Poems

Marshall Berman, 1940-2013

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After the overflow funeral
Exeunt the bodies

The ones still walking
You, in a T-shirt, inside a box

I imagine you limping up stairs of books—
Studies in This, Studies in That, Studies in the Other—

On your repaired knees in the dark
To screw in a light bulb

How many Jewish intellectuals does it take
None, it’s already screwed

Through everything your handwriting stayed graceful
Talk about still points in turning worlds

The congregation disassembles
Collectively disheveled

The faithful knock around
Illegibly on the sidewalk

Taking n-1 out for a spin
All that is solid melts into pixels

 

Todd Gitlin, an American writer, sociologist, communications scholar, novelist, poet, and not very private intellectual, is the author of fifteen books, including Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street (available as both paperback and e-book from HarperCollins). Before that, he published the novel Undying and (with Liel Leibovitz), The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election.

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