Second Landing
So this is where you come from
sad houses in irregular rows
built
with no consideration
for a place to park the family jalop
knowing
those families
never would possess affectations
afflictions
you don’t need a garage for
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| so this is where 4th & Mifflin a time that loudly was you see the ghosts you hear the ghosts when we drive by that I strain for speaking in Yiddish singing in crying in a language lost |
2)-Assi mi late
from garlic clove to molasses
Assimil ate
we are now this mythical creature called American
Assimi late
alI this sharp-toned beauty
lost
all the unsafe energy
lost
all this strong un shaded sense of self
gone
giventoadream
that lulled by it’s insidiousness
so one danced to it’s falseness
the last note dropped
we are Amerikanski
ne Pyrooski
ne Yiddische
ne anything
As simil late
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3)-So this is where I come from
From murdering mother Russia
by way of South Philly
From the Ukraine
From the Pogroms
From the fear
by way of 4th & Mifflin
From one of the 12 tribes
by way of a hot and sweaty ship
that came to the island
new land
where the statue said
–Give us your tired
even the Jews
where the statue said
Give us your poor
even the Russians
Give us your yearning to be free
even your poor Russian Jews
who spake Yiddisch, Hebrew, Russian, German
fleeing the Pogroms
of the bold Czarist Army
that boldly beat
the cripple, the women, the children
if they were Jews
that dared to be
Jews
son of Daniel
daughter of Esther
Give us your poor unwanted Russian Jews
we will not hunt you here
hurt
burn your villages
to see how high the flame
we may amend your Jewishness
we may
swallow your heritage
digest your culture
quicksand
the purity of what was once your uniqueness
but these mur der ings
will happen
softly
slowly
in moderation
by generation
till everything is in translation
from Ellis Island
to Reform Synagogues
where English
only is
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4)-So this is where I come from
from you
from your tired desperate flight
frightened 9 yr old child
ship you shared with only a hundred or so
on each deck
and all that I am
all the good that I may do
words that may in some how or way
change, or try,
the rot that lays like seaweed
thick upon this nation now
come from that 9 yr old child
coming to the Gold and
Silvering Paved Streets
No mere mortal poem
There is nothing
here
No mere mortal poem could ever say it
and you’re no longer here to hear
let my voice form the words
Thanks, Grandma
Bob Small 01/25/83-first version, too wordsome
robertthesmall 