Jerome Rothenberg
Poems
As poet and experimental
translator, pioneer in performance poetry and ethnopoetics,
Jerome Rothenberg for over three decades has been
a literary radical and prominent influence in the
American avant-garde.
Dibbukim
(Dibbiks)
spirits
of the dead lights
flickering
(he said) their ruakh
will
never leave the earth
instead
they crowd the forests the fields
around
the privies the hapless spirits
wait
millions of souls
turned
into ghosts at once
the
air is full of them
they
are standing each one beside a tree
under
its shadows or the moon’s
but
they cast no shadows of their own
this
moment & the next they are pretending
to
be rocks but who is fooled
who
is fooled here by the dead the jews
the
gypsies the leadeyed
polish patriot
living
beings reduced to symbols
of
what it had been to be alive
“o
do not touch them” the mother cries
fitful,
as almost in a dream
she
draws the child’s hand to her heart
in
terror but the innocent dead
grow
furious they break down doors
drop
slime onto your tables
they
tear their tongues out by the roots
& smear your lamps
your children’s lips
with
blood a hole drilled in the wall
will
not deter them
from
stolen homes stone architectures
they
hate they are the convoys of the dead
the
ghostly drivers still searching
the
roads to malkin ghost carts overturned
ghost
autos in blue ditches
if
only our eyes were wild enough
to
see them our hearts to know their terror
the
terror of the man who walks alone
their
victim whose house whose skin
they
crawl in incubus
& succubus
a
dibbik leaping from a cow to lodge inside
his
throat clusters
of jews
who
swarm here mothers without hair
blachbearded
fathers
they
lap up fire water
slime
entangle
the hairs of brides
or
mourn their clothing hovering
over
a field of rags half-rotted
shoes
& tablecloths old thermos bottles
rings
lost
tribes in empty synagogues
at
night their voices
carrying
across the fields
to
rot your kasha your barley
stricken
beneath their acid rains
no
holocaust because no sacrifice
no
sacrifice to give the lie
of
meaning & no meaning after auschwitz
there
is only poetry no hope
no
other language left to heal
no
language & no faces
because
no faces left no names
no
sudden recognitions on the street
only
the dead still swarming
only khurbn
a
dead man in a rabbi’s clothes
who
squats outside the mortuary
house
who
guards their privies who is called
master
of shit
an old alarm clock
hung
around his neck
who holds
a
wreath of leaves under his nose
from
“the
stinking odor of this world”
Nokh
Aushvits (After
the
poem is ugly & they make it uglier
wherein
the power recides
that
when
listening that evening to the other poet read
he
said “that was pure
ugliness” & oh it was
it
was & it made
my heart skip a beat
because
the poem would’t allow it
no
not
a moment’s grace nor beauty to obstruct
whatever
the age demanded or the poem
shit
poured on wall & floor
sex
shredded genitals torn
looses by dog claws
& the ugliness
that you were to suffer
later that they had
suffered
not
as dante dreamed it but in the funnel
they
ran through & that the others called
the
road to heaven little hills
& holes now
& beneath upon among them
broken
mirrors kettles pans enameled teapots
the
braided candlesticks of sabbath
prayershawl
scraps & scraps of bodies
bones
his
child’s he said leaping
into
the mud the pool of bones
& slime
the frail limbs separating
each
time he pulls at one
the mystery of body
not
a mystery bodies naked then bodies
boned
& rotten how he must
fight
his
rage for beauty must make a poem
so
ugly it can drive out the other voices
like
artaud’s squawk the poem addressed
to
ugliness must resist
even
the artistry of death
a stage set
at
treblinka ticket windows a large clock
the
signs that read: change for
but
the man cries who has seen
the
piles of clothing
jews
it
is not good it is your own sad meat
that
hangs here poor & bagged like animals
the
blood cogulated into a jell
an
armpit through which a ventricle has burst
& left him dangling
screaming
a
raw prong stuck through his tongue
another
through his scrotal sac
he sees
a
mouth a hole a red hole
the
scarlet remnants of the children’s flesh
their
eyes like frozen baby scallops
so
succulent that the blond ukrainian guard
sulking
beneath is parasol leaps up
& sucks them inward
past his iron teeth
& down his gullet,
shitting
globules
of fat & shit
that
trickle down the pit in which the victim –
the
girl without a tongue – stares up
& reads her final
heartbreak
Visions
of Jesus
Let’s
say it was Jesus. Who is Jesus? Why should Jesus
be the
name
now
celebrated, entering the poem?
