Speaking to the threshold, as if to an equal: — Oh, help me, threshold, to throw my heart With final courage, from too-soft door and step. The doorstep shone so brotherly, And stroked my forehead like a friend; And I kissed that house so low, In order to be lifted up through you. In all the things of the world, the memory of you, In walls and pavement, your breath is heard; As if to your hand, I cling To lampposts when loneliness comes. Hanging-on — to passer-by, to everyone, My body — my song — I joyfully give, A happy man or a hopeless one — Each carries in them a spark of you.
The cover of a CD called ‘Romemu — Exalt’ picturing a shul in Curacao
— ‘Be my guest’ — He is silent a while. (The word trembles on my tongue) Suddenly — such childish questions: (You will come to me, you will come) How old am I, should I tell him? (The word ignites on my tongue) And how fast is my pulse? (Will you not come to me? Will you not come?) And where did my cradle stand? (The word is like flame on my tongue) Here or in some other land? (Will you not come? Never come?) I answer with mocking words: (The word lies oppressed on my tongue) ‘My cradle stands in seven places (I will come to you, I will come) ‘A man isn’t born once, (The word dances on my tongue) ‘The pulse first comes to life in the coffin —‘ (You will come to me. You will come.) My words please the comer. (The word doesn’t want to be on my tongue) He says over all the thresholds: (I will come to you, I will come) ‘It’s here — the hour of hours, (The word is like blood on my tongue) ‘Adieu.’ — He disappears and — is no more.) (Will you not come? Never come?) I send my song-poem to the gates. (The word rejoices on my tongue) The geyer walks with face to the woods. (I will come to you, I will come) He strides, he skips over hills, (The word is sweet on my tongue) On mirrored white wings. (You will come to me, you will come)
The Scent of Years Gone By The scent of years gone by Enveloped me in sweet streams; Even when you say: I am satisfied with my years — Your words rise like white dew over the abyss. Who streams from the chasm with outstretched hands, With ten thin bright fingers? If I weren’t ashamed of myself, I’d say I see my mother’ young soul. I am ashamed of myself, though, Because I don’t know why my white old age deserves To rise flaming, before the conclusion of passage, When all breath becomes colder, colder. Perhaps my mother’s bright form Kept itself in the shadow of Paradise, To be able to come when I was old To no longer part from me. I don’t know why I long for that sort of miracle, Why only hearing her name doesn’t suffice. The scent of years, sharp and sweet as lilac, Drowned me in its streams.
A small, distant memory: Thirty-eight years ago, I lived in Mani Leib’s house for a time. He was already a family man, I — not yet. We were both labourers. He — shoes, I — paper-hanging. We worked hard during the day and wrote poems at night. He was already well-known for his poems, and I was happy I lived in the same house as him. I’d already started making the first drafts of my dramatic poem ‘The Golem.’ Once, late at night, I lay on my bed and wrote. Mani Leib was out of the house somewhere. Suddenly, I head a sharp knock at the door of my room. I rushed, frightened, to the door, opened it — Mani Leib stood on the threshold, looking at me with wide eyes, smiling half-amused, half-serious. ‘What’s the matter, Mani Leib?’ I asked. Mani Leib replied: ‘I came home and saw your light was on through the crack in the door to your room. I know you were writing and that it’s long past midnight, but I was seized by a desire to knock on your door —’ he didn’t finish, remaining standing silently a while, then said emphatically: ‘Don’t be angry with me. It was a good envy, a brotherly one. Don’t be angry.’ I was very moved by that Mani Leib simplicity. ‘What’re you talking about, Mani Leib?’ I said, ‘not only am I not angry with you but, on the contrary, your knocking on my door is wonderful to me. And to prove how deeply touched I am, I’ll recite for you, right now, a little poem of yours which hasn’t stopped singing within me since I read it.’ Mani Leib was full of excitement. I recited his poem ‘The Night’: She will go about unseeing, Groping with blind fingers In swallowed-up streets, Tapping with blind fingers On locked windows. She will sit by a fence, Black hair unkempt, And lie in wait for someone, And beguile someone, And grieve someone. Mani Leib’s eyes shone as though with tears… Thirty-eight years have now passed since then. It would be good if I could read it aloud now, too, so that he might hear. But this is no longer possible.
