Month: January 2021

Constellation poem : the emptiness project # 13

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*Anselm Kiefer: from ‘Sternenfall (Falling Stars)

Constellation

It was not intended
to convey
a message other than
the dark street
where, walking, you
burned your hand
waving,
not intending to
be seen
nor to convey
a message
wherein your fingers
touched the sky
leaving welts
on all the stars,
pieces of skin
imprinted
above your head
a man with a mask
who
his eyes
burning
holes, your hand
reached,
he sang
to you
before it was
time
and even afterwards
on the dark street,
seeing sky,
you remembered
his eyes.

*Art by Anselm Kiefer (“Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor.His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer’s themes of German history and the horror of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah.”) – Wikipedia

Anne poem : the emptiness project #12

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Anne Frank

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank

Anne

The warm ovens that say crematoria
are someone you once loved–
in the lines, in the worn-out ovens

The concrete floor of the room
becomes you, a mirror
staring back at the memory
of windows and dead leaves

Falling outside your window
are dead leaves, so many colors
and you once knew all of them

Before the time of your time,
which is to say: your time.

(“The Holocaust was the World War II genocide of the European Jews. Between 1941 and 1945, across German-occupied Europe, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews, around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population.” Wikipedia) 

AWOL poem : the emptiness project # 11

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Lidice massacre memorial

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”― Mahatma Gandhi

AWOL

Afterwards, you weren’t home
The war was over
We stood on your front porch
Knocking

The windows
were broken
and in my heart
a small boy
broke all the windows
but you didn’t care

It was only
the start
of somebody’s
picnic

We waited for an hour
Then we turned around
& started killing

On the hill
On the hill

On the beautiful hill

We ran
and when somebody said
“I love you”
we all of us
laughed
like hyenas
& started killing

Laughing
like hyenas.

“The Lidice massacre was the complete destruction of the village of Lidice in June, 1942 on orders from Adolf Hitler and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.” Wikipedia

Photo: Ashley Pomeroy, Sculpture by Marie Uchytilova

Awake & Sing

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Picasso- The Tragedy

“The only crime equaling inhumanity is the crime of indifference, silence, and forgetting.” James Orbinski

Minamata

In a tiny room,
in the Hiroshima dance hall,
an old man
sings Kaddish

A universal dream machine
tells you not to go home:
There are too many scars
on her body

The number you have forgotten
is inside your black book

Holes in the sky
The brown earth
Digging a hole in the sky
Welts on your skin

My hands are burning
as I dip them
into the river of you

Take my hand,
little one
Bathe in the river

Are you digging?
We are digging a hole
for our god you
We lay the bodies there
one at a time

We had a memory
You were there
You held my hand
I carried you to the river

The smell of you
on my body

Please help me to understand
I have come from a far place
My eyes are cold
There are lesions on my body

There are lesions on your body

You are being forgiven
for being far away

I sing you in the river

(“Minamata, Japan is known worldwide due to Minamata disease, a neurological disorder caused by mercury poisoning. The disease was discovered in 1956. A local chemical plant was blamed for causing the disease by emitting untreated wastewater to the Minamata Bay.” — Wikipedia)