July 2016
Irving Feldman
feldman@buffalo.edu
feldman@buffalo.edu
I retired from the SUNY Buffalo English Department in 2004. Have published a dozen or so collections of poems. Such my addiction to the sport of squash racquets my headstone is to read: "ONE MORE GAME?" See more of my poems HERE.
Outrage is Anointed by Levity
- or -
Two Laureates A-Lunching
"How can one write poetry after Auschwitz?"
inquired Adorno... "And how can one eat lunch?"
the American poet Mark Strand once retorted.
In any case, the generation to which I belong
has proven capable of writing that poetry.
-Joseph Brodsky in "Uncommon Visage," his 1987 Nobel lecture.
In any case, (or, as our comedians say,
"But seriously, folks"), has Adorno's question
been disposed of, interred beneath the poems
written since Auschwitz?—rather than raised again
and again like a ghost by each of them?
In any case, one would like very much to know
how one can eat one's lunch after Auschwitz.
Can you tell me that, please?
NOT, let it be said, fearfully
Certainly NOT despairingly
Therefore NOT painfully
NOT forgodsakes starvingly
NOT weepingly
NOT resignedly
NOT, please, horribly, hideously, moribundly!
HOWEVER, should one, bizarrely, encounter
difficulty in eating lunch after Auschwitz,
one can do it in the following manner:
First of all, HEARTILY and CHUCKINGLY, as an example of good health, infectious optimism,
faith in humanity.
Then LOVINGLY, SAVORINGLY, to show one is lovable, always a delight to
observe.
And CHARMINGLY, assuring one's food of one's civil intentions. Then it
will wish to be consumed by one.
And CONVIVIALLY, since company always adds zest, even to a menu of sawdust.
But also LANGUIDLY and as if POORMOUTHINGLY, not to attract the attentions
of the envious or the merely hungry.
Yet INNOCENTLY, because like, man, I didn't do it--I mean, I wasn't even
there!
Which is to say, FEELINGFULLY, because one has feelings—doesn't everyone?
And so, RETORTINGLY, even QUIPPINGLY, and (seriously folks) RIGHTEOUSLY,
since poets must keep up their strength if they are to prove capable of
of writing poems "after Auschwitz," being mindful of the mindlessness
everywhere about them, for it is their singular task to promulgate the
deepest human agendas.
And therefore, GENEROUSLY, since one is eating (whether they know it or not)
for others, for civilization itself.
One is (to put it in a nutshell) lunching for Auschwitz.
*
"And how can one eat lunch" after Auschwitz?
High, high is the noble dais where godlings sup
and from hog heaven splat down their pearls on us.
So outrage is anointed by levity.
So levity is solemnized for the world.
And all we shall know of apocalypse
is not the shattering that follows but
brittleness before, the high mindlessness, the quips.
*
This
poem
doesn't silence
silence
one or the other--this poem
or silence--interrogates
one or the other
how can one
how could you
silence
every all
the voices
—this page
I write and
the silent
who couldn't cannot
whom silence
and I
cannot what nevertheless
I nevertheless
how can I
write
this poem silence
doesn't interdict
only has made
impossible
this poem
asks
how could you
how can you
silence asks
this poem
unable to answer
silence
unable
and yet writes
the silence
out
Psalm
There is no singing without God.
Words sound in air, mine
are flying, their wombs empty.
Whining for the living weight, they bear
themselves, a din of echoes,
and vanish: a subsiding
noise, a flatulence, a nothing
that stinks.
The glory of man shall fly away like a bird
— no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.
A people dies intestate, its benediction
lost. And the future succeeds, unfathered,
a mute, responding to no sign,
foraging its own fields at night,
hiding by day.
Withheld in the unuttered
blessing, God labors, and is not born.
But if I enter, vanished bones
of the broken temple, lost people,
and go in the sanctum of the scattered
house, saying words like these,
forgive — my profaneness is
insufferable to me — and bless, make fertile
my words, give them a radiant burden!
Do not deny your blessing, speak to us.
- or -
Two Laureates A-Lunching
"How can one write poetry after Auschwitz?"
inquired Adorno... "And how can one eat lunch?"
the American poet Mark Strand once retorted.
In any case, the generation to which I belong
has proven capable of writing that poetry.
-Joseph Brodsky in "Uncommon Visage," his 1987 Nobel lecture.
In any case, (or, as our comedians say,
"But seriously, folks"), has Adorno's question
been disposed of, interred beneath the poems
written since Auschwitz?—rather than raised again
and again like a ghost by each of them?
In any case, one would like very much to know
how one can eat one's lunch after Auschwitz.
Can you tell me that, please?
NOT, let it be said, fearfully
Certainly NOT despairingly
Therefore NOT painfully
NOT forgodsakes starvingly
NOT weepingly
NOT resignedly
NOT, please, horribly, hideously, moribundly!
HOWEVER, should one, bizarrely, encounter
difficulty in eating lunch after Auschwitz,
one can do it in the following manner:
First of all, HEARTILY and CHUCKINGLY, as an example of good health, infectious optimism,
faith in humanity.
Then LOVINGLY, SAVORINGLY, to show one is lovable, always a delight to
observe.
And CHARMINGLY, assuring one's food of one's civil intentions. Then it
will wish to be consumed by one.
And CONVIVIALLY, since company always adds zest, even to a menu of sawdust.
But also LANGUIDLY and as if POORMOUTHINGLY, not to attract the attentions
of the envious or the merely hungry.
Yet INNOCENTLY, because like, man, I didn't do it--I mean, I wasn't even
there!
Which is to say, FEELINGFULLY, because one has feelings—doesn't everyone?
And so, RETORTINGLY, even QUIPPINGLY, and (seriously folks) RIGHTEOUSLY,
since poets must keep up their strength if they are to prove capable of
of writing poems "after Auschwitz," being mindful of the mindlessness
everywhere about them, for it is their singular task to promulgate the
deepest human agendas.
And therefore, GENEROUSLY, since one is eating (whether they know it or not)
for others, for civilization itself.
One is (to put it in a nutshell) lunching for Auschwitz.
*
"And how can one eat lunch" after Auschwitz?
High, high is the noble dais where godlings sup
and from hog heaven splat down their pearls on us.
So outrage is anointed by levity.
So levity is solemnized for the world.
And all we shall know of apocalypse
is not the shattering that follows but
brittleness before, the high mindlessness, the quips.
*
This
poem
doesn't silence
silence
one or the other--this poem
or silence--interrogates
one or the other
how can one
how could you
silence
every all
the voices
—this page
I write and
the silent
who couldn't cannot
whom silence
and I
cannot what nevertheless
I nevertheless
how can I
write
this poem silence
doesn't interdict
only has made
impossible
this poem
asks
how could you
how can you
silence asks
this poem
unable to answer
silence
unable
and yet writes
the silence
out
Psalm
There is no singing without God.
Words sound in air, mine
are flying, their wombs empty.
Whining for the living weight, they bear
themselves, a din of echoes,
and vanish: a subsiding
noise, a flatulence, a nothing
that stinks.
The glory of man shall fly away like a bird
— no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.
A people dies intestate, its benediction
lost. And the future succeeds, unfathered,
a mute, responding to no sign,
foraging its own fields at night,
hiding by day.
Withheld in the unuttered
blessing, God labors, and is not born.
But if I enter, vanished bones
of the broken temple, lost people,
and go in the sanctum of the scattered
house, saying words like these,
forgive — my profaneness is
insufferable to me — and bless, make fertile
my words, give them a radiant burden!
Do not deny your blessing, speak to us.
©2016 Irving Feldman