For Bernard Kops (28th November 1926 – 25th February 2024)
The world was a wedding from which you always stayed faithful;
To Erica first, then the angels who bit into bagels beside.
You shmoozed with them all from Jerusalem to West Hampstead,
Via Bacon and MacInnes’ Soho, language spilling from you,
A kind of Canute then, dry-landed, forever in search of fresh tides.
You were almost the last of the jews as I understood it;
Or that East End section that was a form of shtetl and street,
Along which Rabbis grew as if they were roses, and bombs
Burst from bookstalls from which the search for new worlds
Felt complete. Everything became kitchen sink, yet all was first
Science friction; what with the dreams bred from sickness
And the neurotic germ as it ate into each moment and soul
And you, as symbolic worm fed and fattened, moving in
From the outside into the temporary heat of charmed fate,
In which you erected your tent, stocked your shop, and then
Staged your drama, marrying Shakespeare with Stepney
And forms of urban folk-song. From Peter Mann’s Dreams
To Solly Gold’s entrance. Your Synagogue syntax was grammar
And grace not for throngs (as your initial audience thinned)
But for those who would feed on the fat and faith in a poem,
And who were keen to see and feel babble bagel and rise
Chagall-like from the page. As you were Anne Frank
And numerous speed-freaks in Margate, one could taste
Steam and sugar, glory and grain, oil and sage,
With each matzoh ball baked in some ancient fire, hot
In the hands of your children and offered out through the years.
You were dramatic, damaged and a Yiddish Lear copping Kingdoms,
Watching them divide, as new Drama saw your Friday night table
Cleared. Harold remained at its head, but whither Wesker?
Ask Arnold. As with him, demand lessened but not vibrancy.
As your books boiled up stews stirring the sting of time
With old honey and you, still folkloric oracled fate’s clemency
On your failed and flawed characters, from settling Simon Katz,
Back to Gloria Gaye, Daniel Klayman, you were stitching
Each tempest into a new tapestry, not from Bayeaux,
But E8 and those other hidden regions of London, now written
Over by Diasporan tales of all creeds. Those former jews
Disappeared. And your Shalom Bomb has exploded, as the actions
Of Israel see the semitic stained, thereby upping the Anti
As hate once more gets its feed. But Bernard, in being read,
You still boil. Whether tasted or not, your work simmers,
Bubbling beneath counters, unfairly set in which those
Who once changed the stage sought the specific shelter
Of novels. Or radio plays where versed voices could still
Offer the ear a sound rose. And where an old world
Was remade, as you sailed with Homer, accompanied
By Simon at Midnight, or with Just One Kid at the stern,
Spotting Ezra Pound in his cage, or passing Cafes Kropotkin,
Or Zeitgeist, as Antigone’s anemones surfaced you showed
How an old dog can still learn. You, bagel-breathed,
Chopped herring charmed, egged and onioned. You soothed
And raged, sanguine, yet sure to take affront’s stance;
Incensed that your generation are mostly known now
To those who decrepitly surf theatre’s ocean. But we can
See you still, below surface, as if you were some bright
Coelacanth: a living fossil. Now dead, your work retains
Your potential. With sixty plays and twelve novels, ten books
Of poems and two Autobiographies as bookends,
Where selves meet. You lived a near Century, from poverty
To wild riches; from fear and shame to abandon, to acclaim
And prize, sun and sleet. From life’s cold assize to the warmth
Within your wife’s bosom. From the love of friends and family
To the feeling that you might never fill Shakespeare’s feet.
Or Potok’s, or Roth’s, or Kafka’s for Chrissakes! You brought forth
Beauty as one could bite into your books and taste challah,
Kugel, bazargan, latkes. There is cream and crunch in your pages,
There is scent and salt when we look. And more. So much more.
It was on Finchley Road where I saw you. You were delighted
That you had been recognised. By Waitrose. Just as you will be
Again, perhaps at a time when we know that there is a world
Of work that’s pure Talmud; a range of holy scrolls holding
Writing that is offered in praise of new Gods, which can’t close.
But whereas Gods can still fall, with new Deities designed
Every moment, we as congregations can carry mezzuzahs
Towards our own calvarys and honour the home
That a writers voice can still furnish. Their uniqueness,
Their vision shows where the true power is; for whether
Faded or not, the frame is refashioned, inside a book
Jacket or within the confines of a stage. That someone once
Imagined and wrote. Writers dream their dreams for us.
It is this act of sharing that seeks to dignify every age.
Bernard Kops coped with lots, he sought acclaim,
Then he won it. And then surrounded by others,
From Mercer to Livings, Simpson, Rudkin, Cooper,
Osborne, he saw sleep’s food withdrawn and yet still
He kept eating. Break bread once more then,
With Bernard. Butter it with love. Be reborn.
David Erdos 27/2/24
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