And now her here, alone, too, if alive and with her son about midday with the drying and the washing of the dishes still to do and the cooking she has, too, with Hanna’s landrover one of three of their cars the other two you wouldn’t believe what they cost, always it’s leaking oil in the driveway below there’s a stain and as she looks out the window it looks like what else, who else’s face stained — and a hungry an always hung thirsty Rosenkrantz with a honeyed tongue gilding away raw at a nipple.
And yet somewhere outside this Ghetto, tonight, we live, somehow we’ve survived.
Our kinder have been born into a reduxed Golden Age, haven’t they, a new, quietleafed looparound added onto the Development’s annex: into a veritable Pax Americanus, in which Affiliation let’s say’s not only acceptable, OK (a world leftover from the War, the World one I mean, the Second), but also maybe admirable, in fashion, trendy…minorities overcoming obstacles, and good media coverage on that from inmost city to outmost Nowhere, this State truly Godforefutzed; pride in Them, in Us, succeeding, majority at large aiding its minority in rediscovering roots, and in reviving old practices…alienation as entrance, and so why not taking pride in that in an enriching, pluralistic, aren’t-we-so-damned-Demoncratic sense, with us and I mean Us attempting to barrierbreak, to cross borders until the only barriers we’ll ever break again, the only borders we’ll ever hope to cross, will just be those of our own creative erection — and who to apologize to after that? But what’s the alternative? Storms trooping death? That’s not what we want, is it? But that’s how we shine, how we thrive, how we’ve stayed alive all these sufferings — and perhaps even asking for it all the while, Who forbid, inviting It into our houses, our homes: ask and thou shalt receive, ask for the worse and thou shalt receive the worst, and the line for complaints, it forms to the Links.
Every year on the month on the day on the hour, the kinder — ours — begin the slow massing rebellion, the perpetual revolution of every generation since…we all remember, are O so diligent about doing so, never forget our remembering — here in our Development, here in our planned settlement, our subdivided encampment, at the edge, the furthest division most sub, and at night, they meet one another (weather permitting), amid the huddled park woods, in caves of their own dream, of their own industry, each others’ invention: tented bedsheets, clothespiled closets not yet redone for spring, and there discuss, question themselves deep into the programmed, inwired anarchy of their Religion, if religion it is, their ratty Race an anarchy that is its only true lifeforce, its only true meaning, and forceful — as natured nature from naturing nature as it’s said, they refuse to inherit ideas, they deny them, the traditions and the idealistically sacred the yadda and blah, how much they’re hesitant to revive them, to graft them on…what; to impose them upon even a quiet time, on lives that ring evermore empty, founding Paradise in the air.
But no, most won’t. Wishful thinking. Anything but.
Most will just be born into professions and marriages already vetted by their Parents, your Parent’s Friends, our Stockbrokers, and God, becoming Fathers & Mothers they’ll never kill because that would mean above all their own destruction, ours, yours, mine — and then, we’ll be mourned in the midst of the Congregation, donations to be offered in our memory: denominations of $18, 36, 54, 72 to be accepted to whichever fund best describes the limitations of your grief — like how much is your loss worth?
And our sons and our daughters will say Kaddish. But who’s to judge?
And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence.
Parshat Vayigash, “And then he went up…” (Genesis 45:3)
from the Torah portion read on the Shabbat of the birth of Benjamin Israelien
Punchlines
IS HERE JOSEPH.
