Relax, Larry is here to ease your soul.

[larryrap]

8th - Two Holocaust Poems

*

Nazi-Swiping

Swiping through hundreds of Nazis
I skip all those masters of pain
so keen to determine the border
where man is no longer a man.

Nor do I pick the young Sturmmann
beguiled by an inmate’s dark gaze,
with his story of sobbing together
for children she begged him to save.

But rather I choose the idealist,
a lover of science and art,
committed to fate, and the honor
proffered by history’s hand.

I imagine his pride, as he struggles
to stare at the future’s bright sun.
Such musings might save me, one day,
from committing an awful mistake.

.....- Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

*

Inching Away

We’re inching away from that mess
almost far enough to breath

almost long enough to wonder
why we even survived

and what’s left to do
with this worn stump of time

[Cameron Clark]

Your half rhymes make the poems even darker. The first has such a fascinating conclusion, it feels very appropriate to the internal logic. The second is so true, and so brilliantly sketches the dilema we face after such atrocities. How we are to memorise them and how we are to live without the guilt, and how we are both to move forward and not forget. And how are we even better than that time?

[Dunc]

Larry

The Perfect Song ─ Wow, that is savage, the weave of powerlessness, defeat and contempt brought together in that bitter last line!

The Song of the Well ─ ('are' in 2.1?) "Sing of institutions, devised to keep / our blade from the next man’s eye." And your metaquestion in S3, which is impressively clever, sharp as can be.

Nazi-Swiping ─ That idealism as a motive for genocide is more culpable than, say, ambition, or obedience, or cultural hate, or psychotic hate? Or is the link between idealism and fanaticism? The questions refuse to go away, despite the accumulating decades.

Inching Away ─ As long as we are, yes indeed.

Regards / Dunc

[Sorella]

Larry,
So glad you are here. I read and enjoyed New ID as anyone in their late sixties would, packed with truth in fresh images.
Fighting Words -- So directly analytical that I believe your knife is already cutting in the right places. You have the gift of compression and clarity.
A wow to Neanderthal Flute -- the idea , tone and execution is brilliant.

Coming back after a short break...

Sorella

[Sorella]

Back and reading backwards: the Holocaust poems are so good, especially the warning to self in the first one: the risk of forgetting the human aspect, perhaps, on the altar of progress, science -- and vanity. Not often focused on. Song of the Well -- you do Biblical so well!
Always apt to address imprisonment of free speech, The Perfect Song is what many died for.
Tzimtzum - vintage Larry.
There are Times -- I read it as a call to reflection, to standing back from the throng, the sheep, the mood of the present.
A pleasure, and food for thought!

Sorella

[Scrow]

Hi,


The Song of the Well is seriously good. You have to bear in mind that I will know nothing of the source material you’re writing about. What I like about this poem is that it speaks to me of science and ideas of progress - and whilst it praises these, also brings us back to the why - which here is a good ‘why’ - not progress for progress’ sake or to elevate people - but to bring water - and water that is portrayed in your poem as beautiful, fresh, lovely spring water, too.

Both Holocaust poems are moving in different ways. The ‘worn stump of time’ is amazing writing, and the reflections in the first stop me in my daily rabbit-tracks (it takes me ages to think about and respond to your poetry - sorry).

Sarah

[larryrap]

Cameron, Dunc, Sorella and Sarah - you're all extraordinarily kind, it's no small thing to receive praise from people whose work has so much to admire.

[larryrap]

9th – Kafka and Me

I once worked in a small basement office
with a choir of hisses and mewls
from twenty-odd cats packed above us,
in heat behind dense lattice bars.

The owner, Eve Hoffe, an old woman,
had inherited Max Brod’s estate,
bequeathed her from Esther, her mother,
who was Brod’s secretary and more.

Brod, a Jewish-Czech writer,
is mostly recalled for ignoring
the will of his best friend, Franz Kafka,
to burn every word that he wrote.

