id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
currentmusicology-5292	Marmer, Jake	Nigun Poems	2013	8	.pdf	application/pdf	814	11	16	© 2013 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York 381 Nigun Poems Jake Marmer Preface This set of poems grew out of my experiences of listening and finding myself inside nigunim (pl; singular nigun or nign), Chassidic chants—mystical, usually wordless songs used as accompaniment for rituals—weddings, prayers, candle–lightings—collective beckoning of transcendence. this yontef commemorates what has never happened but the paint the paint rolls like walls stands like sea walls standing mercurially Jake Marmer 385 Nigun Au Rebours this song is not an act but erasure the way other songs reach into you this one retreats, taking with it stuff that seemed nailed to the floor this song is cinematic in its reel you may find yourself humming its residue you may wonder who you’re feeding— through the song’s straw that ascends to the pouting mouth of the vanishing point Current Musicology 386 Root–Note Nigun this nigun is about a stick figure and the wind over canvas that bared it— it’s about a two–bone abstraction, a solitary root note, resounding its stripped chorus no aesthetics beyond instinct— this nigun is about a scratch, a typo, doodle of person—dropped into an impressionist painting amidst the ball of flesh and color and it knows there must be a mistake and mumbles all it ever knows to mumble —“I exist”—“I exist”—“I exist”— a note bent in and out of the question this nigun is about a stick figure imagining it could change its fate by lifting its stick–figure hands heavenward Jake Marmer 387 Cecil’s Scarecrow Nigun for Anthony Coleman this nigun is a scarecrow in your old clothes it looks a little bit like you— a no–thanks–prophecy— the fence: scarecrow’s stage and metalepsis melody lint, limp sleeves and run–on paint everybody here forgets what they came for— newly unknotted, turn into congregants dissipating in their coats the nigun shuckles, rocks alone victorious creaking guardian in the field of pure color Current Musicology 388 Amphibian Nigun needle threads nothingness hunks of it transparent slices of ice  a dress good for running up and down the stairs of the ancestral dream ice quickly goes New York ice always does melting ripples around your face it’s the puddle–waltz— for a minute you remember there’s a world at the bottom of your stomach peopled with memories sad eyes, winking— and when you raise your head and ask for a drink someone shows you to the ocean and says welcome to your new life under the water	cache/currentmusicology-5292.pdf	txt/currentmusicology-5292.txt