Shaking the Pumpkin / Secouer la Citrouille: The Complete French Translation

Translation into French by Anne Talvaz 

[The welcome news for me is that the complete French translation of Shaking the Pumpkin is now on the verge of publication � scheduled for sometime in November by Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre.  As such it forms a companion volume to Techniciens du Sacr� (Jose Corti, 2008) and makes available in French the two opening works in my long-term ethnopoetics project.  In its present form Secouer la Citrouille is part of the Collection "To" directed with great care by poet and editor Christophe Lamiot and features a marvelous translation by Anne Talvaz.  Scheduled for next year in Lamiot�s series is a new book of mine, A Field on Mars (Un Champ sur Mars) : Po�mes 2000-20015, which will appear in simultaneous English and French editions.  The works taken together answer my call and need for a new/old poetry that crosses all borders and times, toward a genuine if problematic omnipoetics.  The following selections in English and French give a sense of the book�s possibilities and limitations.  (J.R.)]

CE QUE LA REPONDANTE A DIT A FRANZ BOAS EN 1920
Keresan 

il y a longtemps sa m�re

dut chanter cette chanson et ainsi
elle devait moudre � ce rythme
le peuple du ma�s aussi a un chant
il est tr�s bon
je ne le dirai pas

 

what the informant said to franz boas in 1920

Keresan

long ago her mother

had to sing this song and so
she had to grind along with it
the corn people have a song too
it is very good
I refuse to tell it

English version by Armand Schwerner

 

Pre-Face 2014 (English)

In the aftermath of Technicians of the Sacred (1968) the next step I took toward the construction of an experimental ethnopoetics was an assemblage of traditional works and commentaries focused entirely on one of the world�s still surviving and incredibly diverse �deep cultures.� The resultant work, Shaking the Pumpkin: Traditional Poetry of the Indian North Americas, was published by Doubleday Anchor in 1972 and in revised versions by Alfred van der Marck Editions (1986) and the University of New Mexico Press (1991). As with Technicians I drew from a wide range of previously published materials, supplemented in this instance by direct translations of my own and by those of later and very significant translators such as Dennis Tedlock and Howard Norman. I also continued to be freed by the opening of poetry among us to expand the range of what we saw as poetry elsewhere including sound works, visual works, and event and performance pieces on the model of contemporary happenings and performance art. My own translations � �total� and otherwise � from Seneca (with songmaker and ritual performer Richard Johnny John) and from Navajo (through the good offices of ethnomusicologist David McAllester) were also first presented here, and the commentaries, much like those in Technicians, provided analogues to other primal cultures and to the work of contemporary avantgardists. In the process I made no pretense about my own connection to the Indian nations in question, though for a period of a decade and more it was far from trivial, and my next ethnopoetic assemblage, A Big Jewish Book (later republished as Exiled in the Word) was in fact an exploration of ancestral sources of my own �in a world of Jewish mystics, thieves, and madmen.�

            After three decades in print the life of Shaking the Pumpkin came to a natural closure several years ago, though a new edition has remained a tempting possibility since then.  The work, as I look at it now, is still only partial and must always be so, yet it gives some sense in its present translated form of the range of structures and themes in this and other of our ethnopoetic gatherings � part of a process of composition that I�ve spoken of elsewhere as �othering� and that the great Brazilian avantgardist Haroldo de Campos has aptly termed �transcreation.� Such approaches, as we view them, have appeared to many of us not as a distortion or falsification of the original works but as the most poetic and therefore the most honest way to bring them forward. As we advance into a new century and millennium the works shown here move from being an odd discovery, or worse yet a curiosity, to take on the status of genuine American classics � the oldest and the newest that we have.


PRE-FACE 2015 (French)

