Se Questo e' un Uomo - Primo Levi

Voi che vivete sicuri
Nelle vostre tiepide case,
Voi che trovate tornando a sera
Il cibo caldo e visi amici:
Considerate se questo è un uomo
Che lavora nel fango
Che non conosce pace
Che lotta per un pezzo di pane
Che muore per un sì o per un no.
Considerate se questa è una donna,
Senza capelli e senza nome
Senza più forza di ricordare
Vuoti gli occhi e freddo il grembo
Come una rana d'inverno.
Meditate che questo è stato:
Vi comando queste parole.
Scolpitele nel vostro cuore
Stando in casa andando per via,
Coricandovi alzandovi;
Ripetetele ai vostri figli.
O vi si sfaccia la casa,
La malattia vi impedisca,
I vostri nati torcano il viso da voi
.
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If This is a Man - Primo Levi
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You who live safely
In your warm houses,
You who, returning in the evening,
Find warm food and faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who labors in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a piece of bread
Who dies by a yes or a no.
Consider if this a woman
Without hair and without a name
And without the strength to remember
The eyes empty and the womb cold
Like a frog in winter.
Contemplate the fact that this happened:
I order these words onto you.
Engrave them into your hearts
When resting at home or walking in the streets,
When lying down, when getting up;
Repeat them to your children
Or may your houses be destroyed,
Illness paralyze you,
Your children turn their faces from you.

Yuria by Jaime Sabines, 1967

Cuba 65

Espero curarme de ti

¡Qué costubre tan salvaje ...

Cuando tengas ganas de morirte

Te quiero porque tienes las partes

El mediodia en la calle

Esta mañana imaginé mi muerte

Pétalos quemados

Cuando estuve en el mar

Me dueles

Caononicemeos a las putas

Autonecrología

Soy mi cuerpo

Me preocupa el televisor

Para hacer funcionar a ...

Pensándolo bien ...

Cantemos al dinero

Cuba 65

I hope to cure myself of you

What a savage custom! ...

When you have the desire to kill yourself

I love you because you have the parts

Midday in the street

This morning I imagined my death

Burning petals

When I was at sea

You hurt me

We canonize the whores

Autonecrology

I am my body

The television worries me

To make it work for ...

Thinking well of it ...

We sang to the dollar

La señal by Jaime Sabines

Año: 1951

En los ojos de los muertos

En la sombra estaban sus ojos

Te desnudas igual que si estuvieras sola

Los he visto en el cine

Tía Chofi

A estas horas, aquí

No quiero paz

La cojita está embarazada

Ésa es su ventana

Sigue la muerte

The sign

1951

In the eyes of the dead

In the shadow were their eyes

You remove your clothes as if you were alone

I have seen them in the theater

Aunt Chofi

At these hours, here

I don't want peace

The invalid girl is pregnant

That is her window

Death goes on

Home

Brooklyn.
County of kings filled with servants in the ghetto delivering smiles to anyone who crosses the bridge.
Windows caging in bright futures begging to be let outside, we remain indoors reflecting on the freedom in our futures.
Fire escape.
To the right, red , high and perfect for sitting down and blowing bubbles to the sky
Escaping to our own paradise, my neighbor and I converse….while heating left over noodles on the fire of our old stove.
Hydrants.
Spraying us down in an attempt to quell the heat but failing to extinguish the sizzling joy in our hearts.
Corner Stores.
Ample “sour power candy” which somehow possesses the power to keep us behaved.
Teeny bathroom.
Home to chucky the doll ready to come out of the dark….needless to say, at night, I never made it to the bathroom. Oops.
Mommy’s and Father’s room.
Empty. Just mommy.

MASH

M is for Mansion
A is for Apartment
S is for Shack
H is for House

Fill out the form and find out your future
Where you'll live
Who you'll marry
How many children
The car you'll drive

How funny to think I had it all planned out as a child
And now I have no plan at all

grandpa

Gnarled hands, worn with time, but still steady as ever
Picking up a piece of wood, carving a small dove, ornament, or child’s toy
Adding to his collection of thousands made up over almost a century,
Working in his basement of the home he moved to with his bride almost 60 years ago.

The hands were stronger then, Marine hands
Protecting his bride from the 20-foot snakes in the Philippines
That spanned across the road, both head and tail in the dense weeds
Are you ever scared? I ask
Not then

vermont

Soft snowflakes fall steadily,
Melting and freezing in the salt and pepper beard of my father
His foggy breathe rapidly inhaling and exhaling as he pulls
My brother and I up the curved, gravel hill to our home

We reach the top and off we go –
Fleeing fast on our flexible flyer
Red steel frames carving into the icy packed ground
Flying so fast I gasp to take a breath in

We go around a bend, my brother turning the handle
As hard as he can, avoiding my mom,
on an Everest expedition in a huge forest green parka,
by mere inches.

Veering wildly out of control, we shift our bodies
Trying to hang on, Trying to get a little farther,
Trying not to crash into the bare sugar maple tree
trying to make this moment last

To See the World

Home is the sand
blown off a winter beach
on to the hamburger
father grills in the dunes
while we
play chicken with the waves
and mother scolds
don't get too wet.

The State of Home

They say Home is where the heart is
and I agree
that while it takes heart to make a home
one shouldn't forget mind and body,
because it's the state of your mind
and the people you share the place with
that make it home.

Colorful memories pervade
the place of my youth.
I remember stormy skies
and difficulties but
those have faded into the
warmth of the sun
in the effect of my permanent memory.

