Goldensohn, Barry

United States, (b. 1937)

The Marrano
Art is the remedy for the wont diseases
of the mind, the corruption of consciousness.
— Collingwood

  1.  
  2. God wants the souls of the faithful
  3. not their corpses. He has carrion enough.
  4. In The Golem it explain
  5. from the moments of the highest danger
  6. he saves us always in the form of wonders,
  7. like making a new man. For this truth
  8. we struggle in disguise.
  9. I moved to Hamburg or Seville, bought
  10. a bakery or clothing store, a new name,
  11. and lived openly, spoke like a native. I was
  12. a kind of native, the most internal exile.
  13. I could not change my name
  14. because I was committed to disguise,
  15. from Weiss to Scheiss, Hermano to Marrano.
  16. I am His pig. To hide Him I renounce Him.
  17. My teacher cared for me, a prize student.
  18. To spare my feelings he asked me to leave the class
  19. during his diatribes against the Jews.
  20. I listened from the hallway, grateful
  21. for this lesson in accommodation.
  22. Modesty and secrecy are virtues of the chosen.
  23. Study the pig for modesty. The cat
  24. buries the emblem of the world. We learn
  25. in secret, through closed doors, all love.
  26. I welcome the need to convert, create
  27. an adequate corruption of the mind
  28. fit for understanding, for the sacred,
  29. the one text, the one ungainly text,
  30. saying Alles in Ordnung ist,
  31. meaning another, unimaginable order.
  32. The Gnostics were right, the world is made of shit.
  33. I made my life a work of art expressing this.

Editor’s Note:

In medieval Spain and Portugal, this was a Christianized Jew or Moor, especially one who merely professed conversion in order to avoid persecution.

The Marranos – the swine – was the name given to these converts. These “new Christians” converted or were forced to convert their faith to Christianity, yet many continued to practice Judaism in secret.

© Barry Goldensohn. The Marrano: poems. Orono, ME: National Poetry Foundation, University of Maine (1988).

About the Poet:

Barry Goldensohn, United States, (b. 1937) is a poet and educator. A professor of English and poetry at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, Goldensohn has also served as dean of the School of Humanities and Arts at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Goldensohn has published at least six poetry collections and numerous essays. These include: Saint Venus Eve (1971), Uncarving the Block (1978), The Marrano: Poems (1988), Dance Music (1992), and East Long Pond (1997), which he co-wrote with his wife, the poet Lorrie Sanchez Myer. [DES-11/19]