Still

Once she brought herself,

gave herself to him.

He brought and gave himself

to her in love.

They sacrificed,

for love.

Beyond the violet rocks

bluish-purple bell-shaped waves 

blossomed on the beach.

The grapes on the vine 

smelled of ice-blue sea salt.

On this seamoaning slope 

the tipping cup of sun 

lipped amber from the gold. 

Thirsting for a slow sip 

of shimmering honey wine,

their souls slowed the seconds down.

Now they hide their faces

from each other.

They are exiles.

Their love is now

reduced to carbon black,

a burnt offering.

The altar they made

sheds icy tears

on their burning souls.

They missed the silent calls
the heart makes 
from the edge of the universe.
Still.

Love remembers

All flesh is grass.

So too is reason, passion and memory.

Poems and songs are like bright flowers that bloom in the field.

Grass withers.

Flowers fade when the chill of time blows upon them.

A wind passes by and they are no more.

The Tanakh tells us that steadfast love endures.

Even when the grass grows over the field of loss,

Love remembers,
From eternity to eternity.

Putin - Only because he can

His clenched fist murders for the motherland;

In Aleppo Stalin squared strides from street to street,

Bringing horror to home and hospital,

Spilling schoolchildren’s blood into inkwells;

From his hawk’s beak the missiles strike,

Driving children into the street for the double-tap;

From Syrian children’s bones he builds his czar-nest;

His assassin’s smirk is like a Siberian winter;

His grinning face sits like a century of slaughter;

He is willing to pay any price for feeling big;

He steals the scent from the fresh flowers on the graves.

Truth's crop

I roll up a boulder

to make a high window

to see the flat plains.

A sparrow who wonders

what I’m doing there

gives me a lash of pity.

I see the symbols flash

blading truth’s crop

into a lake of red.

The snow falls in sheaves

to hide the human whet

for harvest blood.

The earth stops stockstill
held in thrall
by deathly horror.

Hopping like a wren

The smell of daffodils

a mile away

makes me drunk.

The crunch of gravel

to the faraway temple

comforts me.

The sight of a crane

on a stick-like leg

stops time for me.

The tail twist of a trout

trapped in a frozen stream

maddens me.

Hopping like a wren

in the eaves of verse

gives me wings.

Draught Horse

The smoking thrown-away butt
stared up from the flagstone;

The tip of a fresh smoke
arc-winked in his pursed-grin mouth.

He cough-clucked the muscular
draught horse into the yard.
The sharp stings of suspended smoke
scraped his hooded eyes.

Then feathered fetlocks clouted
long strides across the furrowed meadow,

As though pursued by slavering
snarling Ardennes wolves.

Who tasted oozing raw-blood
meat on their wild-bud tongues.

His breathless passion beyond
the load limits of words,

He rode the rhythm
of the roan horse’s rise and fall.

In crude consonants
I cocooned the vowels of my awe.

Petr Ginz

Petr Ginz

It is a foggy day in Prague;

The fading of the Jews begins,

begins with a sign, a branding:

black-and-yellow stars of David;

On his walk to school, Petr counts

sixty-nine ‘sheriffs’ with badges.

Petr Ginz is a star shining in darkness;

He sees seeds germinate in mud and scum;

colours a visit from prehistory;

laughs cannonballs of explosive satire;

Caged Prague streets are his fairytale of stone;

Before any soul has rocketed to space,

He draws Moon Landscape, earth seen from the moon;

Moon rock heaves mountain peaks in linocut.

It is a foggy day in Prague;

Death hovers over the Vitava;

Normal time fades in the ghetto;

Jews are starving to skeletons;

no fruit, geese, poultry, cheese, onions;

Tobacco rations are verboten

to prisoners, madmen, and Jews.

Petr logs the calamity.

He records in yellowed notebooks:

The people fade away, hundreds,

And then thousands, gone on transports:

Levituses, Poppers, Mautners;

One August day he barely notes:

‘In the morning at home.’

Petr is sent to the ‘spa town’,

Transit camp for the death camps;

His mind is still an adventure;

Reads, writes, draws, paints, carves linocuts,

Edits a secret newspaper;

He is sixteen talent-rich years

He is gassed in Auschwitz.

1 February 2003:

On Petr Ginz’s birthday, death

Flies the shuttle Columbia;

Ilan Ramon, carries with him

A copy of Moon Landscape.