Charles Levenstein: Last Lecture

The following lecture was presented by Professor Charles Levenstein, Work Environment (Retired), on February 24, 2004, at a series titled "If This Were The Last Lecture I Would Give, What Would I Say?" The series is organized by the Multi-faith Council of the University of Massachusetts Lowell and funded by the Council on Diversity and Pluralism.

The Poetic Life

This is not a life of butterflies, there is not a sunny poem on my desk.

Poems of pain: a snapshot of Mexican child workers.

Of struggle: Worcester nurses striking.

Poems about the Vietnamese boy in Chelsea who lost his hand

in a printing press after one day on the job. About tunnel
workers who died breathless under Boston Harbor.

The violinist who can no longer play, the textile worker who
cannot lift her child, the good old boy who sleeps with four
pillows in order to breathe and has no sex.

The materials of poetry: dusts and fumes, asbestos, pesticides,
        a modern toxic stew.

The ergonomics of poetry: the back, the neck, the arms, the
        hands, the brains, the soul.

The gristmill’s daily grind, the machinery of poetry.

There are blue skies, sex and grandchildren, but

The poetic life is one of attention, not of beauty.

Baxter Road
 

In the morning I walk up Baxter Road

To the lighthouse before the citizens

Are awake, before the carpenters have come

To work. Only the wave slapping

At the base of the bluff, only the flags flapping

In the wind, only the other denizens

Chattering or calling, enjoying the morning

Sun. Each house has a dove, centered on the roof,

Quietly celebrating the peace.

A great mansion has two crows like bookends

But no books to read.

The breeze shifts

The wind on the water.

Goldfinches fly about chasing

Each other, resting on the power lines,

Then off again to play in the sun.

I know robins, and there’s one relaxing,

Waiting for the worms to wake up.

Other birds, small ones with light breasts

And dark capes, and then quickly

A black bird with a touch of red flashes
By. They are all chirping and cooing to

One another, but it is still so still.

I look east, imagine Europe, but am captured

By the slow moving fishing boats, glide

On the Atlantic, searching, searching, from

This distance we cannot know if they find

Anything at all.

Nantucket
 

Prayer
In the morning I would pray by myself,

Placing the small boxes with the word of God

Next to my heart and between my eyes.

In the evening, however, I prayed

With the old men, first Mincha,

Then Maariv, mutter with the best of them,

Bend my knees, bow my head,

There were always some mourners,

They would glorify the Name on high,

Sometimes with tears, sometimes in duty.

I prayed for years from childhood into

Adolescence, not for anything in particular,

But to heal the rift between God and man.

Only through music could I reach

To the heavens, sometimes in the choir

I would cry out Adonai! Adonai!

I blushed afterwards, something had

Made away with me.

Turning Sixty-Five
I could walk dogs in the morning,

small ones, two or three at a time, carry

a shovel and big plastic bag, maybe

two, the other for cans and bottles,

not that I need a shopping cart,

no need to wander or beg,  just

to stay amused.

I could pack groceries at the organic store,

chat with bony ladies and tattooed children,

grin at the Russian gr after 20 years

still wonder-struck by the supermarket;

I could sell flavored water to runners,

unscented deodorant to the sensitive,

coconut massage oil to the sensuous,

free range boneless breasts without skin,

triple-cream cheeses from France or Pennsylvania.

I could eye other old men who love nature

and the false promise of spandex.

I could canvass for peace or the heart

association, raise money for and against

cancer, I could ring a bell or toot a horn

at Christmas, get into fistfights with

ex-priests who picket abortion clinics.

I could smoke marijuana, hand out

flyers to legalize drugs, go to town meeting

to protest scabs at the latest luxury structure

still under construction, or the parking spaces

that will sell for $65,000each –

I learned the price from equipment operators

who like to chat on their break –

I could be an elderly spy.

