by Stanley H. Barkan
(08/22/86, Spring Glen, NY; posted on Menke’s 120th birthday, second night of Passover 2026 as part of the Menke Katz Archive).
◊
- When the two old poets
- meet at moondown
- in Safad
- at the End of Days,
- Menke, they will sing
- of meetings
- in Borough Park and Spring Glen.
- *
- Wherever I have spoken,
- I was like your Charlie McCarthy,
- you my Edgar Bergen,
- giving my wooden words
- butterfly wings,
- coruscating feathers
- of color and light
- to flutter through
- the long moonless nights
- of empty chairs, faces
- full of money, talk
- without a flood of leaves
- in a gypsy-moth forest, years
- without the fruits to weight
- the branch of tears
- raining like dew inversed
- in flight, not from earth
- to star-filled sky, but
- a dark darker than
- tohu-bohu, dawnless
- Eos deserting Borealis,
- Auroras covered
- with mantles of
- coins, pennies
- taken from the eyes
- of dead, day-old children.
- *
- Menke, only with your songs
- cantillating the dreary
- centuries away am I able,
- over and over again,
- to catch the nightingale,
- defend his finite ode,
- bless the morning, as
- the light pours down
- filtering through
- aubades strung
- from Milky Way to
- Ultima Thule.
- *
- I sing because
- you give me words,
- music, song,
- and soul to see,
- hear, feel
- the throbbing of
- wilderness,
- poor lost Adam
- cast out of Eden
- to search forever
- for Lilith his one
- equal partner,
- appleless, knowing,
- kissing, fearlessly
- demanding her
- own way,
- like you, always
- your one, unique,
- original Tao,
- challenging God
- and Devil to duel
- with you in your
- own Kaballah—
- your thousandfold
- mysteries
- enciphered
- in the crowns
- of the trop, gematriaed
- across the sum of
- all your poems.
- *
- Not even the Baal Shem
- Tov could master
- your sacred names,
- bending the light
- from its infernal
- flight across the
- starless dark.
- *
- Infinity, eternity
- meet in a final
- continuum as your
- runic whispers
- decode even
- Einstein’s flash,
- penetrating even
- to the sins
- of God,
- his worst act
- of all to give
- us all a small
- piece of Him—
- but you, Menke,
- took double,
- triple shares
- of his music
- of the spheres,
- leaving all the
- poets who ever
- penned, who sought
- to croak their
- crowlike shrieks,
- without the instrument
- which you, Menke,
- stole out of
- Ein-Gedi,
- before the
- flaming sword
- could stop
- your theft
- of pomegranates
- filled with all
- the songseeds
- you used
- to spit out
- your constellated
- poems,
- the true Land of Manna.
- *
- * * *
- *
- *
- Envoi
- *
- The flow of rivulets
- over a thousand-and-one
- stones, glisten
- more brightly than
- a million suns,
- because your messages
- in a bottle sailed
- over them to
- greet each wayfaring
- stranger who dared
- to open, rub, and
- command you, Genie,
- with your thrice-echoed
- glass of wishes.
- *
- * * *
- *
- Double Envoi
- *
- At a cup of coffee
- we will recall
- all the battles
- and conquests,
- and the humdrum days
- existing
- only before
- we met.
- *
- Ha, demon of poets!
- this even precedes
- Adam’s first fuck.
- *
- * * *
- *
- Envoi, Envoi
- *
- The sparks that you
- flung out re-star
- the firmament.
- *