Dans la foul�e de Les techniciens du sacr� (1968, traduction fran�aise 2008), l��tape suivante de la construction d�une ethnopo�tique exp�rimentale fut un assemblage d��uvres traditionnelles et de commentaires relevant exclusivement de l�une des � cultures profondes � de notre plan�te, incroyablement diverse et qui survit encore. L��uvre qui en r�sulte, Agiter la citrouille : po�sie traditionnelle des peuples premiers d�Am�rique du nord, fut publi�e en 1972 par Doubleday Anchor et, dans une version r�vis�e, par Alfred van der Marck Editions (1986) et University of New Mexico Press (1991). Tout comme dans le cas des Techniciens, j�ai fait usage d�un grand nombre de traductions d�j� publi�es, compl�t�es par des traductions directes r�alis�es par moi-m�me et par des traducteurs tr�s importants tels que Dennis Tedlock et Howard Norman. Je continuais �galement d��tre lib�r� par l�ouverture de ce que nous consid�rions comme la po�sie � d�autres domaines : sonore, visuel, �v�nements relevant du happening et de la performance. Mes propres traductions � � totales � et autres � du s�n�ca (avec le chansonnier et performeur rituel Richard Johnny John) et du navajo (par les bons offices de l�ethnomusicologue David McAllester) ont �galement �t� pr�sent�es ici pour la premi�re fois, et les commentaires, tout comme ceux de Techniciens, fournissaient des analogues � d�autres cultures premi�res ainsi qu�au travail des avant-gardistes contemporains. Je n�ai jamais pr�tendu avoir une relations exceptionnelle avec les nations premi�res en question, m�me si pendant plus de dix ans elle fut loin d��tre insignifiante, et mon assemblage ethnopo�tique suivant, A Big Jewish Book (r��dit� plus tard sous le titre Exiled in the Word) fut une exploration de mes propres sources ancestrales � dans un univers de mystiques, de voleurs et de fous juifs �.
            Au bout de trois d�cennies, Agiter la citrouille a atteint un point de cl�ture naturel, m�me si la tentation d�une nouvelle �dition persiste. Telle que je la vois, cette �uvre reste partielle et doit le rester. Pourtant, dans sa forme actuelle, elle permet de pressentir la grande diversit� des structures et des th�mes de l�ensemble de nos assemblages ethnopo�tiques � qui font partie d�un processus que j�ai qualifi� ailleurs d� � autrage � (othering) et que le grand avant-gardiste br�silien Haraldo de Campos appelait � transcr�ation �. Pour beaucoup d�entre nous, telles que nous les concevons, ces approches ne constituent ni une distorsion ni une falsification des �uvres originales, mais la mani�re la plus po�tique et donc la plus honn�te de les faire valoir. A mesure que nous avan�ons dans un si�cle et un mill�naire nouveaux, les �uvres pr�sent�es ici cessent d��tre des d�couvertes biscornues, ou pire, des curiosit�s, pour devenir d�authentiques classiques am�ricains � � la fois les plus anciens et les plus nouveaux qui nous aient �t� donn�s.

 

JEROME ROTHENBERG

Encinitas, Californie
2015

N.B. A new edition of the original Shaking the Pumpkin is now available from Station Hill Press in Barrytown, New York.

Clayton Eshleman: from Penetralia (forthcoming): "Orphic Ontologies"

for Matthew Eshleman

Are you, Muse, the spume off Laussel, archaic
dust dimpled & savory that I nourish to steel myself
     against
the Selfhood that lays claim to all rapture?
Is your fertility still based in the blood-filled bison horn
Laussel grasps in her right hand raised slightly below her
     head?

Might the egg-shaped relief of a double figure near

     Laussel

be a Paleolithic premonition of the serpent-encircled
     Orphic egg?
Greeks believed that at death a man�s spinal marrow
emerged from his loins in serpent form.
Since bones are the framework of life,
the semen-like marrow in the skull was for centuries
thought to be the source of semen.
Thus the singing skull, the oracular skull,
an archosis going back to brain-eating Australopithecus
     erectus.

In every desire a uterus shelved with skulls.

I released the energy from the gateless gate of a rock

     face.

The wonder of inhabited nothingness bubbled & waned
     in me, microscopic doodad.
Then I heard manticores chortling with their triple
     band-saw mouths--
or was I hearing the love-songs of Max Beckmann?

Ochre dots circulating around a breast-like wall

     protuberance in Le Combel

bearing in their menstrual, apotropaic sigils the
     presence of Cro-Magnon woman
embedded so deep in collective mind
I can only wonder if planetary peril is not inscribed
     in image�s beginnings.

Is our war on animals a planetary cannibalization to

     reach non-existence

in a masque performed by hydrogen mountains &
     sulfur assassins?

The torn heaven tent draped over our lightmares.

Blake under covers at night. As if an anaconda entered

     as I tried to sleep

& wept insomnia into every shutter of my piles.

Hades is the king of remembered images.

Orpheus did bring Eurydice back. He couldn�t bring

     her THROUGH.