Or let’s say it wasn’t.
That I have a key to make it open
like
a sound. Each sound’s a rage.
Each
page a turning over.
I am writing this
the
way a preacher speaks the word out on a prairie.
Visions
of Jesus everywhere.
Sweet Jesus, says the
song, to which the mind says
archly,
darkly, “sour Jesus,”
& the poem begins
with that.
Pink
Jesus.
Tiny Jesuses
on
every bush, the world of sagebrush now a world
of tiny
Jesuses.
Soft
Jesus maybe.
(Is there a sexual appearsion in it
or
only another way of saying “tender Jesus”?)
Jesus in
with
his beard cut off. A weepy girl
named
Jesus. She opens up her breast,
the
moon pops out. O menses, colored glass
& papers, birds
with messages
of
love, tra la, on metal wings. His other name
is
Rollo, Baby Winchester
or
Baby Love. Jesus with a cow’s head
on
his shoulders, candles reaching from
his
fingertips. Jesus in his one-eyed ford.
Squawk squawk, the
preacher cries.
Eyes
of the congregation turning white. The pinwheel
shooting
sparks against his lap.
Jesus
in furs.
Jesus in
growing
old.
Hot
& glowing Jesus.
Jesus on the ace of hearts.
Alfalfa
Jesus.
I am writing this the
way a gambler cuts his name
into
the table. Jesus in formica.
Drinking in the morning,
playing coon-can
with
his brother James.
Other
names of Jesus.
Jesus
H. Jones or Jesus in the woodpile.
Tomtom Jesus.
Jesus
who aims a bullet down his mouth.
His children hang his
body from a cross.
Three
Jesuses in
Three
in Tishmingo.
Jesus buried in
His suffering has left
their bodies
empty.
In the night sky past
Jesus becomes his pain
& flies,
aiming
to leave his eyes for others.
Mother Jesus.
Her children have forsaken
her.
She learns to cry &
plays
nightly
at mah jong, dropping her tiles
into
the bottomless lake.
The man who chews his
wrists down to the bone
is
also Jesus. Jesus
in
a feathered skull cap. Tacking stars
onto
his vest, o cockeyed Jesus,
wanderer
from
he
squawks the language of the little merchants,
squatting
at their campfire he stirs
their
coffee with his tool. How like his grandfather
he
has become. Coyote Jesus.
Farting in the sweat
lodge, tight
against
his buttons
in
the bride’s room.
Jesus. Pawnee
Jesus.
He is staring at the
eyes of Jesus
staring
into his.
Their eyeballs spin
around
like
planets.
Visions
of Jesus everywhere.
Gambler
Jesus.
Banker
Jesus.
Flatfoot
Jesus with a floy floy.
Jesus
shuffling.
The soldiers guard
his silent fan,
tacked
up, beside his rattle.
Jesus
on the pavement.
Jesus
shot
for love, the powpow over,
naked,
crawling toward you,
vomit
on his beard. His father’s milk
in
dribbling – plin plin – in the cup
called
Jesus. Ghosts
unhook
the breast plate, draw
two
streams of milk out,
mix
them, opening
the
mother’s womb. No midwife
comes
to her, she gives birth
like
a man, & holds him
in
a dream. Old song
erupting
in the gourd dance,
in
the storefront church
at
night, among the hapless
armies.
Two plus two is
Jesus.
