An Answer to the Jewish Question
Stuart Z. Perkoff wrote this small epic, "Feasts of Death, Feasts of Love," about growing up Jewish in the 1930s and coming to terms (if terms can ever be reached) with the Holocaust in the 1950s. I first encountered this poem in Don Allen's epochal "The New American Poetry: 1945-60," and sought for years afterwards to find Perkoff's complete poetry. That event didn't happen until 1998, when Allen persuaded the National Poetry Foundation to publish Perkoff's collected poems--a harrowing volume with one of the most affectionate and intelligent introductions (by Robert Creeley) to any volume of poetry I have ever found. Perkoff could only find mobility and coping skills as a poet. He could not hold a job, only a pen. Although physically functional, he was a kind of a metaphysical paraplegic, living as a drug addict in small apartments and smaller jail cells--but always writing incredible poetry in every one of these confinements--no matter how extreme and tortured. This poem will shed light on Perkoff's long, living social martyrdom and the beauty he thereby saved for us, his readers. Make the appropriate time and space for this journey into the boyhood of an American Jew living in the deep, dense swampy shadows of WWII in a way no one who fought (and even perished) in that war could have ever known. This is a poem about the weight of history. You will be rewarded with a record of a truly transcendent survival.
A personal note: It has taken a lifetime to NOT demand of, or even want, a God who must be responsible for the actions of his children. If anything, that God--a God I no longer seek--must contemplate the heinousness of his children and still keep the unshakable faith that is the preamble to Creation. Since the Creation is not a crime, to ask of God such fortune cookie wisdom is to inflict cruel ingratitude on the always-constant, meant to-be-comforting thought of Him. I live with that thought, grateful for its anchoring. All is, I realize now, subsumed in this Creation and the love it requires for its fullest expression. To even say another belabored "alhamdulillah!"--all praise is to God--in the face of our inhumanity to each other and therefore God is to cling to the old Father God who will make things right, hopefully on this side of the grave and wearing Hawaiian sackcloth with outrageous flowers printed on it. As Bawa said, God has given us everything; there is nothing else to give, not even a second thought, for that would make him separate from us. I think a courage of simple self-reliance and an adamant belief in my own recombinant possibility constitute true divinity in this workshop now.
As a coda, I have appended an excerpt from Perkoff's meditations on the Hebrew alphabet that could serve as a credo for his art and the poetry he succeeded in writing and to which I still aspire. I give his short meditation on the 7th letter of that alphabet, given for a 7th day of resplendent wholeness where all is coherence, where all is meant to make things cohere. From warship to worship is the path.
One last thing: I offer this poem as solace to my dear dear friend Ed Weiss, awaiting the surgeon's word about his 41-year-old son. Nothing, Ed, can make me regret (for longer than a forsaken instant) this birth into the life we have shared together and share forever.
David
P.S. It is an honor to be a scribe this morning.
FEASTS OF DEATH, FEASTS OF LOVE
I
1.
down the Wolf River
backs to the sun thru water shallow & flat
beautiful girls & boys
the birds wing tip to tip
swinging thru & around
calling, calling
we carried city eyes
over the rushing water
the stunned vision of scene after changing
scene
expanding & including
as our shouts & grunts & songs
wailed outward
(I had to get out, once, & push the canoe from behind, my
body from the ankles up was hot, sweaty, sun gleaming, my
feet cool in the river, lifting & pushing the heavy canoe.
I thought the others wd get too far ahead, & we wd be lost,
off in the Wisconsin woods, where there were neithers Jews nor
cities, a world hot & in winter my feet wd be like encased in
the cement of the river, & the canoe wd never be pushed over
the flat scrapey sand.)
the river movement
coiled around our eyes
the quiet sound of the breathing of work
set the beat
of our songs
2.
