O Jerusalem, if I forget thee, may I die!
If I forget thee not, how will I live!
The Gates of Gaza
I sidelong in this obscene world going,
Under battery of filth, bawdry of
elements,
Perjurious day forsworn and grieving
At night’s bar, all loud and absurd,
Absurd and foul, in this butchery
Of flesh, carnival of fur, I
Running, and on my back the Gates
Of Gaza from the world’s muck pulled
Like a rotten tooth—to be carried where?Never to rest, never to sink down at road’s
end,
Knowing the journey over, the thing done;
Never to reach settled city, never come
home,
By every road moving from that;
Never to rest, accounting this taint of
The soul’s honor, debasement of its gold;
Never to sleep, never to know long rhythms
Of earth, the water slowly moving, a light.O Jerusalem, where shall I build thee? What
hill
Is high enough? what earth so rich? what
people
Good? Where shall I set down the Gates?
Having no city but this heart of weed and
cloud,
Trampled and foraged by herd of folly,
By brutal bodies’ violent milling there.
Ridden by goodness I go,
God, in the damp mist descending,
Running at my ankles like a dog.
Why for the pure task these tools of dirt?
This abstracted heart, this fever, this world?_____________
The Face of God
Upon the altar of the kitchen stove,
Enameled white and shining with
the cares
Of hands that giving graced with love
Three meals a day for thirty years—There at Friday dusk it crouched beside
The week-end’s pit, the mount of Sabbath:
A tumbler-candle dimly hissed and sighed,
Too sweet to judge, too nice for wrath.
All night long the wax ran down
—Crying dead to whom we burnt that rod.
They in the ghostly tallow lay to drown
The bent body of the dying godWho lit a platter-clock that ticked our sleep.
Its even hands dipped in the dark streaming
And up and down carried us in its sweep.
Chests rose and fell like empires dreaming.And now I wander accused by that Sinai
In a glass, by muteness of our closet wish,
By a God humble, tiny, and good. And I
choke with pathos of a clean dish._____________
The Wailing Wall
O God, in my exile and affliction,
hear me!
From my enemies, save me! Scourge, burn,
hash,
Make their inner rot grow badges on their
flesh!
Why did You tempt me with goodness?
why do You crease
With pain? why this suffering that won’t
cease?Here am I stupidly living in sackcloth and
ash.
Why was I born just a year before the Crash?
Why’d my father lose his lots and his cash
And go jobless till his gentle lack of courage
Was endemic? Then why’d I grow in this
image?
How can I be a hero if I’m not half-a-fake
Like my cousins Joe and Jake?
To be Chosen—that means having only one
part.
But if I’m Elect, why all this fat around my
heart?
Why was I born in Brooklyn in the lower
middle-classes?
Is that a hero’s place? Was Moses freckled!
Samson wear glasses!
Why me? Haven’t You had FDR and
Cecil de Mille?
(Pardon me, O Lord, if I question Your will,
But wouldn’t Seymour or Sherman have
done as well?)
Why do You tell me to build when I want
to destroy?
Can’t a Jew get that job, is it only for a goy?
Can’t a Jew be bad and mean, why sad and
nice?
Do You think it’s better to have ulcers than
a vice?
Why, when I damn others, must I look for
my own guilt?
If the evil aren’t all bad, the good all good,
can’t I cry, Tilt!
Couldn’t You come as an angel, not a pebble
in my shoe?
When I crashed Katz’s car did he have to
sue?
And then in court, why didn’t You put in
Your Word?
Don’t I know what Sisyphus doesn’t, that
only pain’s absurd?
Then why don’t You teach me to strike and
not to complain?
Why do You let me suffer if it’s not to suffer
better again?
Isn’t my hardship bitter? my pain pain?
Why did You send that toadying
bureaucrat against me?
And that spiteful sage and that selfish
landlady?
Why, if You love me, didn’t You strike them
down?
Bend closer, My God, I can complain till all
the stars drown._____________
From the Wandering Jew
O Jerusalem, if I forget thee, may I die! If I forget thee not, how will I live! THE GATES…
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