NISSIM EZEKIEL NISSIM EZEKIEL
Mallarme's 'sin of seeing the Dream in its ideal nakedness ... the A Poem of Dedication
horrible vision of a pure work'.
Written 2500 years ago are Sappho's lines: The view from basement rooms is rather small.
The moon has set, and the Pleia'des. A patch or two of green, a bit of sky,
It is the middle of the night, Children heard but never seen, an old wall,
Hour follows hour. I lie alone. Two trees, a washing line between, windows
( tr. Guy Davenport) With high curtains to block the outward eye;
imperishable poetry or immediate record? They are both. It may be It seems that nothing changes, nothing grows,
too early to talk of the imperishability or otherwise of Ezekiel's But suddenly the mind is loosed of chains
poetry, but in several of his best poems-one of them, a version of the And purifies itself before the warm
fatal woman, in fact called 'For Love's Record'-his plain authentic Mediterranean, which fills the veins,
enough statements take ori the authority of verse, and, in a counter To make the body beautiful and light
vailing movement, the metronomic line comes under the charge of a Heaviness of limbs or soul can mimic calm
speaking voice. (Just how and when personal record becomes poetry I close the eyes to see with better sight.
is, however, a subject for the gods.) There is a landscape certainly, the sea
Unlike A. K. Ramanujan andJayanta Mahapatra, Ezekiel will be Among its broad realities, attracts
remembered less for the totality of his work than for individual things Because it is a symbol of the free
in it. From the anthologist's point of view, this makes him an easier Demoniac life within,
poet to cull from. The selection below leaves out some of his familiar Hardly suggested by the surface facts,
anthology pieces-the sentimental 'Night of the Scorpion' for in And rivers what a man can hope to win
stance-in favour of others so far overlooked. To recall 'Poet, Lover, Hy simple flowing, learning how to flow,
Birdwatcher', I chose those poems where I felt Ezekiel, like the besL And trees imply an obvious need of roots,
poets, waited for words and 'never spoke before his spirit moved'. llcsides that all organic growth is slow.
It's a pity he disregarded this insight so often. lloth poetry and living illustrate:
l•:neh season brings its own peculiar fruits,
/\ lirnc to act, a tim'e to contemplate.
'1'111' irnage is created; try to change.
rJ111 lo seek release but resolution,
111 lo hanker for a wide, god-like range
1 II 11111111111 t, nor the matador's dexterity..
I ,I,. 11111 wnn( the yogi's concentration,
I I 111 11111 waut the perfect charity
i jJ ii, 1 IN nor the tyrant's endless power.
·, ,vr1111 11 liulllan balance humanly
1 1 il1 rd, Ii 11i1 ful in the common hour.
! n(,. 11,11 11IH'tl1, is my creation,
11 flit• ltTrns of poetry
,, II h, you in dedication.
13
NISSIM EZEKIEL
NISSIM EZEKIEL
Against my will but somewhat reconciled,
My Cat I let her go who gave but would not bind.
She grew in love abandoning her ties,
My cat, unlike Verlaine's or Baudelaire's
No matter how they loved she put them by.
Is neither diabolic nor a sphinx.
Though equally at home on laps or chairs,
She will not be caressed, nor plays the minx.
She has a single mood, she's merely bored,
Case Study
Yawns and walks away, retires to sleep.
Whatever he had done was not quite right.
Has never sniffed at where the fish is stored
The Masters never failed, however weak,
Nor known to relish milk; less cat than sheep.
To know when they had sinned against the light.
Can their example purify his sight?
She does not condescend to chase a rat Ought he to practise Yoga, study Greek,
Or play with balls of wool or show her claws Or bluff his way throughout with brazen cheek?
To teasing guests, but in my basement flat
Defies all animal and human laws Beginning with a foolish love affair
Of love and hate. After common school and rotten college,
He had the patient will but not the flair
One night I'll drown this cat.
To climb with quick assault the envied stair;
Messed around instead with useless knowledge,
And staked on politics a fatal pledge.
His marriage was the worst mistake of all.
For Love's Record Although he loved his children when they came,
He spoilt them too with just that extra doll,
I watched the woman walk away with him.
Or discipline which drove them to the wall.
And now I think of her as bold and kind,
IJis wife and changing servants did the same
Who gathered men as shells and put them by.
A man is damned in that domestic game.
No matter how they loved she put them by.
I I<: worked at various jobs and then he stopped
I found no evil in her searching eyes.
l•'or reasons never clear or quite approved
Such love as hers could bear no common code.
1 ly I hose who knew; some almost said he shopped
Vibrating woman in her nights of joy,
Al'ound for dreams and projects later dropped
Who gathered men as shells and put them by.
(' I 'I 1ough this was quite untrue); he never moved
111ilc·ss he found something he might have loved.
With her I kept my distance (not too far)
But heard the music of her quickened breath.
i 11• ,·nmc to me and this is what I said:
Laughing sorceress to harlequins,
I I If' pattern will remain, unless you break
Who gathered men as shells and put them 9y.
15
14
NISSIM EZEKIEL NISSIM EZEKIEL
Two Images This is the place
where I was born. I
know it
well. It is home,
From the long dark tunnel which I recognize at last
of that afternoon, crouching, humped, as a kind of hell
waiting for the promised land, to be made tolerable.
I peeped out like a startled animal Let the fevers come,
wings.
and saw a friend flapping his angelic the patterns break
I welcomed him. and form again
for me and for the. place.
II I say to it and to myself:
not to be dead or dying
Fish-soul in that silent pool is a cause for celebration.
I found myself supported
by the element I lived in, Watching spiders climb
e
but dragged out with the greatest eas the commonplace, ants
by any fluttering fly co-operate, lakes
at the end of a hook. reflect the hills of some
remembered holiday,
ships and swans engender
legends, morals, music,
I seek on firmer ground
After Reading a Prediction to improvise my later fiction,
the fallen world
I am not superstitious, a faithful friend.
The Zodiac predict s a new I also learn
creative phase of seven years to make light of the process,
for Sagittarian s . I remind my self to be the bird in balance
that to be the healer, on the turbulent air
not the sick and yet as present here
or the indifferent one as any solid human body,
was always my ambition; heavy, slow and wishbone
and to rage against the barren breakable, straining to stay young.
not only in friend or stranger
but perfectly familiar
in my own signature.
d'I ,, 19