The next year we took a different trip, out Lake Tomahawk
& an adjacent lake, I don't remember which one. In that part
of Wisconsin the lakes lay on the land like a thousand eyes,
peering into & thru each other.
from lake to lake
between two mountains
all blue green quiet movement water
in the air & eye
the huge walls rising
a great grass field
covered the inlet
& the canoes went thru
as over land, it looked
so quiet
rustling of grass
the soft voices
hot beautiful girls & boys
hot beautiful summer day
II
1.
wake up! to a morning
sun shining thru even newspaper
headlines
sun on
men in sand wading thru
blood
"Woe
woe unto
the bloody city of Litchfield'
he cried
with his bare feet
in the gutters of blood* [*an allusion to Quaker seer George Fox's cries at a vision of a Roman mass execution of Christians conducted in England's town of Litchfield a millennium before]
naked feet
naked legs
naked eyes
into the market place howling
along the streets howling
in the living room
howling
the sun! shining shining
in our eyes
2.
at the edge of the water
the glass house eye of God
embraced us, pure
in white
clean after communal showers
& communal food
'Boruch ataw Adonai
Elohenu melech ha'olam
ha'motzi lechem
min ha'awritz'
reverberating thru the food
the eyes
the air out out into many rhythms
& tongues
sitting on the benches, bodies warm & throats filled with
joy & love
we offered worship
sitting warm to warm, eyes & skin touching, love flowing
we offered worship
we sang
& spoke languages & poems
offered worship & love
mixing the birds of passion & the swords of God
in our beautiful young eyes
It wd always be dark by the time the services were over.
& secure, in the glass house, lit by the God that shined all our
faces, the burning candles of love in our bodies, sharing the
glow outward to trees & wind. & the youngest kids went to
their cabin while the older ones had a dance, & carried on
love affairs & intrigues & political arguments until 11:30, when
the boys walked the joyous road back to their portion of the camp,
singing & shouting, clean & alive.
By the time the Saturday morning services were over, we
were so full & whole that anything was possible.
3. political song
the people circle the room
coming together
the blood circles the body
coming together
the earth circles the sun
coming together
hang on, man
as it
wobbles around
hand to hand
as it
wobbles around
o living communities
men & women who love & are loved
o living bodies
men & women who love & are loved
O loving cities
men & women who live & are lived
eat
drink
embrace
each
other
inner
face
III
1.
I see clothes piled in great heaps
against gray sky
with the smoke & sun in the air
of human flesh
& in the pockets of those beasts
who wear my name
things of value jingle & clank
in those black pockets
teeth & eyes & skulls & skin
in those black pockets
there are bodies
naked
not talking of love
in their last waters
naked
not talking of love
naked hunger
naked hatred
naked minds
howling in the crowded boxcars
howling in the dark barracks
howling in the hot showers
howling & whimpering in the final chambers
silent in the furnaces
2.
such visions
wove their shroudeyes
thru our songs
such knowledge
blackened the edge
of every flame
each kiss
bittered with the salt
of their blood
(Many summers later I hitchhiked over a thousand miles
back to the Wisconsin holy lakes, to speak anguish to a wise
man, seeking comfort, seeking peace.
& we sat outside under a fat moon, at the edge of an open
field of grass, scenes of love & myth echoing in my mind.
I asked him why the six million had died. I thought somehow,
this man, an Aronin, descendant of the first & holiest priests of
Israel, humble seekers & generous fountain of love, wd have
an insight, a knowledge, a hope.
God's plan? If there had not been such blood & terror on
his mouth, he wd have laughed. & told me he had no answer,
no peace. & told me of the many nites & days he had fasted &
prayed.
& found nothing?
found only hope that came from the realisation of the
cleansing & purification of pain.
Whose? I, so young, so bitter, so needing an answer, sd
whose? good for their sould? or ours! so bitter, so young,
such needs.)
even now
it is difficult for me to fix in my eyes
the image of
the God/Priest
lifting sin from the souls of the people
my soul, my sin
clothing these six million in my sins
& thrusting them in their foreign wrappings
into the flaming mouths of agony
IV
when the sun dies
many other suns will still flame
all things contain the seeds
of their own completion
all seeds contain the things
of their own destruction
the sun
makes a morning
bright descending on hooded eyes
the sun's morning
floods into the sands of war
wake up
hang on
coming together
coming together
coming together
--Stuart Z. Perkoff, Voices of the Lady: Collected Poems, National Poetry Foundation, 1998, pages 171-8.