To keep images in the embrace of each other &

     maintain the intercourse of their self-revealing

     conversations.

 
The artist is neither revolutionary nor conservative,
but a worker of the in-between, a messenger from
     the centerless flux.

Is anything left of the beginning?

How about the soul�s dragonfly metastases?
Or the petrified lightning rampant in a bear?

A sloth in a skin-tight body hose of drowned men.

After a vaporized storm, glassy eyes float about,

     burial mounds invading the bolted stars.

Rainer Marie Rilke to Lotte Hepner, November 8, 1915: �When a tree blossoms, death as well as life blossoms in it, and the field is full of death, which from its reclining face sends forth a rich experience of life, and the animals move patiently from one to another�and everywhere around us, death is at home, and it watches us out of the cracks of things, and a rusty nail that sticks out of a plank somewhere, does nothing day and night except rejoice over death.�

At the core of our Milky Way galaxy:

animal eyes in a blackish, red density of dust clouds,
     horns in smears of light.
As if life on earth is anticipated in this 300 light-years
     panorama.

Coitus as the earthly version of cosmic superimposition.

Sciomantic penetrations course a vineyard.

At times I see miles of pools, piles of pumas sunning

     their scorpion sores,

four boars mating in a silken anguish.

Or are we all animals of snow, impelled by that first

     avalanche of mother milk,

haloed by circumpolar whiteness?

James Hillman writes that �Soul is vulnerable and suffers; it is passive and remembers, It is water to the spirit�s fire, like a mermaid who beckons the heroic spirit into the depths of passions to extinguish its certainty. Soul is imagination, a cavernous treasury�to use an image from St. Augustine�a confusion and richness, both.�

In sleep�s porphyry mist, Daphne�s lauraceous hues.

A nude asleep in a water-lily harness rotating through

     my breakfast. Drink from this tambourine.

The portentous, alpine edges in every doorway.

[N.B. The preceding will appear next year in Eshleman�s new collection, Penetralia,  from Black Widow Press, which will also publish Clayton Eshleman / The Essential Poetrythis fall.   A third major publication, scheduled for December by  Wesleyan UniversityPress, is A Sulfur Anthology, in celebration of Eshleman�s great magazine of the 1980s & 90s.  Entering a new decade in his life he remains a poet of enormous power & range, always provoking those powers to their very limits.  In a previous posting I wrote: �In my writings over the years, the work of certain contemporaries, like that of multiple generations of forerunners, has given me a series of touchstones against which to test my own ideas & powers as a poet.  � With Eshleman, as with other contemporaries, a kind of dialogue remains ongoing & mutual: an interchange that has spanned nearly five decades & has fueled moves on my part, & possibly on his, that would have been impossible without such interaction. � I believe that Clayton, at an early point, had made the decision to be totally relentless in his calling as a poet, & I came to prize that relentlessness & his determination to pursue a poetry that would take him to his limits � & us along with him.  There is with that a singular intelligence that emerges in the way he comes at a subject, an idea or an experience, & gives it an unexpected shape & meaning.  Along with this he also � like the best of us � draws from the full range of what he can discover in the world, through his own observation or from that of others.�   (J.R.)]

Jerome Rothenberg : The Dreamers / Les R�veurs, from � A Seneca Journal � in French and English

 

Translation into French by Didier Pemerle

[The official publication date for Didier Pemerle�s translation of A Seneca Journal (Editions Jose Corti, Paris) is October 22.  The translation itself goes back to nearly the time of the book�s original American publication in 1978, when Pemerle�s unique copy of the French translation was thought to have been irrevocably lost.  Its recovery & publication now brings me back to a crucial time in my life, the years in the 1960s and 70s that I spent at the Allegany Seneca Reservation in Salamanca, New York.  The years in between & the memory of friends no longer alive give the work an additional historical cast & patina, in a line perhaps with Charles Olson�s perception that � history is the new localism � & Ezra Pound�s that � an epic is a poem including history, � both of which I cite there.  I hope & trust that some of that comes through in what follows. (J.R.)]

