Ekphrasis on “Last Movement 1996” painted by Samuel Bak
No Kaddish rises from this washed-out beige and olive-painted
square. The Holocaust is cobbled from the shabby coats,
cloaks, scalloped heaps of cloth, and vacant pages strewn
about the feet of these three listless players with their instruments,
squatting on a heap of cast-off lumber.
Bled out, they cling tightly to their faulty instruments,
crude bows of unseasoned wood, a cello with an open
empty belly. One man wears a gas mask linked by lengthy
tubing to the ground—why does he breathe the dirt so soon?
Off-center in the rear, a deathly pallid head protrudes
directly through a marble platform, as if he’s burrowed
upwards from his tomb.
Each of the four, the dead included, has pointed wing-like structures
spreading out behind like sails strong enough to meet with heaven.
This silent taking leave of life—a prayer and/or last encore.
Originally from South Africa, Freddy Frankel earned his advanced degree in psychiatry from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg before moving to the U.S. in 1962. He has been on the faculty of Harvard Medical School since 1969, Professor Emeritus of psychiatry since 1997, and served as psychiatrist in chief at Beth Israel Hospital Boston from 1986 to 1997. Now retired from active practice, he has shifted his focus to poetry, attending classes at the Harvard Extension School and studying with Barbara Helfgott Hyett. He has published a chapbook, Hottentot Venus (Pudding House Publications, 2003), and two poetry books: In A Stone's Hollow (Fairweather, Bedbug Press, 2006) and Wrestling Angels (Ibbetson Street Press, 2011). He was awarded the Robert Penn Warren First Award of New England Writers in 2003. His work has been published by Cape Codder, Concho River Review, Ibbetson Street, Jewish Currents, Lalitamba, The Larcom Review, Moment, The Oak, Passager, Senior Times, Ship Of Fools, The Tusculum Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, and in the anthologies Bagels With The Bards #6, The Mercy Of Tides, Rough Places Plain, and New England Writers 2003.
