Yermiyahu Ahron Taub- Three Poems

Breakfast In the Basement (With Bureaucrats)

 

For Greg Marcangelo

 

Here we huddle against the silhouettes of trees

slicing whitely into the almost-royal blue wall

that evoke somehow the scene in Tarkovsky’s debut

of Masha and the soldier in the forest the light the cold

and Masha’s hunger and terror and courage the kiss above the trench

that cannot be lost in the gunfire and muck

for the young Master willed it just so and so it shall ever be

 

Here we huddle in the basement without window

the only light the fluorescent one humming above

to break first bread before the day of processing

and assembling and piecing and foraging order from chaos

guardians of treasure as they assure us but merely to skim creativity

to take stock and categorize forbidden to linger

for this is not a mid-summer porch by a lake in the mountains

and there is no iced raspberry lemonade in hand

 

Here we revel in the latest words and images of the weekly

still in print after these many years

one of the few surviving bastions of wit and panache and

commitment to investigation and reflection

an oasis in the din of demagoguery that you and I dissect at length

for we marvel at the extent of its reach at the regularity of its release

at the precariousness of our victories of long ago

 

And just as the word flair and ads for subdued sparkles can’t efface

its combativeness so here we are insisting over scrambled

eggs and gruel on the marriage of elegance and liberation on good and

glamour before rising to face our backlogs grateful that the taxpayers

still sustain this work we love and so here we are dreaming of gems

unearthed that will flay the creep of tedium as Masha envelopes us

in her enigmatic embrace as the weapons of war are arrayed just so

by the bureaucrats there they are across the river

 

 

 

 

Odessa

 

Your father wanted to call you

after his maiden aunt Milkah Pesl,

who entered the home one evening without fanfare

(after his mother ran off with that good-for-nothing

to caper under the big top) and stayed

to bathe and feed and heed and teach him his letters

and a way of being good in the world,

while his father sat in the rocking chair by the window,

never rocking, rarely rising, simply staring

at the drawn drapes as if his wife

was hiding coquettishly in their folds.

 

Only I would have none of it, not because of his aunt,

who I remember chiefly for her taciturnity,

her lips pursed and her bosom, disquieting in its unsentimentality.

Rather, I insisted on naming you, our so long-awaited cherub,

after the city beyond dream,

with its melange of architectural marvels,

cultures in confabulation,

the poets composing on national and other themes,

who honed their craft in its garrets and cafes,

the artists who strolled down its steps

long before film history was forged there,

 

the city where the future of our people

was re-imagined in parlors and salons.

A revolution has to begin somewhere, as you have learned.

Has there ever been such ardor?

Even now, after the rupture, beneath the coat of kitsch,

you can still see traces of it.

Know that this will ever be your essence.

You have the tools to orchestrate the sublime into fruition.

Tell your father that Milkah Pesl would have come to understand,

Tell him our family might yet be whole

if he could only see.  Tell him this, Odessa my love.

 

 

 

 

On Being a Minorities Poet

 

Your poems are too gay

 Your poems are too universal

Your poems are too sexual

Your poems are too squeamish

Your poems are too Jewish

Your poems are too assimilationist

Your poems are too religious

                        Your poems are too worldly

Your poems are too Yiddish-y

            Your poems are too translated

Your poems are too accessible

Your poems are too elusive

Your poems are too ornate

            Your poems are too austere

Your poems are too emotional

Your poems are too intellectual

Your poems are too political

            Your poems are too decadent

Your poems are too scandalous

Your poems are too tame

Your poems are too self-absorbed

Your poems are too socially aware

Your poems are too heavy

Your poems are too blithe

Your poems are too flat

Your poems are too sparkly

Your poems are too narrative

Your poems are too character-driven

Your poems are too dialectic

            Your poems are too polyphonic

                        Your poems are too dissonant

                                    Your poems are too smooth

Your poems lack variety

Your poems lack cohesion

Your poems are too monochromatic

Your poems are too gaudy

Your poems are too old-fashioned

Your poems are too experimental

Your poems are too prose-y

Your poems are too …

No, what I really want to say is this:

 

Have you considered writing short stories?

 

 

 

 

Biographical Statement

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is the author of three volumes of poetry, Uncle Feygele (Plain View Press, 2011), What Stillness Illuminated/Vos shtilkayt hot baloykhtn (Parlor Press, 2008; Free Verse Editions series), and The Insatiable Psalm (Wind River Press, 2005).  He was honored by the Museum of Jewish Heritage as one of New York ’s best emerging Jewish artists.  One of his poems was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and two were nominated for the Best of the Net award.  Please visit his web site at www.yataub.net.