I could write poems, such a solitary game,

unless I went to workshops in Concord

or on the Cape, hung out in bars and bistros,

read at open readings until discovered

and won the Pulitzer, became

Poet Laureate of Samoa, published

in translation in obscure languages,

chanted at Naropa, had my picture taken

naked in a diner or with

Susan Sarandon on another errand

of mercy, the senior center at Temple Beth Shalom

which, without irony,

displays a sign supporting Israel

in its pursuit of peace. I could

write poems, walk dogs, pack groceries,

canvass and fight.

Merrimack River Rhapsody
The stream rushes down from New Hampshire loaded with

winter detritus and demands to know who has right-of-way;

the city, a transparent heart of waterways and ethnicity,

spills over like a flooded channel after January thaw, whispers

I love you in Canadian: the eyes of Cambodia light up,

Haiti smiles, West Africa cannot believe its ears: I love you.

A grandmother stands in the street in the old Irish Acre, her hair

is protected from the icy rain by a babushka donated to the Salvation

Army, on her feet are plastic flip flops; she reminds my friend of

his old Greek grandmother, a peasant lady swept to the new world

by wars and poverty, the bewilderment on her face is the same,

how did I come from the fields of Cambodia to this cold gray place?

We contemplate time and sip chicken-egg-lemon soup at the Olympia,

decide on mousaka and tomato-stained potato, diet coke with ice;

This city is washed by a human flood in every generation;

women fish and gossip by the edge of the river, teenagers sample

the water, are taught the tenets of environmental justice, the men

stamp out plastic parts indispensable to the American imagination.

Hometown
Distraction mounts in great piles,

like clothes made ready for the laundry,

futile attempts to distinguish dark from light,

the inevitable Kleenex tucked away

in a forgotten pocket  destined to undo

all effort at organization the new order

of laundry as dismal a notion heard

since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Apparently the only word for facial tissue

in Spanish is “Kleenex”. I invented

“paper of the nose” to the vast amusement

of clerks at Hometownbodega –

where I bought a roll of duct tape,

not to line my shelter, but

as the only solution to the disintegration

and diffusion of Kleenex throughout

dark laundry: black chinos, navy shirts,

socks, the most intimate of items,

adorned with flecks in a synthetic blizzard.

The Hometown chief reported

over 1000 phone calls about anthrax

one week after the national scare,

investigations unearthing forgotten Tide,

Bisquick, talcum (uncontaminated by asbestos,

we hope), fearsome white powders

snorted by affluent citizens

who knew better than to invite

police into their high tech homes.

Hometown is not under siege,

although the beating of three Indian students

by local patriots might give

that impression. I secret my cache

of once-washed Kleenex fragments

to avoid the eyes of spies searching

for Ahmed Rosenberg.

When I was a youth, my mother hid

The People’s Songbook so I would not

sing commie songs at college and

waste my young life at Leavenworth.

Now I scour my home for Middle Eastern

treasures, olive wood camels, varnished

sunflower seeds, posters with strange scribbling

might frighten Homeland Security.

I do not say Shalom for fear

they’ll hear Salaam and search my shoes

for bombs or other secret messages.

I worry for the baby boomers

Un-schooled by the Red Scare of the 1950’s.

Of course I am frightened.

I did not send a poem for peace

to the White House, not merely

because I knew the statistics

on dysfunctional illiteracy.

No, I am a squawking chicken,

afraid of oil,

afraid of pharmaceuticals,

afraid of crazy Christians

who ache for a new crusade.

I worry about the children of Iraq,

but fear Homeland Security.

On the other hand,

the old people’s homes in Hometown

are going bankrupt, so prison

for senior citizens may become

an aspect of retirement planning.

Will there be shuffleboard at Alcatraz?

Hootin’ Annies at Sing-Sing?

I do not write political poems.

I write kitchen crap and confessions.

This is not about politics.

It’s about our goddam lives.

Benchmarks
I.

The Big Dig sent tunnels into the harbor

And will submerge miles of skyway soon.

