"Primo Levi's Poems," "a wall," and "White Dragon"

Primo Levi’s Poems       

                (Primo Levi, 1919-1987)

Levi’s poems waked in him

and separated noble from ignoble

sadness on the one hand, and dispassionate

embrace.  I on the one hand

breathe in what rises,

and on the other, what drops into the cold sea.

a wall

I put a simple wall between

myself and the world outside that says:

I am or: I am not.

whether there is or never will be

an “other” (writer, reader, mother

if no one pays attention to what I write)

to that one other I write:

if no one reads books

but hates and disdains them

they can yell their own poems

I will still write

and if no one reads and no one listens

(and I’ve got no reason to talk)

& I must whisper

I will still listen

this is something I have to make myself do

to be honest

The White Dragon

Someone has to witness even to a just war

because millions drink poison in its hands

walk over dead cattle & die in a heap

in the middle of the parades somebody

should march in stone manacles

not everybody who dies will be guilty

not everybody

who dies will be coward

nor deserves

to be ground up and roasted

The poet who spits white dragons

has love in her eyes

In a room full of hatred the air

is not fit for poetry.  But

spit at it and take away its best weapons

the silent undecided

who see no way out

Remember the reality

of death, its contagion pollutes equally

the just and the damned

and the white dragon

Take away their best weapons, the

reasonable people, who make hatred

almost explainable, convert them,

if not with logic then with the fragrance

of the white dragon

Take away the words of the people who

make hatred as plausible as toast

or a necktie or their own hands

washing themselves after a good meal

Take away their hatred, take away

their sorrow, bury the thing that

stands between us, that infects the white dragon

with poison

Isolate, insulate, you will never

kill them off, just make them embarrassed

to be themselves

Let the breath of the white dragon blow through

the room, if you have nothing to add

shut up. You were here to witness

the brilliance of the dragon

you are lucky

you can put that in your memoir someday,

like “I was there. I saw the dragon, it was real”

Tender are the bones of Arab fever

and tender are the American bones

Tender are the graves of confederate generals and tender

are the graves of the great great great grandchildren of slaves.

Take away the thing that comes between us, take down the wall

take down that flag that put the gun in your heart

If the white dragon cannot speak poetry to hate

she embarrasses its friends, makes

its relatives think he’s crazy, send him back home

to mow his lawn. Give his children some ammunition

for their teenage rebellion.  Make

his wife want to leave him, his buddies wish he would just

cut out early, the people at the job site, the office, the church,

school or industry wish he would quit, fail, drop out or convert

to a quietist sect of professional blood donors who simply live

so that others will not die.

If somebody kills me, I’ll be dead indefinitely. The white dragon

will see me go.