Jerome Rothenberg and Ariel Resnikoff

'A Poem Beginning with Two Lines by Likht' (in English and Yiddish)

[Author’s Note:“A lid vos heybt on mit tsvey shuros fun likhtn”(“A Poem Beginning with Two Lines from Likht”) is a translingual epistolary experiment and collaborative double-iteration between English and Yiddish poetic tongues. Mikhl Likht (1893–1953), our radical Yiddish modernist ancestor (New York and “Objectivist” based) calls out from the interstices of an expanded-Yiddish praxis, coaxing our poem into the the wor(l)d with two lines from his “poem-of-a-life,” Protsestiyes (Processions). With Likht as our key precedent for a contemporary poetics on the Yiddish-English translational threshold, we traverse in this work the semipermeable borders between our doubling mother tongues, looping these languages through one another and back again, in the form of a highly adaptive poetic boomerang (to use a metaphor Likht employed) that returns from the “other side” of the linguistic threshold already changed. This work is forthcoming in 2019 in “an anthology of innovative multilingual New York writing,” edited by Bob Holman and Patricio Ferrari. What follows here of course is our doubly composed English/Yiddish poem in its two linguistic iterations. (A.R. and J.R.)]

 

a poem beginning with two lines by likht


Ascent to the paradise of hearing, breath(e) hell
on the moulding of the dreamt ladder —
 

like dirt                                                                                                                                                    
between our teeth

the smell of
words

angry &
bare

smacks of the streets                                                                                                                                   
they come from

​where ​new & old                                                                                                                                  
wares we sold            

​out to genteel tongues,                                                                                                                                     

dried & pickled 

in casks   what                                                                                                                                                                     we drink first

taints our mouths,                                                                                                                               

but fails to raise us 

further    once
the dream explodes

in shatnes smells &
boiling treyf

over noodles                                                                                                                                                      

on the stove

a pork tongues                                                                                                                                                       

prayer & catfish

proverb carries                                                                                                                                         

smell of distant

holes & hovels
men in fur-trimmed hats

& cracked galoshes                                                                                                                                                       in pools of hot-cold

bathing babes                                                                                                                                               

emerge toyvl’d

& ruddy
in muddy

streets
oh little angels

arms slashed                                                                                                                                                                  

at the wrists

opening their jaws                                                                                                                                                                

& craws

in klezmer chorus
to what murder follows

four crows gather                                                                                                                                         

& glean

                                                     
w gentile-zionist                                                                                                                                 

beaks, 

not dreamt
– never never –

far from any home
the home boy

can confess to                                                                                                                                                

in the star-struck

fabled town                                                                                                                                                                      

the first, the last shaygetz

​alive surviving                                                                                                                                             

in basement-attics

on leaves of zhargon                                                                                                                                    

alone 

​w/ nowhere out                                                                                                                                                ​

but the sky 

I too                                                                                                                                                                                  & you

in late or latterday                                                                                                                                                          imaginings                                                                                                                                                       

to make a new                                                                                                                                               supreme surreal

& lonely (only)                                                                                                                                            

jewish vaudeville

the archipelago actors                                                                                                                                  

we cast in 

red string                                                                                                                                                             across a chain-link stage   

their teeth & tongues                                                                                                                          

wading in 

mad galician mud                                                                                                                              

brought wholesale

onto second avenue                                                                                                                                        

& kingdoms west

a world of cafeterias                                                                                                                                       

& stinky fishheads

scratchy records bouncing                                                                                                                              

on their scratchy phonographs

from which the fathers fled                                                                                                                    

leaving a residue behind.

 

A LID VOS HEYBT ON MIT TSVEY SHURES FUN LIKHTN

 

“kleter in geher-gan-eden, otem-gehenem

oyf di laystlekh fun dem oysgetroymtn layter —”

 

vi shmutz

tsvishn undzere tseyn

 

dem geruf fun

verter

 

in ka’as

un naket

 

shmokst fun di gasn

fun vanen zey kimen

 

vu naye un alte

skhures mir hobn farkoyft

 

oyf eydele tsungen        

geshpont un aynge’esigte

 

in feslen vos

mir trinkn ershtns

 

trayft undzere moyln

nor farfelt undz oyf-tsu-shteln

 

vayter amol

platst oyf dem troym

 

in shatnez gerukh

zidndikn trayf            

 

iber lokshn

oyfn oyven

 

a khazer tsung               

tfile un kats-fish

 

 

shprikhvort shlept

a gerukh fun vayte

 

griber un khatkes

mener in shtraymlekh

 

un geshponte kaloshn     

in baysenen fun heys-kaltn

 

gebodnen bobeles     

kimt aroys getoyvlt

 

un roytlekh

in geblotikte

 

gasn

oy kleyne melokhim    

 

arms tsugeshnaydet

oyfn hand-gelenken

 

ofenen dem kinbakn

un krofn       

 

in klezmer khor

tsu vos hareyge geyt nokh

 

fir kroen zamln ayn

un klaybn

 

mit ivanziuniyes       

shnoblen

 

nit getroymt

– keyn mol nit –

 

vayt funem heym

der heym-bokher  

 

ken zikh bavayzn

dem shtern-geshlogtn

 

gefabltn shtot

dem ershtns un letsn shaygets 

 

khay lebt iber

in unterstn-boydem

 

fun zshargon-bleter

aleyn

 

avek in ergetz nit oys

nor himl

 

ikh oykhet,

un du

 

in der nokh oder nokhteglekh

fantaziyes        

 

tsu makhn a nayem

hekhstn suril                

 

un eynzam nor

yidishn vodvil

 

di arkhipeligos aktiyorn

hobn mir gevorfnt

 

in royte tsvirn

ariber a kaytikn geshtelt

 

zeyere tsyen un tsungn

durkhgeyn in

 

meshugenen galitsianern bloteh

geshlept in groys

 

in sekent avenu

un malkhus vest      

 

a gantse velt fun kafeteries

un geshtunkenen fishkep

 

geritsene rekordirungen zikh berimen

oyf zeyere geritsene fonografs

 

fun vanen di tatn hobn geflien

gelozn iber an obzats