Have you read Pavel Friedmann's "The Butterfly"?
I discovered it in a Children's poem book
he only rhymes with the words "high" and "goodbye"
its imagery gives the ghetto a close look
Only dandelion flowers went to seed
were we stuck there, we'd not pull them as a weed
I painted a sun crying on a white stone
a memorial for that butterfly, known
emagi= reverse ekphrasis
PAVEL FRIEDMANN: The Butterfly
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Written: May 08, 2023
A BRIAN STRAND PREMIERE no 1215 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Why does the wind spin in the hollows
and makes the leaves and powder fly,
whereas the ships lie in calm waters,
a breeze is their best desire?
Why from dark rocks, past a white tower
an eagle soars, with ease and power
to a dead tree? Ask better him.
Why Desdemona, on a whim,
loves her Othello, her black moor,
like a new moon loves gloom of night?
Because the wind and eagle's flight
and heard of maiden take no rule.
So poet, rhyming, building forms
accepts no rules, no laws, no terms.
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This is a translation from Russian
of an excerpt
from the A.S.Pushkin's poem Ezersky.
Translated by Pavel Nichkov
2012-08-28
Go to Dambu Lui Gaf, I told them
Climb some hills and lose some breath
Lie at a shrine on wet grass, I told them
The earth is not fully peopled yet
And so many now are young and dying,
The young dies fast and furiously
And old men with broken hearts are crying,
My Pavel is dead, he died so violently
Old Platanov, go back to Dambu Lui Gaf
When the opiate mist of morning is gone
Let her fall in the grass, let her laugh
Again, like Sandy Booker and his fawn.
There are too many wars and too few lovers
Open the borders of the flaming sword
O climb the hills, and smell the flowers
Young Pavel died, in sad silence we heard
I have counted enough bodies, I told them
O pale specter of birds in a far sunset
Love put four stars in the eyes, I told them
At the top of Dambu Lui Gaf, no regret.
Go to Dambu Lui Gaf, I told them
Climb some hills and lose some breath.
Lie in a shrine, on wet grass, I told them
The earth is not fully peopled yet ...
And so many now are young and dying
The young dies fast and furiously.
And old men with broken hearts are crying
My Pavel is dead, he died so violently
Old Platanov, go back to Dambu Lui Gaf
When the opiate mist of morning is gone
Let her fall in the grass, let her laugh
Again, like Sandy Booker and his fawn.
There are too many wars, and too few lovers
Open the borders of the flaming sword
O climb the hills, and smell the flowers
Young Pavel died and the silence is heard.
I have counted enough bodies, I told them
Like the spectre of birds in far sunset
Love put put his four stars in his eyes, I told them
At the top of Dambu Lui Gaf no regret
six million stones
a railroad car streaked red
a thousand astrodomes
swollen with dead children
the population of houston
dallas wiped out
ugly striped prison uniforms
signifying captures and escapes
martin luther as a bigot
bonhoeffer as a hero
dying days before the
liberation
faces from rwanda darfur
signaling the continuance
of a tradition of genocide
a danish fishing boat
hiding neighbors in a
fake bottom to escape
a wicked storming
the pictures of happy
proud loving families
bludgeoned in broken glass
a soft cloth golden star
like a slave branding
pulsating with hatred and
judgement harsher than
the ornate letter a for hester
1500000 butterflies
sewn drawn carved
remembering
the children who lost
their lives in the
Holocaust
"Butterflies don't live in here, here in the ghetto" Pavel Friedman, April, l942
Written after a visit to The Holocaust Museum of Houston
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