For years, Esther battled the state,
which had set its long sights on that treasure,
now scattered in safes, some in Sweden,
being fondled by auctioneers’ hands.

Fleas would hop over our drawings
and we'd suffer from headaches and itches
in a haze of ammonia and languor
as the summer grew humid and long.

I called municipal departments,
faxed out letters and forms of complaint -
but the relevant city officials
were employed to fight noise, but not smells.

Cat kingdoms endure, but sad jobs
are prone to expire or move on.
It remains my best claim to near-greatness,
upon which I must stand, or must fall.

[Janelo]

This thread is a tightrope act Larry, and you have not faltered.

"Times like these are just right for observing the birds by your window,
how they balance on branches embellished with lavish precision,
for now is as fitting a time as no other could be."

Kinda like that, but with Tzimtzum and Inching Away and all other things considered, you have not chosen a path that offers the greatest of ease.

Jane

[billdozer]

Larry I didn't realize how much I missed your voice until I dug in today. Is avuncular angst a thing?

Your facility with rhyme in New ID makes me jealous, again.
Neanderthal Flute makes me hope that you are working on a science fiction novel. I would pre-order that. TzimTzum could also be a chapter.
There are times reminded me of a verse by Robert Hunter in Eyes of the World:
     There comes a redeemer, and he slowly too fades away,
And there follows his wagon behind him that's loaded with clay.
And the seeds that were silent all burst into bloom, and decay,
and night comes so quiet, it's close on the heels of the day.

The Perfect Song is a kind of torture porn that doesn't pander.
Inching Away has another play on distance, like the Perfect Song's "far from the world’s busy eyes."
Your poems are full of spaces where the weary either hide or act out existential rites.
I hope you are well and finding time to enjoy the birds on the branches.

[larryrap]

Jane, great to see you here again, it's rewarding.
Bill, it's a thrill to be writing in your company. I should make "avuncular angst" my tagline.

[larryrap]

10th - The Future of the Past

An idea has been launched
to enhance the routine
of Memorial Day doldrums
with a secular fast:

now that witnesses perish
like over-worked parrots
we could jump-start the past
with a small jolt of lack.

This should not be confused
with the Jews’ day of fasting
which thousand-year rivers
of blood haven’t cleansed

from the lingering stench
of an iron-age fiefdom,
oppression's fat hands
greased with sheep-fat and gold.

Must reformers forget
that in each human chest
lay the ruins of a temple
too deep to dislodge?

That we’re still the cadet
leaping into the fire,
still the soldier whose friend
was garroted last night,

still the traitor deserting,
and the spear-blinded scholar,
and the thousands out weeping
at the cold corpse of dawn.

[larryrap]

Oh yeah, and this:

Addict

Shoveling sugar -
my kingdom for a spoon.

[larryrap]

11th - Matchbox Man

I wasn’t called.
The night ran thin.
Behind the screen
a crowd dispersed.

She stayed away.
My luck turned lean.
The heat closed in.
We pawned our guilt.

The colors fled.
A stove was lit.
The walls were cursed.
Our weekend stalled.

I could have built
a matchbox bed,
bit by bit,
be done someday.

[Donner]

Hi, Larry,

"Nazi-Swiping" - Yom HaShoah. Interesting choice N makes, as I'm sure both ardent Nazis and young (emphasis on young) stormtroopers thought of themselves as idealists. As do many of our current politicians. "Inching Away" - It happens that way, doesn't it, hopefully not so far away we find ourselves repeating the horror. Never forget.

"Kafka and Me" - I'll never forget the first time I read "The Metamorphosis" in high school. I had nightmares of turning into a bug for months. You sum up the seeming futility of it all so well in the last strophe:

Cat kingdoms endure, but sad jobs
are prone to expire or move on.
It remains my best claim to near-greatness,
upon which I must stand, or must fall.

"The Future of the Past" and "Addict" - No one sums things up better than you. "Must reformers forget / that in each human chest / lay the ruins of a temple / too deep to dislodge?" Is change really that impossible?

Donna