When the dust settles and workers

Pack their tools, we will sit on benches

In urban seashore park and ponder

The busy-ness of all those years of flashing

Light, detours and full speed ahead,

Cranes, earthmovers and muddy pile drivers trudging

Beside broken roads, helpful police,

Snarling police, all on overtime. Sailboats

Will grace the harbor, we will sit and fish

From the docks, children again by the sea.

II.

Yesterday I drove E. to the new courthouse

Built on a synthetic peninsula before

The militia blew up Oklahoma City,

I dropped her at the chain-link fence

Where guards eyed the old Toyota

Until they spotted her  lawyer’s bag –

They no longer sport machine guns,

The real threats are likely to come

From the sea, perhaps Yemenite patrol boats,

Or the air.

III.

Now that I’ve announced my intention

To get out of the traffic sooner than later,

Colleagues and friends eye me with suspicion,

Cannot imagine that I’ll leave our puddle,

An old frog experienced in dodging the bus,

Weathered floods and drought, helped

To build the damned puddle from a splash

In the gutter to an illicit playground

For mischievous children, ah the mud

Still feels good on my skin!

Nevertheless, the Big Dig is over,

I know nothing about placing sod

Or growing flower gardens,

I have my own reptilian dreams,

Set aside for long enough.

IV.

And what about

The call to pen (not arms),

From Prague to Cambridge:

Chomsky says to tell the people,

While Havel said speak truth to power,

I’d probably tell whoever wants to listen.

Just as likely I’ll draw a crowd

From my bench as from the puddle.

March 2003

At the Very Least
I.

School is out:

throw the texts aside,

sleep late,

relax in bubbles,

play with the cat!

If I were a true teacher,

I would relax with novels and books of poems

all day and into the night,

but I have been sneaking romance,

inside the text book a classic comic,

risque novels in brown paper cover—

So I do not deserve this release from duty.

I have not been dutiful.

I have been enjoying my seniority.

II.

I no longer read newspapers or other

ideological tracts. I can invent

as well as any Times reporter, I can sit

in Boston and spin tales like a barfly

in Caracas or Sao Paolo. Liars

without shame write for me as though

I were oil or fruit or liquid capital

seeking a drowning country.

If anything, I prefer the Wall Street Journal,

a community newspaper.

III.

Today the oil workers’ union in Venezuela,

creature of the CIA as everyone in labor knows,

strikes to bring down Chavez.

Perhaps these roots are so obvious,

journalists think not worth reporting.

IV.

Shame must be a pre-modern phenomenon –

Modernism was about sharp edges,

accumulation of money and power, towering

Manhattan, nuclear Chernobyl. And now –

the Empire rules far Afghanistan,

battles France over Iraqi oil.

Shameless.

V.

A new kitten plays in the sink,

fascinated by the drain through which

all matters of interest disappear.

Shall I tell her the Dispose-all

is a fierce creature, not merely resistant

to her youthful counter-hegemonic impulse,

but dangerous?

VI.

I’m reading Galeano this morning,

which may explain old-fashioned conscience

rising like a harvest moon, orange.

VII.

I suppose I maintain the illusion of choice

to ease daily life. After all,

my (sic) president seized office in a Florida coup,

my (sic) country now subject to emergency powers

because of imperial war, the enemy

is everywhere. The military menu is

dominated by a special of the day,

tomorrow liver with onions, next week

Korean kim-bob. Seventy percent of electorate

stays home, tv blares victory, never asks

why most didn’t bother. Some choice,

they said, some choice.

VIII.

Some days my wife says I look like a turtle,

round face, receding chin, wattles

that accumulate with age.

I wonder if turtles thrash around

beneath their shells, perhaps at night

when the sky is clear and sharp

and their impotence most apparent.
Of course, the Empire is not the universe;

sometimes it just seems that way.

IX.

Oh Lord, how am I to accept this life of privilege,

when Your world of violence and tears,

Your bloody world of Oil and Empire,

requires that I bear witness -- at the very least.

Copyright (c) 2001-2004 by Charles Levenstein.  All rights reserved.