Jerome Rothenberg: Six Likht variations, with 'Snakes & Stones' (a poem in progress)
[Written in the process of reading Mikhl Likht’s Protsesiye/Processions along with the translation from Yiddish by Ariel Resnikoff & Stephen Ross, while following the procedures set earlier in The Lorca Variations. A tribute both to Likht & to his language.]
Wandering in the wasteland
I saw the snakes smile
their dusty skins
in convulsions
of laughter.
(M.L., “Legend”)
1/
the weak reproach
of someone’s membranes
painted yellow
dust kicked up
by snakes
whose pale eyes
match your own
what schemes
we live with
face to face
the mould
of years
the blood
of tyrants
& the fire
cleansing them
of doubts
Pan plays for them
brutes that the sun
rains down on
that the time allows
they slide
& slither
from the bottom up
2 /
snake
skins
that the dust
entombs
the wasteland
covers
legends
grow apace
convulsions
rise
& laughter
matters
3/
atop a mountain
stones
are hammered down
stone after stone
the sun
ignites the air
a carnival
atop a mountain
in a show
with wagging
tongues
stones touching stones
& casting shadows
stones in heaps
the luck of brothers
binding brothers
fire in the sky
a heap of stones
& how a hammer
raised aloft
can signal
joy
4/
are sorrows
carmine colored
like a kiss
squeezed tight
with tongs
a kiss or something
hot inside
our mouths
a ritual of blood
driving all creatures
mad –
even you
5/
her breast
comes open
spilling dust
& rust
around her
skinny virgin
whom a genie
fills with love
the gods
with hate –
their salutations
stiffen her
leaving her prey
to what they aim at her
down to the basest
offal
6/
delight
in blueness
or in scum
that flows
from hollows
there is magic
in the place
where blades glint
hopes still live
deep in the vortex
the long stretches
air so thick within
it loses
any rhythm
in the season’s calm
a yellowness
of air
we cut through
with a pair
of hatchets
somnambulism
guides us
lethargy returns
a zephyr floating
overhead
something to envy
skulls that time
has left behind
chameleons
with diamonds
on their bellies
yiddish symphonies
up from the depths
its waters
bursting
from a stone
they practice
immobility
grass covers earth
like scales
or wings
one thought
a thousand
movements
forced vibrations
in the sea
a hatchet
clatters down
dispersing points
of dust
& sand
a plane
above us
diving
down
& out
16.i.14
Poems and poetics