And now we are back in the town, in the four-story, full of holes, Notre Dame monastery. The Arab canons shot it to pieces. Now it’s a military post of the Israeli Army. The building stands just at the boundary line which divides new Jerusalem from the Old City, which is now under the control of the Arabs. Inside the building, everything is destroyed, broken. All the stairs and ways up to the upper stories are ruined. One can now only reach the very top with the help of improvised ladders, which are fixed from the floor to all four ceilings. You must clamber up the ladders from one floor to another. The ceilings are high, the climb is very strenuous, and even risky. But the party ignored it all and climbed. The main attraction is that the very highest floor, you saw all of Jerusalem at hand, and particularly, could see Old Jerusalem well from there, with close view of the Western Wall, for which new Jerusalem longed ceaselessly. I watched as the crowd climbed into the empty space of the monastery floors over the four ladders, up and down, up and down, and it reminded me of the ladder in Jacob’s dream…Going up and coming down, going up and coming down. I, of course, didn’t stand aloof from the crowd. I went up the ladders, from one floor to another, from the second to the third, from the third to the fourth. True, no easy matter. Even for very young people, not easy. The height is dizzying to eyes, catches the breath. But the pleasure of surviving all the ladders which Israel (the very same Jacob) had both accepted and climbed himself, and now he must in reality, not only in a dream, make of them a true ladder to the very heavens — I do not want to miss this pleasure.
Four hamentashen on a plate that has seen better days.
The Old Apple Tree Blooms (Variant) The old apple tree blooms In fields of dawn blue, From the open goblets of blossoms Pure gold nectar flows. It smiles, strong, To itself and its own flowers: — More than once I have been ready To kneel down in the dust. But if my being is needed In the springtime — I bow my head toward the sun In joyful submission. May the light warm me, And the rain bathe me, — I will do my summer-duty: Be laden with apples. (Extra stanza, as published in Tog 5 Feb, 1961) And you, my familiar dust, Who are still near and of dust, — Despair not and believe — I will be yours forever.
The Slaughtering Knife is Cold The slaughtering knife is cold, The slaughtering knife is lonesome. Countless nicks Scored like teeth Into its frozen blue. How long it has lain A prisoner in its sheath And no one remembers it, And no one takes pity on it, And no one warms it…. Kind people, Fog it with your warm breath, Beautiful women, Touch it with your slender fingers, Try it with your polished nails, And give it a throat Warm, Full-blooded; The slaughtering knife is cold, The slaughtering knife is lonesome.
[…] But as I quickly left New York for Philadelphia, my nascent ties with the young New York writers were interrupted. Tabachnick: What year was that? Leivick: That was in 1914. I left for Philadelphia, going in a factory for children’s clothing to train to be a cutter. […] I worked in the shop all day. It was winter. In those years, in Philadelphia, winter was harsh. The streets were covered in deep snow. Once — having worked all day, I went back to my room, which was in an attic somewhere. It was already night. I laid down on the bed. The whole day, incidentally, I’d been restless. The restlessness was a result of the gnawing longing I carried in myself: How could I truly begin? How should I reveal the poems, or the first poem, which would give me the satisfaction of being able to say to myself: This is your key. I lay on the bed. A small gas lamp burned. Outside, there was a storm, almost a blizzard. And here you lay, alone. Feeling lonely, foreign and lost in that great new world. Suddenly, something illuminates in you: you are indeed in America now, you lie in an attic, but outside the windows, a blizzard howls. Thick snow swirls. It’s white all around and before your eyes flashes the Siberian landscape from which you are not long escaped. The distant white fields of great Siberia, the hidden paths and rivers and forests and mountains; the full, the absolute dazzling whiteness, you might say: the dazzling purity of the world. And you are a part of that whiteness and purity. There was a flash in my mind and I said to myself: Somewhere far, somewhere far Lies the forbidden land ——— […] This probably sounds naive now, but the experience of that night in Philadelphia remains in my memory, it all its details, to this day.
She Cries She cries and I — I am frozen, turned to ice. I go through the death-letter to the end. Then I close it, then spread it out again, See how not a single comma is out of place… And one mother bore us, But someone parted me from my mine; And see: by the time a tear reaches my eye, She has already stopped in her going… She cries. She had started to put on a new dress, But her grief and mourning were stronger — She sits on the floor, forgetting the dress. The night passes, disappears, day already dawning, And I — again I read through the letter and seem to hear someone say: — You see how artfully the tet of toyt curls…
English to Yiddish For the sake of your bank account, not to mention the minds of your audience, stop and think: Do you really need this? Will converting something from a language spoken by almost all of your audience into something spoken by almost none of your audience add something to the work in question? If it will – mazl tov.
