new year

by d. a. levy 
(born, Cleveland, 1942 - died, Cleveland, 1968)

This poem appeared in Jewish Currents, 
September, 1969. It is reprinted in Jewish 
Radicalism: A Sected Anthology, edited and 
with and introduction by Jack Nusan Porter and
Peter Dreir .
---------------------------------------------
When i was
six years old
we dipped
apple slices
and bread
in honey
touched small glasses
of wine
and sed 'to life'	
'to life'

that was the only time
my father ever hit me
his eyes were very sad
and he sort of walked away
knowing he was wrong
or that he couldnt reach me
i dont think he knew who i was
perhaps even asking if i was really his son

that was 1948--it is now 1968 and i know
he is watching a football game on television
in another city--his grey hair
his sad eyes
and he is probably still wondering if i
am really his son
what father wants to admit that his
son really is a 'poet'
i think i was about ten when i asked the difference
between christians and jews
and his reply was
'the jews think jesus was a bastard'
he was wrong again
the jews believe in living, the christians
believe in jesus and have formed a death cult
around his image
a cult dedicated to suffering and love
as a means of liberation
the jews know, that one becomes liberated
thru living, not only thru programmed acts
of masochism or blindness

it was sometime afterward my father and i
went to a temple to hear
the services	
sat down in time	
to hear that haunting	
language for just a moment

when someone told us we had to stand in the
back--we had chosen 'reserved seats'
seat that had been paid for
we left & it was thus i completed
my external jewish education
my father was right
we never visited another temple
and now i wonder how many jews are
destroyed in this country each year
my father with his lonely eyes
trying to return home
only to have the american god of money
slapped in his face
when we left it was as if
he passed the message on to me
'there are no jews left in this place'

and i spend years
trying to fill in that
hungry space denied me
on holidays i did not
know about i found myself
thinking of the old man
and later trying to remember
what i had dreamt when i was
a child
i kept discovering his quietness

when did the first images
appear in my head?

'a place with sand where it was warm
the blue sky--strange trees'

my fathers eye

had never turned from israel
i don't even know if he knew
what was inside his own head
once visiting hillel house
i was told about keeping
traditions alive
lighting candles
the secrets i learned from my father?
how does one pass them on?
my fathers terrible eyes
the loneliness

flesh phrases like
'genetic memory?'

this poem?
that i remember once
being free to walk
through all secret doors
to walk with a people

where did i learn that?

when i think of my father
i wonder if he can hear me

this poem?
for my father
who will someday be reborn in israel
and this poem
for my father
that i may once again be his son
and the name we carry
was once a name to be proud of

now it is new years 1968
in a barbarian country
that has always felt
alien to me

while blind men struggle
to keep traditions alive

my father watches football

games on television
to pass time
and i dream of his sad eyes
and i wonder about those blind men
do they ever wonder who wrote
their f--king traditions for them?

what songs will be sung
in israel for the young jews
beaten or murdered in the south
trying to keep alive
the internal spirit

what songs will be sung
in israel to remember
the young jews
who took drugs into eternity
trying to find the Spirit
they couldnt find in america

what songs will be sung
in israel to commemorate
the subtle murders
while rabbis danced the hora

ate dates and figs
and looked the other way
to keep traditions alive?

my father watched football
on television
his eyes did not lose sight of israel for even a moment--

and once a year
i break bread with him
quietly in my mind



sitting on a bench near TSQuare 
by d.a.levy 

This poem is from the d. a. levy pages: 
http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/dalevy/dalevy.htm
--------------------------------------------


                                            (for David Meltzer) 
1. 

through the branches of 
the thin trees of tenth street 
the blue sky waits 
with me & 
im waiting for god 
(on a white horse) 
to ride thru the 
branches of 
the lower east side 
before returning to 
       cleveland 
& something 
tells me 
he isnt coming 

2. 

im a levy of the levites 
yet in cleveland 
i have painted myself 
         celtic-blue 
& am feeling 
something like an outlaw 

the druids give me soup 
& think im a lama 

its been close to 7 years 
ive been looking for god 
& the trails wearing as 
thin as the trees on tenth street 

i am a levy of the levites 
& last week 
a fanatic jew in the heights 
called me a halfbreed 
because my mother was a christian 

i am a levy of the levites 
& last week a rabbi 
thought i was kidding 
when i told him 
i was interested in judaism 

god i think yr sense 
of humor is sad 
& perhaps you are also 
feeling something 
like an outlaw 

god i am wondering 
for how many years 
have the jews 
exiled you 
while they busied themselves 
with survival 
----------------------------


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