JOURNAL SENECA  7

� Les R�veurs �

                                                      pour David Antin

1

ce couple assis

dans la splendeur de vieilles maisons

Albert Jones et sa femme Geneva

�taient vieux avant mon arriv�e

il �tait le dernier des devins seneca

mort en 1968

l�ann�e de notre premier s�jour � Salamanca

avec le pouvoir de conna�tre les r�ves

� leur seule divinit� � �crivait Fr�min (S.J.) en 1650

comme nous disons � divin �

le deva en nous

comme un diable

ou un divus (deus)

quand ces vieilles for�ts �taient riches de dieux

que les gens appelaient puissances

ils apparaissaient en mots

notre langage les cache

m�me maintenant

le geste du po�me les met au jour

cher David

pas dans l�imagination de

l�homme d�affaires

mais qui demande

� qui est Castor ? �

les expulse de la pens�e singuli�re

dans le mythant

mettant en bouche les grains de langage

comme David qui sonne comme deva

veut dire bien-aim�

ainsi tout Indien avait jadis un nom

2

 � diables � disaient les j�suites

ou � r�ves �

mais �taient tenus � l��cart de la chambre du mourant

assis    r�vant             chantant

entour� de cloches    couteaux         aiguilles          ciseaux

couvertures    chapeaux        manteaux       ceintures

de wampum    perles         poin�ons

� les mille objets de ses r�ves �

veillait � ne pas tuer un d�sir

en dormant

il savait qu�il voulait manger

de la viande de chien ou d�homme

que la hache de son p�re avait disparu

quelque chose d��ternellement secret

attendait en lui

la 13^e vierge du festin d�amour

toujours hors d�atteinte

donc ils l�ont nourri comme un m�me ou une femme

l�obscur devin � son c�t�

pleurait encore sur les �nigmes �

perles et courges �

et l�homme hurla roulant dans le feu

se sectionna les doigts avec des coquillages

une fois visa de son poing la t�te d�une pauvre fille

mais se retint (il dit) � je suis satisfait

� mon r�ve

� ne demande rien de plus

comme la vision quand enfant il vit

un vieil homme � d�une rare beaut� �

qui tendait de la viande d�ours de la main droite

d�homme de la main gauche

mangea de l�ours et fut chasseur

revint commanda des pr�sents

� 10 chiens

� 10 perles de porcelaine de chaque cabane

� un collier (ceinture de wampum)large de 10 rangs

� 4 mesures de graines de tournesol

et il resta 10 heures � se br�ler au feu

� chanter son chant de mort

c�est pourquoi le j�suite �crivit

� ils ont empli de r�ves toutes leurs cabanes

3

�tait-ce la lune qu�elle voyait

comme la lune en Pologne cette vieille m�re

jadis nous �clairait l�esprit

dont r�vait l�Iroquoise

s��tait �loign�e de sa cabane

sa fille b�b� dans les bras

� vieille lune est tomb�e sur la terre

(dit-elle)

� est devenue femme

� comme moi mais tient

� un autre b�b�

� comme si j��tais entr�e dans un miroir

et la lune se dresse

rouge sang

(dit)

� je suis ta dominante

� ton seigneur

� grasse de mon luisant de lune

� t�accorde le pouvoir de nommer des pr�sents

� tabac peut-�tre       perles �tincelantes

� robe de fourrure d��cureuil rouge

� pour qu�ils te soient donn�s

� veille � ce qu�on proclame des f�tes de r�ve en mon nom

� tellement je t�aime

� que je te voudrais pareille � moi

� � du feu

� totalement

� pour vivre en couleur du

� mien feu

maintenant elle est elle-m�me

Dame Rouge

elle s�habille tout de rouge

toutes ses plumes coiffes ceinture chaussures rouges

elle s�enduit m�me le corps de rouge

cerne chaque protub�rance

rouge de sa vulve

tellement bien

a le cerveau tourn� t�te en bas

maintenant elle va traverser pieds nus

200 feux

pousser rauque son chant de vieille femme

rougi d�amour

sort sa langue rose pour toucher

� son dernier d�sir �

4

 � tourn� la t�te en bas �

c�est la c�r�monie enfin

il n�y a rien

avant elle de plus grand que

la femme au bord de son propre r�ve

voit un nouveau monde en bas

l�air se dilate

souffle contre ses jambes

ouvre avec ses doigts la vulve terne

soudain rutilante

et br�lante

rouge d�une nouvelle promesse

l�enfant-monde prend racine en elle

sera une fille

qu�elle soit la grand-m�re de tout

bien et mal

elle marche dans le nouveau

monde sous sa t�te

comme traversant le dos d�une vieille tortue

sur les mains

dans un pays o� tout le monde est couvert de plumes

o� la peau est comme du verre

ouvre une fen�tre dans son sein     disons

par laquelle un Indien

fatigu� de son show

te fixe

darde sur toi

une dent d�or

et un �pouvantable haut-de-forme

avec des drapeaux

Seneca journal 7: The  Dreamers

                                                  for David Antin

1

that couple sitting

in splendor of old houses

Albert Jones & his wife Geneva

were old before my time

he was the last of the Seneca diviners

died 1968

the year we first stayed in Salamanca

with the power to know dreams

�their single divinity� wrote Fremin (S.J.) 1650

as we say �divine�

the deva in us

like a devil

or a divus (deus)