I go out of the house at night, stand on the porch, and breathe in the breath of a great forest. If there is no moon, even better. The illusion can be full, complete[…] A row of tulips blooms near the house, by the edge of the porch. During the day, they are opened in all their coloured goblets. At night, they are closed, contracted, fully locked-tight. Sharpened to points. Are they angry? Are they finished with the world? Are they occupied in other-worldly thoughts? In arguments? Are they in passive uprising against the order of the night, which has no sun? In truth, they look to me as if in passive uprising. So different are they in appearance during the day, under the rays of the sun, when they are open, outspread, in their, at most, six velvet petals. They cannot bear the light that falls on them from the electric bulbs. They do not like that light. Dislike it very much. I sense it. Better to put out the lights and let them rest or sway on their long stems in total darkness.
Tulips Red, pink and milk-white tulips Open goblets drinking their fill of sun until evening, At dusk you close, strange and unearthly, You sleep on your stems with leaves here and there. You close your cups at night like lips — Cold dew running down your smooth skin, And your stems, some higher, some lower, Hold you patiently, faithfully true. Dawn comes — the slender stems branch, Say: the sun rises in blue, red, pink; The first long, drawn out rays fall on you And a smile parts your closed lips. Your cups open wider and wider Until their insides are revealed in full fruit An invitation to the merry bees To come drink your honeyed nectar until night.
The Bridegroom of the Streets I invite everyone, everyone From the cellars of houses, from shops, To come in procession, To hear the song of your name. I speak your name, But everyone knows it; Not in the flesh, in pregnant seed, But through death — my sacred bride. In closed and locked house Sit men and wives — enemies; And I am your bridegroom of the streets, The joy of my face spreading wild. The asphalt of the bridges and squares They are our tables and chairs, And at night, under open stars, Our pillow is the self-same square. We lie on our pillow And none can part us now; The moon lies between us, a child, Clinging to both our bodies.
A very insignificant notice of name-change
A row of sailors, all in uniform but for one in a grass skirt and lei who reminds his officer that it’s Purim, after all…
Because what, for instance, can a Shneour, for example, or a Rosenfeld, or a Shmaryahu Levin, when hungry, get out of that old, aristocratic mistress, out of Hebrew, apart from two figs from R’ Tsadik and a whiff of besamim cloves, and sometimes not even that, just a bit of hard parchment. Well, you make do and still your hunger with things like that. But with the maid, it’s a pleasure. She’s big-hearted. She pays with dollars, and dollars can buy everything in the world. Besides, it’s cozy, too. You don’t have to sit all done up in the parlour, but you slip into the kitchen. And when you get into the kitchen, you get a good piece of black bread with butter, a tasty bit of jam, a pot of hot coffee and cake. And then you can embrace her, the maid, even kiss her, and sometimes spend the whole night with her. As it needs to be. In warmth. In open affection. And what can you do with the rich mistress? Kneel before her, at most. Nothing more.
I am affected, for example, by the fact that I never see a pretty young woman reading a Yiddish newspaper or book on the subway or the El— this affects me as sadly and fatally as the greatest anti-Yiddish proclamations; the case of a Jewish family that lived together in the same house with me in the mountains one summer who became unfriendly to me and my wife and child because we would speak in Yiddish, and not just unfriendly, but simply stopped speaking to and even greeting me — this case, this extraordinary hatred, had as great and decisive an effect on me as, for instance, all those articles by Ford at the time, all the agitation about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I’m talking about myself, but I’m certain I’m expressing a general experience. Like, for instance — when years ago, when I worked as a paperhanger and belonged to the Paperhanger Local 490, I used to go, as the custom is, to the meetings of the Local. Those were my first years in America, and I couldn’t speak any English and it was difficult for me to understand English. The Jewish labour movement in Americas was a new, fresh phenomenon for me after years of Siberian isolation and solitude. The whole Local 490 consisted almost entirely of Jews, most of them as half-green as me. How surprised I was every time I went to a meeting of the Local to see how a couple of leaders sat on the stage, giving speeches, carrying out accountings, holding votes, collecting money, reading out punishments and judgements and excluding whoever was needed — and all in English! And there in the hall sat the crowd, not understanding, eyes glazed-over, hard-working, half-exhausted, half-annoyed, mute, accepting everything in silence. And when I oftentimes asked ‘Why don’t they conduct the business in Yiddish?’ they all looked at me as if I was crazy — what did I mean, Yiddish?
An ad in Yiddish for a celebration marking the 20th issue of Vokh.
Bovino said the agent who fired has been in the Border Patrol for eight years.
An ad for a dance with a very dapper devil.
A disheveled woman pegged to a clothesline. She’d stop hanging in there if only she could.
The cover of a romantasy novel called ‘That time I got drunk and yeeted a love potion at a werewolf’ and come on, you killjoys, it has to at least make you a little bit curious.