poetry

when things get really bad, think about worse things, i sometimes say.  and the worst song i have ever heard is Papirossen (cigarettes).  So to comfort myself i translated it today from the Yiddish.  It was written by Herman Yablokoff  about a child selling cigarettes on the street around the time of World War I.  Here is the draft:

A foggy cold night
With windows everywhere.

A sad little boy stands
looking all around.
Only a wall protects him

From the pouring rain
He holds a tray in his hand
And his eyes strike every one dumb.

“I have no strength left
to walk around in the street.
Hungry and ragged,
wet from the rain

I drag myself around from dawn,
Nobody helps me earn a thing
Everyone laughs, they mock me.

Come buy, come buy cigarettes

Dry, not wet with rain.

Come buy, cheap, authentic.

Buy and have some mercy on me.
Save me from burning starvation.

Buy some ancient matches
With it you will restore an orphan.
My calls and my running are in vain

From me no one wants to buy

Like a dog I will have to die.

Once I had a sister
A child of nature.

She dragged alongside me
for an entire year.

It was much easier with her around

The hunger was more tolerable
When I would look at her.

Suddenly she became

Weak and very ill

She died in my arms

On a street bench.
And I lost her,
I have been through everything

Let death too come to me already.

Come buy, come buy cigarettes

Dry, not wet with rain.

Come buy, cheap, authentic.

Buy and have some mercy upon me.
Save me from burning starvation.

Buy some ancient matches
With it you will restore an orphan.

 

november 3, 2020 – the saddest song: Papirossen Read Post »

blog

Whatever we think will happen today, if you, like me, are terrified of the world outside, let’s cultivate our garden – inside and out. I think I’m going to stop dreaming about all the places I want to go and make my study an exotic country. And there I will create the Innisfree that Yeats always wanted to go back to but was most of the time somewhere else.

(I just mentioned this to my partner and he exploded – and left the room in the middle of my explanation. So much for nesting.

Up to now we were doing fine together.

All I wanted to do is a tiny bit of remodeling. Tell me – do i have to refrain from painting a tiny wall yellow in order to save my marriage?

p.s. Perhaps one should never write in haste. He just came back and offered to help.

november 3, 2020 – this is the time to nest Read Post »

blog

all day yesterday and today i find myself on zoom – on all kinds of issues.  but the subject keeps coming back to the US elections.  Everyone is terrified.  whatever happens, it’s not good.

but it’s never been good.  Suddenly i remembered that the cousin who enabled our immigration to the US, the democratic senator from Connecticut, Abraham Ribikoff, was called a ‘f— jew’ by Mayor Daly of Chicago during the Democratic convention in the ’60’s.  Suddenly I remember the terror in the ’50’s when the Rosenbergs were executed.  Anything can happen.

election day blues Read Post »

blog

as soon as they opened the hairdressers I went. there are some pretty severe conditions to their opening that made me agree to go, my stylist is in the brodetsky strip mall and the others stores haven’t been allowed yet to open, so i was feeling pretty safe. But in the minutes after i got there I watched the gradual opening. one after another the shops turned on their lights, opened the doors – some only the back door. And there was the official, running from shop to shop and distributing the tickets of 5000 shekel each. For some of them it was probably worth it. They were mobbed. The shoemaker, though, was smart enough to work with a locked door and no lights – i can imagine how the shoes turned out.

what we know is that the corona numbers are up, and after today, they will be higher and higher. We’re just too hungry for a ‘normal’ life.

and by the way, i hate my new haircut.

november 2, 2020 – shopping and the numbers Read Post »

israeli politics

I’ve been on zooms all day – from all over the world, and everyone is scared.  Not only is our health protection wobbly, but we can’t hang on to anything solid – not our leaders, not our government, not the old systems of justice.  

so we’ve really got nothing to hang on to in a world where everything is fluid and probably hiding some kind of danger.  it’s more than scary in itself.

i am short with friends, and insensitive with family.  but strangely enough, i’m also the funniest i’ve ever been.  i think it’s the absurdity of the whole situation.

 

elections and corona – another reason or two we’re nervous Read Post »

israeli politics

Just put it in your calendars. November 11 at 7:30 p.m. An evening called “Found in Translation.” the IAWE is hosting four fascinating poets from around the world to read in their own language, with translations to English, so that we can hear the music of Hungarian, Persian, Slovak and Hebrew.  Milan Richter, Payam Feili, Judit Frigeysi and Hamutal Bar Yosef.  I  am proud to host it.  This means more to me than all the evenings I’ve hosted in the past few months because I’m beginning to understand the potential of the benefits of international communications.  Are you interested?  Let me know and I’ll send you the link in a few days.

what else have i doing on zoom?  some of the things are esoteric, some banal.  i taught a class on Yeats at the university of Haifa two days, and yesterday i participated in a zoom memorial.  Tomorrow I sit in on my brother’s Mishna lesson.  All very interesting but not more than you would expect. On Sunday, however, I’ve initiated a high school reunion – 55 years ago I graduated from Monroe High School in Rochester New York, and on Sunday we’re getting together – face to face – with all our wrinkles – on zoom.  

when the world returns, we’ll have lots of new and old connections to develop in real time.

october 30, 2020 – translation evening Read Post »