Five is Jesus.
Jesus in Okarchie,
driving.
Jesus in his one-eyed ford,
arriving
for the dance in Barefoot.
Visions
of Jesus everywhere.
Jesus wrapped up in
a woman’s shawl.
Jesus in a corner,
stroking
his tight body.
Masturbating
Jesus.
Jesus
sucking on a ball of fat.
There is no language
left for him to speak,
only
the humming in his chest,
a
rush of syllables
like
honey. Pouring
from
every orifice, the voice
of
renegades & preachers
without
words.
Pink Jesuses in
emerging
with the spring.
Catfish
Jesuses.
A beetle with the face
of Jesus
scribbled
on its back, squashed flat
against
the dance floor.
Jesus
squawking with the voice of angels.
I am writing this the
way a man speaks without words.
Wordless in the light
he pulls
out
of his mouth. In the holes he hides in.
Wordless
in praises.
Wordless in peyote.
Wordless
in hellos & hallelujahs.
The freaky Jew slips
in beside
his
bride, asleep forever, counts up bears
& cadillacs
under
a leaky sky.
A
Flower Cantata
1
he
weaves his flowers into flower words,
a
flower song beginning
that
will become a flower word song
or
will become a root song,
song
root flowers at his beckoning
inside
a house of flowers,
a
flower world,
plumed
flowers adrift
on
flower drums
the
fathers would call delicious flowers
2
she
who would walk with pleasure flowers
would
shake a flower rattle
in
a house where flower copal burned,
where
there was flower mist below the gates,
where
flower rain fell down,
the
sound of flower water
circled
among the water flowers,
silent
flowers,
beside
the serpent flowers,
someone
announced a paradise of flowers
3
here
is a flower brilliance,
here
where the mind forms turquoise flowers,
binds
them in flower garlands,
turquoise
swanlike flowers,
here
where the bellbird flowers cry,
where
the parrot flowers light a way for you,
here
is a road of pink swan flowers,
a road of green swan water flowers,
the
ruined flowers you walk among
in
dreams, the lines of dead dry flowers
4
weeping
flowers tears they hide behind
sad
flowers
that
are weeping, weeping flowers
they
would call flowers of bereavement
in
the night, the drizzling flowers
are
overwhelmed by flower sighs,
sad
flower jewels stuck under their skins,
before
the golden flowers have come to life
& hummed like darkness
flowers,
the
metal warriors of flower death
5
war
flowers that draw us into war
awaken
the knife death flowers for us
before
the flower war deaths start,
we
wait here among honeyed flowers
the
drunken flowers that surround our hearts
like
holy flowers
or
the green swan cacao flowers of the fathers,
are
there raven flowers there or flower ravens?
eagle
& jaguar flowers?
or
are there flower eagles, flower jaguars, flower
ravens,
chrome black ice
blue flame red flowers?
6
sulfur
flowers that turn into eagle flowers
or
white lead flowers that turn into chalk & feather
flowers
flower
banners hanging in a field of sapphire flowers
or
flower painting buzzing like electric flowers
or like
knifelike
yellow flowers
that turn into
lightning
flowers
while
the fathers blow flower conch horns that explode
like
sonic flowers
or
flower water conch horns that turn into siren flowers
in
the sleep of yellow flowers urgent & muted
like narcotic
flowers
flower
floods under a bridge of angel flowers
or
plume flood flowers that turn into moon & planet
flowers
7
my
eye watches a world of flower fish
in
which fish flowers shimmer,
laughing
flowers in water kingdoms,
swimming
toward flower pleasures,
these
turn into flowers of the sun,
the
true creation flowers
that
are feather flowers in the daylight,
spirit
flowers when the moon comes out
& turns them into
flower ghosts
the
fathers would call immortal feather flowers
Published by arrangement
with the author
(Poems are taken from:
Jerome Rothenberg. Khurbn
& Other Poems. New Directions, 1989)
© Jerome Rothenberg,
1989