Draft, He Shall Be Nameless

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Recopied and contd poem. 3, rue du Mide, Toulouse, 9 May 1979, 9:38 a.m. -10:40; 11:12- 11:28, 12:10 -1:27; *7:12pm -7:20 His after dinner smoke ring, Widening toward me over brandies, oval framed his thrusting checks, his constalk hair just when her portion of the tabletalk Snapped his picture through this lens, this whisper: “He was at Auschwitz.” Her definition, like a faultless signature famous under museum glass, glared into oblivion all surroundings—her perfumed self, the flavored snifters, the flittering debris of chiseled phrases piling up to table “The Holocaust” as televisions laggard motion to color-tag the winners—till atmosphere hung featureless, A strangely scented drifting toward the soundlessness around that gentle face suspended nameless. Weeks afterward, his portrait hung for me on any wall it chose, one day the eyes greened back to glow the hair, *full “gingering? and generosity of lips poked through a honeysuckle veil tried on within a privacy of hedge beyond a country road; next moment, angled shelterless between two ancient wagon wheels, the smoke-ringed face was dangling near a barn. Today, I shine my city starlight on him, imagine him mysteriously dead to bloody up, officialize, my public right to facts: his father’s whooping cough, his mother’s teenage crying, foods he didn’t eat, pages he didn’t turn never turned. His dinner table friends dry out my pen with these, hovering mouth-to-mouth to pose before the temporary badge that hides my heart and loudens when I ask their images “His name? His name?” Unblinking they repeat into their own reflections, “He was at Auschwitz.”

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Typed draft poem written by Emanuel in 1979 about a nameless man who experienced the Holocaust in Auschwitz.

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  • type
    Image
  • created on
  • file format
    jpg
  • file size
    872 kB
  • container title
    James A. Emanuel Papers
  • creator
    James A. Emanuel
  • issue
    BOX 4 FOLDER 22 Chisel in the Dark, draft, n.d.
  • rights
    James A. Emanuel Estate
  • rights holder
    James A. Emanuel Estate
  • version
    5/9/1979