ZAYEEN
the sound of a dropped
bomb, before it
hits, the long high shriek
piercing the air, opening the
air, before the earth
is erupted
is not language
the sound enormous exploding
fragmenting, the stroke of the scream
definite, given, the point of
culmination
is not language
language demands
connections, delicate structures
must be firm
at the core
its arithmetical number is 7
--Stuart Z. Perkoff, Voices of the Lady; Collected Poems, National Poetry Foundation, 1998, p. 80
A personal note: It has taken a lifetime to NOT demand of, or even want, a God who must be responsible for the actions of his children. If anything, that God--a God I no longer seek--must contemplate the heinousness of his children and still keep the unshakable faith that is the preamble to Creation. Since the Creation is not a crime, to ask of God such fortune cookie wisdom is to inflict cruel ingratitude on the always-constant, meant to-be-comforting thought of Him. I live with that thought, grateful for its anchoring. All is, I realize now, subsumed in this Creation and the love it requires for its fullest expression. To even say another belabored "alhamdulillah!"--all praise is to God--in the face of our inhumanity to each other and therefore God is to cling to the old Father God who will make things right, hopefully on this side of the grave and wearing Hawaiian sackcloth with outrageous flowers printed on it. As Bawa said, God has given us everything; there is nothing else to give, not even a second thought, for that would make him separate from us. I think a courage of simple self-reliance and an adamant belief in my own recombinant possibility constitute true divinity in this workshop now.
As a coda, I have appended an excerpt from Perkoff's meditations on the Hebrew alphabet that could serve as a credo for his art and the poetry he succeeded in writing and to which I still aspire. I give his short meditation on the 7th letter of that alphabet, given for a 7th day of resplendent wholeness where all is coherence, where all is meant to make things cohere. From warship to worship is the path.
One last thing: I offer this poem as solace to my dear dear friend Ed Weiss, awaiting the surgeon's word about his 41-year-old son. Nothing, Ed, can make me regret (for longer than a forsaken instant) this birth into the life we have shared together and share forever.
David
P.S. It is an honor to be a scribe this morning.
FEASTS OF DEATH, FEASTS OF LOVE
I
1.
down the Wolf River
backs to the sun thru water shallow & flat
beautiful girls & boys
the birds wing tip to tip
swinging thru & around
calling, calling
we carried city eyes
over the rushing water
the stunned vision of scene after changing
scene
expanding & including
as our shouts & grunts & songs
wailed outward
(I had to get out, once, & push the canoe from behind, my
body from the ankles up was hot, sweaty, sun gleaming, my
feet cool in the river, lifting & pushing the heavy canoe.
I thought the others wd get too far ahead, & we wd be lost,
off in the Wisconsin woods, where there were neithers Jews nor
cities, a world hot & in winter my feet wd be like encased in
the cement of the river, & the canoe wd never be pushed over
the flat scrapey sand.)
the river movement
coiled around our eyes
the quiet sound of the breathing of work
set the beat
of our songs
2.
The next year we took a different trip, out Lake Tomahawk
& an adjacent lake, I don't remember which one. In that part
of Wisconsin the lakes lay on the land like a thousand eyes,
peering into & thru each other.
from lake to lake
between two mountains
all blue green quiet movement water
in the air & eye
the huge walls rising
a great grass field
covered the inlet
& the canoes went thru
as over land, it looked
so quiet
rustling of grass
the soft voices
hot beautiful girls & boys
hot beautiful summer day
II
1.
wake up! to a morning
sun shining thru even newspaper
headlines
sun on
men in sand wading thru
blood
"Woe
woe unto
the bloody city of Litchfield'
he cried
with his bare feet
in the gutters of blood* [*an allusion to Quaker seer George Fox's cries at a vision of a Roman mass execution of Christians conducted in England's town of Litchfield a millennium before]
naked feet
naked legs
naked eyes
into the market place howling
along the streets howling
in the living room
howling
the sun! shining shining
in our eyes
2.
