Yiddish

Then.Always then.

Voodoo tongue of the dispossessed,

The unpossessable.

Here,in exile,somewhere,

The dog lies buried.

Smallpox and measles

We have already had.

And you-who are you?

With you I herded pigs?


Into the dying man’s open mouth

The Angel of Death tosses

A gall-drop from his sword-tip

To finish off the job.


Grousing and kvetching and lamenting

Are my only joys on earth-

What divine mercy there is

In bitter protests and furious curses!

All this flailing at shadows

And straining at stool...

Gut-groan rises like a prayer,

A klezmer note,

A rush of breath.


Six hundred and thirteen commandments

And a lifetimeto fall short!

From under the tombstone tongue

Arises a ghost-kaddish.

Controversies within quarrels

Within disputes within debates

Are the stuff of me-

Endless bellyache.

The dybbuk will never let me go.

Every right is wrong.

Disharmony-my mother tongue!

Bury me with my nouns,

Let me turn into my proper name.

Oh I have so much to argue about,

And I shall take my time,like the Messiah.

Nine hundred and thirty kinds of death

Are lining up to give me their business cards.