when these old woods were rich with gods

people called powers

they would appear in words

our language hides them

even now

the action of the poem brings them to light

dear David

not in the business man�s

imagination

but asking

�who is Beaver?�

forces them out of the one mind

in mything

mouthing the grains of language

as David that sounds like deva

means beloved

thus every Indian once had a name

2

�devils� the Jesuits said

or �dreams�

but were barred from the dying man�s room

who sat       dreaming       singing

surrounded by bells      knives      needles      scissors      blankets     

caps      coats       wampum belts      beads       awls

�the thousand objects of his dreams�

was careful not to kill a desire

in sleep

he knew he wanted to eat

dog�s flesh or man�s

that his father�s hatchet had vanished

something forever secret

waited in him

the 13th virgin in the love feast

always out of reach

therefore they fed him like babe or woman

the dark diviner at his side

wept still over riddles�

beads & pumpkins�

& the man screamed rolling in the fire

cut his own fingers off with seashells

once aimed a blow at some poor girl�s head

but stopped (said) �I am satisfied

�my dream

�requires nothing further

like the vision as a boy he saw

an old man �of rare beauty�

who held out bear meat in right hand

human in left

ate of the bear & was a hunter

came back     ordered gifts

�10 dogs

�10 porcelain beads from each cabin

�a collar (belt of wampum) 10 rows wide

�4 measures of sunflower seeds

& sat 10 hours by scorching flame

singing his death song

so the Jesuit wrote

�all their cabins they have filled with dreams

3

was it the moon she saw

like the moon in Poland that old mother

once lighted up our minds

that the Iroquois woman dreamed of

had walked out from her cabin

baby daughter in her arms

�old moon�s dropped down to earth

(she says)

��s become a woman

�like myself but holds

�another babe

�as if I�ve walked into a mirror

& the moon stands

blood red

(says)

�I am thy dominant

�seigneur

�fat with my moon glow

�grant thee the power to name gifts

�maybe tobacco       flashy beads

�robe of red squirrel fur

�to thee be given

�see they proclaim dream feasts in my name

�so much I love thee

�I would thee be like me

�like fire

�wholly

�to live in color of

�mine fire

now is herself

Red Lady

dresses all up in red

her feathers cap belt shoes all red

she�s even smearing her body red

encircles each protuberance

red of her labia

so fine

�s her brain turned upside down

now she will walk bare foot through

200 fires

squawk her old woman song

grown red with love

stretches her pink tongue to touch

�her last desire�

4

�turned upside down�

this is the ceremony at last

there is nothing

before it greater than

the woman at the rim of her own dream

sees a new world below

the air expands

blows against

her legs

its fingers open the dull labia

suddenly aglow

& burning

red with a new promise

the world-child takes root in her

will be a daughter

she be the grandmother to what

is good & bad

walks now in the new

world below her head

like crossing the back of an old turtle

on your hands

in a country where everyone wears feathers

where skin�s like glass

opens a window in her breast      say

from which an Indian

tired from his �show�

stares out

shines at you

a gold tooth

& a terrible top hat

with flags

[The American version of A Seneca Journal remains in print today through Nine Point Publishing in Bridgton, Maine, & a complete French translation of Shaking the Pumpkin, in some sense a companion volume to A Seneca Journal, will be published next month by Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre,  the title in French Agiter la Citrouille : Po�sies Traditionelles des Indiens d�Am�rique du Nord.]