at the edge of the water
the glass house eye of God
embraced us, pure
in white
clean after communal showers
& communal food
'Boruch ataw Adonai
Elohenu melech ha'olam
ha'motzi lechem
min ha'awritz'
reverberating thru the food
the eyes
the air out out into many rhythms
& tongues
sitting on the benches, bodies warm & throats filled with
joy & love
we offered worship
sitting warm to warm, eyes & skin touching, love flowing
we offered worship
we sang
& spoke languages & poems
offered worship & love
mixing the birds of passion & the swords of God
in our beautiful young eyes
It wd always be dark by the time the services were over.
& secure, in the glass house, lit by the God that shined all our
faces, the burning candles of love in our bodies, sharing the
glow outward to trees & wind. & the youngest kids went to
their cabin while the older ones had a dance, & carried on
love affairs & intrigues & political arguments until 11:30, when
the boys walked the joyous road back to their portion of the camp,
singing & shouting, clean & alive.
By the time the Saturday morning services were over, we
were so full & whole that anything was possible.
3. political song
the people circle the room
coming together
the blood circles the body
coming together
the earth circles the sun
coming together
hang on, man
as it
wobbles around
hand to hand
as it
wobbles around
o living communities
men & women who love & are loved
o living bodies
men & women who love & are loved
O loving cities
men & women who live & are lived
eat
drink
embrace
each
other
inner
face
III
1.
I see clothes piled in great heaps
against gray sky
with the smoke & sun in the air
of human flesh
& in the pockets of those beasts
who wear my name
things of value jingle & clank
in those black pockets
teeth & eyes & skulls & skin
in those black pockets
there are bodies
naked
not talking of love
in their last waters
naked
not talking of love
naked hunger
naked hatred
naked minds
howling in the crowded boxcars
howling in the dark barracks
howling in the hot showers
howling & whimpering in the final chambers
silent in the furnaces
2.
such visions
wove their shroudeyes
thru our songs
such knowledge
blackened the edge
of every flame
each kiss
bittered with the salt
of their blood
(Many summers later I hitchhiked over a thousand miles
back to the Wisconsin holy lakes, to speak anguish to a wise
man, seeking comfort, seeking peace.
& we sat outside under a fat moon, at the edge of an open
field of grass, scenes of love & myth echoing in my mind.
I asked him why the six million had died. I thought somehow,
this man, an Aronin, descendant of the first & holiest priests of
Israel, humble seekers & generous fountain of love, wd have
an insight, a knowledge, a hope.
God's plan? If there had not been such blood & terror on
his mouth, he wd have laughed. & told me he had no answer,
no peace. & told me of the many nites & days he had fasted &
prayed.
& found nothing?
found only hope that came from the realisation of the
cleansing & purification of pain.
Whose? I, so young, so bitter, so needing an answer, sd
whose? good for their sould? or ours! so bitter, so young,
such needs.)
even now
it is difficult for me to fix in my eyes
the image of
the God/Priest
lifting sin from the souls of the people
my soul, my sin
clothing these six million in my sins
& thrusting them in their foreign wrappings
into the flaming mouths of agony
IV
when the sun dies
many other suns will still flame
all things contain the seeds
of their own completion
all seeds contain the things
of their own destruction
the sun
makes a morning
bright descending on hooded eyes
the sun's morning
floods into the sands of war
wake up
hang on
coming together
coming together
coming together
--Stuart Z. Perkoff, Voices of the Lady: Collected Poems, National Poetry Foundation, 1998, pages 171-8.
ZAYEEN
the sound of a dropped
bomb, before it
hits, the long high shriek
piercing the air, opening the
air, before the earth
is erupted
is not language
the sound enormous exploding
fragmenting, the stroke of the scream
definite, given, the point of
culmination
is not language
language demands
connections, delicate structures
must be firm
at the core
its arithmetical number is 7
--Stuart Z. Perkoff, Voices of the Lady; Collected Poems, National Poetry Foundation, 1998, p. 80
posted by David Federman @ 8:23 AM
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