Here and
now seems so vanilla,
not sweet but plain and
maybe just a little bitter at times
but I know that just like the bean
if you add sugar to it
you have something special and different,
and I know my memories of
here will be warm because of
how the people who have shared
this place with me
have added something sweet.

Yellow Red Blue

dear mr. kandinsky
did you ever have to stare at your own painting
every morning, first thing in the morning
very last thing at night?
did you ever imagine your images
reprinted
prints found in a college quad for sale:
five bucks maybe ten?
same bin as album covers of girls kissing girls
(girls buying your work, boys worked up over the latter)
furthermore
would you be flattered to be picked arbitrarily out of that bin?
honestly
i just liked the look of your shapes and colors
and now i look for your new shapes every morning
very last thing before i go to bed.
you are a cheap print in a cheaper frame
framed so unevenly by the wall
sharing the spotlight with a family photo
and a pile of textbooks....
this is no modern art museum mr. kandinsky, this is not even paris
here the only critic you have to please is me
after all
who else looks at your painting every morning, first thing in the morning
very last thing at night?

The Farthest Place from “Home”

The other day I went running.
The sky was gray,
and the wind hit my face with tiny warm droplets of rain
Dutch weather has always been my favorite

I can remember running through park de Paauw
The dimly lit forest
Chartreuse moss covered hills, toy bridges and WWII bunkers
The long staircase that led up to the gazebo
And the fallen tree where I had my first kiss

And I remember the Meijendel dunes,
when we used to bike to the beach and stop at the farm to eat pannenkoeken
Stroop, powdered sugar and Liptonice
Horses neighing in their stables while we sat in the sun under an umbrella
The smell of honeysuckle and sunscreen

And when our stomachs were full, we were back on our bikes,
toward the end of the path, where we sprinted down cliffs of sand into
The cold North Sea
Have you ever noticed how every beach in the world
has a totally different collection of seashells?

And I remember arriving in an antique horse drawn trolley
To dance at the Kurhaus in Schevegingen
My familiar beach town
with its boardwalk that stretched for kilometers
and where you could watch old Dutch gentlemen eat entire herring in one bite

But we always returned to Bloemcamplaan—
my quaint little cobblestone street,
where cows drank from the canal and stood watch by the bus stop
Huge old trees and my white brick house
Just four years of growing up…

Where is home?

til next time

change treads lightly there,
rarely sees itself but for when i appear before the mirror
or so this poor fool gathers
sights and sounds
smells and the familiar gaze of eyes and caress of hands
comfortable
the most beautiful place, i smile sheepishly at its faults, no worse than my own
an irrevocable part, clings to me with such fondness
My great love.

i let the rain soak me, the sun shine on me,
the breeze makes me sigh

oh!

cold, a place.
on a map.
i point to it, know it, but do not care.
feel?
nothing. perhaps...something, but

i do not look back with a longing gaze

i point to it, know it, but do not care.

Then and Now

Home then…
Long days
Long summers
Warm weather
Warm friends
My family
My youth, no worries
All the time in the world
The past.
Won’t it always be my home?

Home now…
Short days
Short summers
Cold weather
Cold friends
My place
My present, oh the worries
The clock of life won’t stop ticking
A pause on the way to my next home?
The future?


Where is my home?

What Makes a House a Home and a Home a House

I. The ghost lived in the attic.
He had his space,
And we had ours.
Sometimes,
My sister and I
Would hear him walking
On our ceiling.
We named him Neil.

.

II. The room smelled like baby powder.
Everything about her world was soft,
And cushioned.
Why did she give him the key to the house?
He wondered,
Why did she let him into our home?
Broken, he kissed his sleeping daughter’s forehead,
See you Saturday.

.

III. On Passover, she made us go around the table
And say five things about ourselves,
And by the time it reached the end of the table,
With all adjectives exhausted
(It was a long table),
Roz said,
“So thankful to be here.”
And we all thought it was corny,
But fitting.
And then all of the children turned the house upside-down
Looking for the afikomen,
While we reclined.
A home warmed by tradition and bowls of soup.

Possessions

You see the record collection,

the clothes that hang

from my shoulders & waist.

You are impressed

though these books are not

dedicated to me.

I did not write the song.

The jacket is not my design.

A cool finger traces the outline

of inherited furniture

inherited features

and lipstick on this cigarette

is all that I possess.

HOW DOCTORS USE POETRY

Read these three poems, by poet-physicians, and choose one to discuss in class:

What is Written on the Body by Peter Pereira,

The Distant Moon by Rafael Campo, and

Sonnet for Jack by Jack Coulehan.

See you Wednesday.

She bites her nails,
But you can tell that at one time they were perfectly manicured –
The remnants of red nail polish

Now she sits calmly writing an address on an envelope
Trailing her cursive
the ink soaks through the heavy paper like crushed grapes from an Italian vineyard

“Máam, do you have an extra pen?”
Oh! She looks up
“Yes, I am waiting for a friend”.

House/ Home

House/Home

House is: _________
Pile of construction
Roof with tiles
Sunshine
through squeaky windows
Pots of flowering plants
waiting for water
Furniture a bit sagging
but not quite ready to be
Thrown

Home is: __________
Warmth of my mom’s home-made
Buns
My brother asking me to play
Dad’s inspection of my car
ready for the road
Movies rented by my stepmother
Pictures of all the relatives
not physically here
A Thought
An Idea
People


House/Home is: __________
However to mesh the
Two into
One