{"id":10668,"date":"2015-04-29T21:37:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T19:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=10668"},"modified":"2015-05-29T21:44:19","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T19:44:19","slug":"poems-by-jeremy-nathan-marks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=10668","title":{"rendered":"poems by Jeremy Nathan Marks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hotel Dum<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s sacred when the Thing is all the universe? \u2013Allen Ginsberg (\u201cThe Reply\u201d)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I rode a tram on my own<\/p>\n

from the Hotel Dum into Old<\/p>\n

Town<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Walked from Karol Bridge<\/p>\n

to hear Dvo\u0159\u00e1k played in a church<\/p>\n

where<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jan Hess received a rainbow<\/p>\n

sign. It was a sermon quite a far cry<\/p>\n

from<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More recent heresies like sitting<\/p>\n

with Velvet Revolutionaries watching<\/p>\n

Largo Desolato\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or thumbing through Letter To<\/p>\n

Father over 50 cent beer in drear March<\/p>\n

making cock jokes<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About that tower in Petrin Park.<\/p>\n

Yes, we<\/em> were the ones they<\/em> whispered<\/p>\n

about that<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stalk the Old Jewish Cemetery<\/p>\n

and plot to become King of the May<\/p>\n

flaunting our ways<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But what powers do we have<\/p>\n

really save speaking a dullard\u2019s tongue<\/p>\n

which everyone<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Understands save the Americans<\/p>\n

who export their grammar on wrappers<\/p>\n

and packets of<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fishermans Friend. TM. I kept some<\/p>\n

of that in my knotted coat pockets while<\/p>\n

trailing tight-hipped<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Companions on my trip \u2013if only more<\/em><\/p>\n

had happened- never so handsome a man<\/p>\n

as one alone with<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His imagination. Listening to Dylan<\/p>\n

Reading Sandburg in Poland then Prague.<\/p>\n

Speaking slowly<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As though I had arrived from St. Paul<\/p>\n

with St. Anthony in tow. It took a dear friend,<\/p>\n

a Czech patriot<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To prise the Red dictionary from my<\/p>\n

hand and say you are a communard soliciting<\/p>\n

bankers for cash<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They speak commerce not poetry.<\/p>\n

Escrow not authenticity. Teen angst? Sure.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s its return?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Consider instead what the Rabbi once<\/p>\n

said: first fill your home with a gaggle of goats<\/p>\n

and asses before<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Assessing your own madness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

O\u015bwi\u0119cim<\/strong><\/p>\n

. . . and when I touched my head I could feel the arched skull of my country, its hard edge. \u2013Adam Zagajewski (\u201cFire\u201d)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I came into O\u015bwi\u0119cim<\/p>\n

by all-night overland from<\/p>\n

Poniatowo. It was a journey<\/p>\n

I could not pronounce. Warsaw<\/p>\n

is a furnace when the sun rises at<\/p>\n

three-thirty a.m. Kielce, Katowice,<\/p>\n

Krak\u00f3w and then at last the banks of<\/p>\n

the Vistula<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I opened my eyes<\/p>\n

I thought that I caught that<\/p>\n

familiar sight of breakers off<\/p>\n

of Hatteras Island. Looking past<\/p>\n

the headland light into the sea where<\/p>\n

bodies of horses are buried beside slave<\/p>\n

memories and a rum gentility I found this<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Severed cord<\/p>\n

whose fag-end floated<\/p>\n

like a Man-of-War on the swells;<\/p>\n

it was joined to a cable layer bounding<\/p>\n

east, heading right into a fog bank.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

St. Louis<\/em> lies<\/p>\n

these steamship lines<\/p>\n

that join the continental<\/p>\n

railways when they deliver<\/p>\n

their freight right up to Birkenau Gate.<\/p>\n

I know, I\u2019ve seen it like I saw horses walk<\/p>\n

the gang plank.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

O\u015bwi\u0119cim is a Graveyard of the Atlantic<\/p>\n

with its broken timber and solid<\/p>\n

Farben chimneys everywhere<\/p>\n

resting as stolid reminder<\/p>\n

through snow pash and<\/p>\n

rain pistol that all of<\/p>\n

Europe was a<\/p>\n

shoal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ma\u2019ariv:<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was April.<\/p>\n

I heard no birds<\/p>\n

amid skeletal poplars<\/p>\n

and a wan sun that could<\/p>\n

have been from pollution<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And can you hum a tune<\/p>\n

to the Kiddish HaShem <\/em><\/p>\n

O Jerusalem?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

April macht die Arbeit<\/em><\/p>\n

along the bows of<\/p>\n

Kopycinski\u2019s<\/p>\n

violas.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Somewhere I know there is<\/p>\n

floating a photo of this young<\/p>\n

man in his kippah<\/p>\n

tentative, kneeling on a<\/p>\n

tie with pebbles in<\/p>\n

his hand<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where should he place them-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hotel Dum What\u2019s sacred when the Thing is all the universe? \u2013Allen Ginsberg (\u201cThe Reply\u201d)   I rode a tram on my own from the Hotel Dum into Old Town   Walked from Karol Bridge to hear Dvo\u0159\u00e1k played in a church where  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,77],"tags":[1084,1123,1095],"class_list":["post-10668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-43","category-english","tag-egophobia-43","tag-english","tag-jeremy-nathan-marks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2M4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10669,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10668\/revisions\/10669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}