Mikhl Likht: Processions V

Translation from Yiddish by Ariel Resnikoff & Stephen Ross

[The following is a continuation of the ongoing translation by Resnikoff & Ross of Processions,  the great epic work by Mikhl Likht (1893�1953), which, while written in Yiddish, can be seen now as an integral part of the American �Objectivists� moment, along with contemporaneous works by Pound, Zukofsky, Williams, & others.  Earlier translations from Likht have appeared on Poems and Poetics, along with several discussions by Ariel Resnikoff of the relation between Likht & Zukofsky, et al, both literary & personal.  Beyond that, �Processions V� will be coming out this week in a small collaborative chapbook Rothenberg//Resnikoff//Likht: Poems, Translations, Variations, published by The Operating System Press in Brooklyn, New York.  In the meantime the work continues as does the search for publishers & for magazines & journals in which to publish further installments.  Writes Resnikoff: �We invite all interested parties to be in touch.� (J.R.)]

 [ab ovo]

From the dark ways

From bare fidgetings

From the schematic tarantella-motifs

From sufficient machinations intoxicated by bright shimmershine

From the silent smoking modifications

From the cool blue hazes veiled in early morning light

From the rumbling motor cavalcades

From the elongated unimpeded zeppelins

From neutral genres in nature�painting

From sunken water-secrets swaying U-boats

From dumb hearing and pupil billy goat glances

From wilted tulips and sister-flowers in Long Island hothouses

From A-G minor concert piece

From entangled concept over godlessness, Chinese braid and pale financier

From pearly summer-storm onset

From hasty wagers over accidental yes�s and relative no�s

From spiritual germinations and material finishes (and vice versa)

From trolley-clanging violated through radio�s manifold hoo-ha

From the weariness of pedestrian city-street step

From the inertia and forced vivacity of the staff of clothing- and other stores

From bells angelus-chatter in church-spires

From nightwatchman�s burdened eye

From mother�s and wet-nurse�s mechanical chasings after childrens� paths in squares, streets, parks

From seething howls of productive and destructive machinery

From blind cellars� miasmic atmosphere

From forced bending from full height under flat, subterranean ceilings

From obscene creatures wheezing in little houses

From birds� metatarsal altitudes

From complete aircraft signals

From patient waiting for something new

            Life shall live itself out

           

            Generated itself elderly energy:

            death

I.

[A Story with a Mouse]

Alone. Solitary, without anyone, without myself

am I

(to me). Someone should, who knows,

even thru a crack, a little gap the dimensions

try to turn a creature into a point, a little nail

from a threatening hand, -- throw a thinking cushion

to the shut in head like the majority

among bubbly girl friends the morning after sleep.

I Spring myself/covertly

the between-summerwinter-autumn. Hint:

My wife

is to me (what the world ought to be) the old Jewish catchall;

My mother --

the baker�s bread, farmer�s butter;

My palatial spacious house --

The museum of every bubble and squeak

that ostentationalizes the senses; pomposifies the brains. --

A shudder in a mouse�s cornerroom:

the full power of a god�s prompting.

[The Same: More To The Point]

Dovebosoms. Mine, yours, everyone�s --

no one�s.

God forbid!, I don�t begin to be alone

and sweeter than a worm in horseradish

is the duality (ours) to me: mouse�s

and mine. Oh people of lonely! Oh those

famous nikhbodim^[1]who spin themselves

out from, into, events as if from-into flax a coarse fabric:

Sleep robs a hair from you

then comes to poetry-lore;

You take a little nap

You tear life (a supplement to prose) into itty-bitty pieces--

with dovebosoms one lives life out like oneself the zhmenke^[2]years,

But this year the yarmulke diaspora-tree shall suffice:

in the coming year -- in Soviet Russia, in Mexico, in Galveston:

if necessary -- in Jerusalem.

[The Doves Do Not Want To Part from Their Bosoms]

The mouse will somewhere finally find rest with us

even if it costs us a thousand-and-one dumplings!

We will lead ourselves with a cow

a bull, with a nanny goat and ram.

For ourselves we will erect a house (a home?),

the livestock -- a stable. And for the sickly little mousey?

With holes we must devote ourselves to God

for our service in shul and shtibl.

We will as it suits us crawl from the skin

through all cracks to redemption: either as guards

of our own renewal -- sowing cabbage

with onion, becoming bakers, farmers;

or giving up corrupt �liberal� professions --

with that, draw in �The Internationale�; the handyman

becomes our beloved anew � industrious and new,

it will completely carry itself out song to God.

And the enemies of Israel will become the young Zionists,

and Allenby and Balfour -- Moses and Aaron,

and we will then, who knows, arrive where --

we�re off already -- we�re coming -- make way!

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^[1] Respectable people

^[2] Zangberg, Bavaria