Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, POWDERS OF THE MERCHANT, by ALEXANDER JAVITZ


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

POWDERS OF THE MERCHANT, by                    
First Line: Scarlet spice
Last Line: Swift songs are drumming on the echoes of kol nidre . . .
Subject(s): Cabbala; Fasts & Feasts; Jews; Sapphires; Yom Kippur; Kabbala; Kabbalah; Judaism


I. EAST-SIDE SPICE SHOP

Scarlet spice
Grows dusty within wall and wall;
And cinnamon grows drab
Beyond recall --
And so, the tart green leaves of marjoram;

Here is no yellow spikenard
Of one
Whose navel glittered ivory and sard
For Solomon . . .

Only a tired gray Jew, who stands
Against the huddled blackness of his door,
And sees some old forgotten tombstones write
A cabbalistic script of white,
And then is done . . . and moves into the night . . .

Dark is the city, and dark his hands,
And quiet with the bitter death
Of trampled perfume . . .

II. LET STRANGE POWDERS OUT OF TARSHISH . . .

Let strange powders out of Tarshish lace
Your arms with silver, and with gold your thighs;
Midnight will pass, and with the day
Our lips will be remembered by this spume and spray . . .
Close to the sea-wall, close to the sea-water's ebony and sapphire,
On the white armory of your neck,
My mouth shall hang curved shields of fire! . . .

Black are the spears of streets against our eyes --
Oh, turn apart and swiftly face
Joppa and Tyre and Samothrace!

III. WALKERS ON THE BRIDGE

The city winds phylacteries of stone;
The slow, strange metal plectron of the moon
Upon the black-strung towers speaks with white
And amethyst . . .
How soon
The river comes to them! . . . Dark and alone,
Deep and with an alabaster mist
Of some old starlight! . . .

Now he stands,
The small round sorrows of her breasts
Quiet beneath his hands . . .

And now within the brooding of her eyes
The hoof-beats of the dawn loom sharp with terror --
Tightly, he clutches empty skies! . . .

IV. TWILIGHT: A MAN PLAYS A HARP . . .

Twilight: a man plays a harp in the Ghetto --
Who will remember?

Twilight is a dark shield on the earth,
And the rain is a beating of silver lances;
Scarlet should dress your shoulders, and jasper be cool on your bosoms . . .
Sisters, sisters, you sit by the walls of the houses;
You brood with your hands on your faces, with your eyes in the wet wind .
. .

It is a madness to strum a harp on a curbstone --
Who will remember?

Twilight is a pool with a sunken star;
A young pool with saffron, purple, and a small gray mist.
Come, bathe your bodies: how pleasant is yellow silence! how calm to your
limbs!
Sisters, sisters, you sit by the walls of the houses;
What binds your thighs? what is sharp in your eyes in the wet wind? . .
.

It was true: he must lay his harp down;
He must pluck at the clouds with his fingers flung North and South --
Who will remember?

V. WATERS OF BABYLON

In a round lake, where the waves are deep and quiet,
He saw the far small moon . . . O single white
Breast of the withdrawn night!
And so was troubled by the waters of the earth . . .

The rain was the green hair of women nude and moist against his face;
Rivers were jade fingers and silver hands stirring the body of his eyes;
He counted three masts on a red-wood ship, and one was of citron, one of lime,
one of cedar . . .
And so was troubled by the waters of the earth . . .

Where did he see these things? At midnight,
While his street was gathering its shadows;
While strange and bitter Babylons
Mocked beneath his window . . .

VI. HOLY DAY

Even though the dusk is dark with the color of prayers and lamentations,
New lovers stab it with sharp tincture of delight;
Even though the pavements are silent with atonement,
Young feet glitter on the stones far into the night . . .

For the shuffling of old men's shoes is a lost sound in the high walls,
And the blast of the ram's horn is not heard in the white towers;
The purple hands of the clouds are mingled with the city's hair --
Hark! the new lovers are gone walking deep into the hours . . .

Until the gray windows stand against the sunrise,
Swift songs are drumming on the echoes of Kol Nidre . . .





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