And this is where it all ends America with me Joseph ben you don’t know him numbered much like God I don’t need a last name with everyone now ignoring enough of these no more of these recreations no more redactions reinterpretations reinventions revisions these stories resorted then shuffled restored and then footnoted endnoted gorged upon gore how I’m tired London so tired I’m Amsterdamned Avenue dead soon enough tired it’s funny like ha ha funny is here enough genug of these no more lives how I’m Big in Yisgadal Ben vyiskadah and the shemay of the gables rabah the East River canals like Venice the Ghettolocked Venezia I imagined shy but cold in an irongray windyday Italian overcoat my father had lent me for death a size too small I’d starve into it by the time we’d left the station finally Köln — Deutz 1941 I remember it as if it were they came for us with the trains the Gaugauge waiting late at the station at you say Cologne where I was born 1918 into Poland lost in the Ostlast time I kissed my eyes at the girls from Merl and the family Frank and the families Frankel and my own Mutter and father in his serge suit as dark as this Harlempark this stark Washington the Heights of yo mommamuthermutta they’re dealing what on the corner crack crank what’s the diff the girls ask the chola bodega glow O the malts and the sewer-waft smokestink gunfire knifefire the Dolchstoss the Dolchfuss the Dolfmess all this tummler noise and the roil of the Carnival Trade Fair Grounds in our muster to the A train with its circular blue and the triangular yellow Q the gelbgelded star above you can’t what with the flood of this neon up from Fort Washington the whitewash of that other winter November 19and the civilization of Broadway Brotvey breadway lined two hundred oy so streets Uptown and on into night so untested untried I’m tired of dusk the sunsetting sunsquat I’m sure the Indians once had a word for it better I should mean the feathery kind Habla se hablamos on the Hudson the river the Heights and the low sirenlights of the police the SASSSSSS at the Deutz trainstation at the George Washingtonian busterminal headed across the GWB to Colonia New Jersey from it’s called Quisqueya en el home of the footlong the two for three for a dollar wampum bead bleeding my head Madhattoe a world away from Downtown with its Bialystokers and bagels rung high a moon above the Midtown eau de Cologne from which Poland Amsterdam London I arrived how I’ve arrived George Washington Heights New York City New York State You S A can you see or hear what I’m New World America 1003that’s me you’re dialing my number (212) I forget what I’m trying to answer the phone the television born into reruns in Köln it’d been primetime Cologne eau to you 1918 Amsterdam 1946 London it was the October after November eat your dates hungry your whole grainy black & white bread to leaven the mouth thirsty those pills I can barely live to breathe to speak of the mauscheln the emes mamash flowing through my thermometer arm mercury traintrack veins no more fever this blood no more claim no stories more tattooed on my lips kissing away at the girls from the Lyzeum Esther immer besser the emes the mamash gevalt it’s the Wahrheit I’m after the Wende turned truth as they say it was ultimately Auschwitz if you know it so heaven’s assured if there’s hell I’ve been through it that morning already with the whole family mother and father and me my sister and brother assembled cold in the station the Abfahrtsbanhof Deutz keinen Deut besser als my father proud my mother proud of my father and me in my cabaret coat with my whistles and kisses the signatures we’d never Xd on all those papers the typewriters’ 5’s runic SS key after the percent sign and before the sixth open parenthesis (those Beschlagnahmeverfugung breadlined souplined lists we formed ranks filled columns long and wide how I should take out an advertisement in every major metropolitan daily half page below the fold and in full color the New York Times on your dime but the corner store the tabak sells only the Post or the Daily News El Diario so I can answer my critics café friends students and women advertise Checks Cashed for Gold publicize my asking my tsking tasking in headline Fraktur font the Gothic why datelined rapelined flatlined killed it was murder and history both it was my life what did I know of the religion the race I was just born into it was there that’s that what can I do about it but die I’m dying I’m getting ahead of myself dying I tried all these stories oy those fivestoriedwalkups and drashes makemups shtum poems about gassings and ovens an oeuvre of mass grave lieder and the silence of the weantrained Spanish goats their electrically whistling Mützen ab aria the literature that could be heard even then as far away as Canada Harmenz the FKL and its fictions novels and stories both short long and blackmilk poems by sexless and skirted the issue with the tissues on the desk shredded in the pocket the apple cored black dyedhair glassedin women teaching the inhumanities to shvartzes and Spanish at City College the Hunter crowd the testimonygatherers the witnesscollectors and the Blubo bank with its lawyer-accountantaxes postdue undone never known more pain than a Jesus Christ papercut from all these books upon books one page the Theory & Practice the same as the others six million of them paging pure snow around Auschwitz the Deutz Volksnonsense deustchteutsch the Leute Meute Heute Beute my fedora “Romazova” that matched my schlechtes French the mon ami amour cries of six months before a kiss a hug XOXXOOO for my father’s partners immigrating émigrés as the Russians say their revolution just nextdoor to the Palisades Fort Inwood the Cloistered unicorns with their shofarhorns their tekiah mourn the fluted frolic the trampledtrommel girl’s face of God the woman in the flushed rush to settle in the train the car the box beaten undercrushed footwomen with her Gaugouged girlribs jutting from skin as if fingers with no skin with no nails no more of this graven this craven imagine these by the book violations of the Second Commandment the synagogue’s Decalogue after the first but before the portico third I can’t get any sleep don’t want any sleep don’t have anything left to do or else live renegotiate preferential rents the lead poisoning warnings the beep bleep bleat of the battery for the smokedetector cremating the monoxidebox gassed too with the electricity dead the locks disposed here in my room in a Cross the central length my mattress the arms two nighttables endtables endofnightables whatever no names since my last super quit on my arms no superintendent strength in my legs left table moldy with medication Elderpryl Lacrescriptions extending to eighteen years nine days to the day I never refilled never moved thrownout on my righthand table rightable in its deep winter static the fanatisch fuzz of November December heating not working a light dusting of ice the bunny clumps the clods with a will a newspaper’s page all of dust all the fuss I’m revising it hourly in my head hands don’t work frontpage the headline says Dies at age of blank with the Beobachterback side of a leaflet advertising a sale on patio furniture my Last Will & Testament I leave that’s as far as I’ve gotten I leave