#charles reznikoff

[havingapoemwithyou]

Notes on the Spring Holidays [“Hanukkah”] by Charles Reznikoff

[velvetmasonry]

Woman in a Kitchen by Julius Ehrentraut, c. 1900

Not because of victories I sing, having none, but for the common sunshine, the breeze, the largess of the spring. Not for victory but for the day's work done as well as I was able; not for a seat upon the dais but at the common table.

── Charles Reznikoff, "Te Deum"

[adiradirim]

Spain: Anno 1492, by Charles Reznikoff

[extollingtheeveryday]

Te Deum

by Charles Reznikoff

Not because of victories

I sing,

having none,

but for the common sunshine,

the breeze,

the largesse of the spring.

Not for victory

but for the day's work done

as well as I was able;

not for a seat upon the dais

but at the common table.

[whisperthatruns]

III I like this secret walking in the fog; unseen, unheard, among the bushes thick with drops; the solid path invisible a rod away--- and only the narrow present is alive.

Charles Reznikoff, from “Autobiography: Hollywood,” Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (1941), The Poems of Charles Reznikoff 1918–1975, ed. Seamus Cooney (Black Sparrow Press, 2005)

[dk-thrive]

cure myself

I will walk by myself and cure myself in the sunshine and the wind.

—  Charles Reznikoff, from “Autobiography: New York,” Poems 1918-1975: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (Black Sparrow Press, 1977) (via The Vale of Soul Making)

[manwalksintobar]

"XIX: Subway" from New York: Autobiography // Charles Reznikoff

People moving, people standing still, crowds and more crowds; a thousand and ten thousand iron girders as pillars; escape! But how, shut up in the moving train? And upstairs, in the street, the sun is shining as it shines in June.

[power-chords]

from By the Well of Living and Seeing, Part II, Section 18: “I saw him walking along slowly at night” By Charles Reznikoff

I saw him walking along slowly at night holding a tray of candy and chewing-gum: a Jewish boy of fifteen or sixteen with large black eyes and a gentle face. He sidled into a saloon and must have been ordered away because he came out promptly through the swinging doors.

I wondered what he was doing far from a Jewish neighborhood. (I knew the side streets and the roughs standing about on the corners and stoops.) What a prize this shambling boy with his tray! I stepped up to warn him against leaving the brightly-lit avenue. He listened, eyed me steadily, and walked on calmly. I looked at him in astonishment and thought: has nothing frightened you?

Neither the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, by the Romans, by the Crusaders? No pogrom in Russia; no Nazi death-camp in Germany? How can you still go about so calmly?