Nonsense things of twisted rhetoric
hang around the neck of a nation.
Words braided into twisted doctrines
of red and black and white.
Hatred fought so long ago
blended into now
with a new pandemic
in the wake
of aberrant dreams.
Here where truth once
swayed and danced,
offering humanity
a grand romance
of belief in a thing
the world had never seen--
Golden rules made real.
We knew our daughters and sons
would serve as the sacrificial lambs
to keep our rules golden
for all generations to be free.
Though freedom be washed
in the blood of our lambs,
we still believed
in the grand romance--
And oh, how we did dance
For over two hundred years.
Then the roped nonsense came,
tarnished the shine of our romance,
interrupted the rhythm of our dance.
The twisted rhetoric strangled us
as a new sickness spread.
No ease given; no treatment sought.
Pockets lined with gold
more important than golden lives.
Hatred and apathy listened
to the new prophet,
who said they were right--
Everything wrong was
the fault of others:
The poor in spirit are just lazy.
Those who mourn make excuses.
The meek are just weak.
Those wanting righteousness want it all free.
The pure in heart want to give your gold away.
The peacemakers don’t want us to be strong.
Then the new prophet claimed he was the persecuted one,
promising vengeance for his own sake.
His apostles believed his sermons,
proclaiming him their chosen one.
Order is all,
He said.
Law is all,
He said.
He would teach them
by putting all people
in their rightful place.
Justice lay raped,
bloody, raw,
beaten and gassed,
in the streets
as his disciples cheered
while the petty false prophet smirked,
holding a Holy book.
Re-forge the chain of Liberty’s shackle,
he ordered.
Then Truth
stopped swaying,
stopped dancing,
offered us nothing,
flames of romance dying.
Hermann Otto Hoyer, In the Beginning Was the Word, 1937. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of US Army Center of Military History.
After listening to the rhetoric of various politicians, I believe times have grown ever more dangerous to democracy no matter how much those same politicians claim to be defending it. I’ve revised and retitled this piece which I first wrote and posted the night before the 2017 inaugural and titled If They Come. However, I owe a huge debt to Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) who wrote “First they came for…” Often this quote is mistakenly referred to as a poem. Niemöller often spoke of his own complicity with the Nazi regime in its early years by his inaction and not speaking out, especially when it came to the persecution of leftist political party members with whom he did not agree. However, after too many disagreements with Hilter’s policies, Niemöller was imprisoned on July 1st, 1937, and was not freed from the concentration camp until 1945. There are various versions of his famous quote as Niemöller changed the list of victims depending upon the audience to whom he spoke, but his message is clear: Silence and inaction equals complicity. If we are silent, we too are guilty. We must not be silent.
Source information courtesy of Holocaust Encyclopedia
They’ve come before.
Remember history.
Remember the millions,
the thousands, the hundreds--
totaling seventeen million.
And yet,
always,
they come.
Different times, different places.
Always leaving behind traces
of their strange bitter fruit.
They are poised,
preparing, ready to come.
Some of us remember,
state the parallels,
recite the historical,
are laughed at as the hysterical.
The majority, sigh and say–
They come not in his name
for they wear not the robes of the arcane,
burning crosses straight,
painting crosses twisted.
Some forget,
leaving voices unraised.
Some simply care not,
since they come not for them.
Yet, we must remember--
Since, in the end,
they are coming for us all.
Darkness imprisoned for years
revels and romps now freed from sanctions,
freed from society’s guilty tears.
They are coming
for the immigrant ones
to part them from jobs no one else will do,
leaving a river filled with razor wire
and shouting, “Build a wall. Build a wall.”
I will raise my voice, “Build it around me as well.
For I, too, believed the words inscribed upon Liberty.”
They are coming
for all the women
who do not walk 72 steps behind,
chaining them to males who must approve.
I will raise my voice, “I will not walk into yesterday.
I will not let you make any daughter a handmaid.”
They are coming
for the Jewish ones,
pinning yellow stars,
creating gas chambers,
I will raise my voice, “Take me with them too.
For I too, am a Jew.”
They are coming
for the Muslim ones,
planning to kill the Geneva Refugee,
with their unproven facts, shouting, “Terrorist. Jihadist.”
I will raise my voice, “Take me with them too.
For I also pray to the God of Abraham.”
They are coming
for the darker ones,
with ropes and whips and epithets from the past,
shouting, “White Power, White Power.”
I will raise my voice, “Bring enough to kill me too.
For I have the same red blood as my siblings you seek to kill.”
They are coming
for the transgender and queer ones,
with fists and broken bottles and shouts of “Freak.”
I will raise my voice, “Beat me as well.
For I am sure to upset you by the bathroom I plan to use.”
They are coming
for those who love differently
with researched plans of electric shock to convert,
all therapeutic to change, of course,
or with hands dripping violence and shouts
of every demeaning word we ever heard.
I will raise my voice, “Beat me. Take my rights
so recently given, though long denied.
Never will I lose my dignity again in silence.
For I hid among shadows much too long.
Now, I, too, live in the sun,
Proud of who I love, and I will not go away.
I remember we are neighbors,
each of us, brothers and sisters
in God’s eyes.”
When you come for one,
you came for us all.
All you deem different,
dangerous to your thinking,
we make you uncomfortable,
but we give you something--
Someone, something to blame.
But after you have come for us all,
bound and bloodied us as best you can,
taught your school children the different are to blame,
worthy of nothing but your hate,
allow our resistance,
without striking, without killing,
no sling shot will we need
to shatter the crystal facade
of patriotism you fashioned
to cleverly hide away
your destruction of democracy
and all your injustices.
Then the world will see
the monster of fear and greed
you are and your destruction
of democracy.
On the day of God’s light,
perhaps you will look
beyond skin,
beyond abilities and disabilities,
beyond roads to God and ways of worship,
beyond gender and orientations,
beyond your own fears and needs,
and then see
the human heart is born
with weakness in hate and greed
with strength in justice and love
all in equal portions.
What will matter most,
when each heart lies dissected,
splayed open, bare,
before its maker,
is which portion we allowed to atrophy and die,
and which we sought to exercise,
strengthen and increase in size.
Images courtesy of CBC, NDTV, The Times of Israel, and The Forward
It cannot happen here,
not in this place, not in this age--
Until a six-year-old boy is stabbed to death.
In Grand Central station,
a man punches a woman in the face,
telling her it is because she is Jewish.
It cannot happen here,
not in this place, not in this age.
It cannot happen here,
not in this place, not in this age.
Yet on a bus, a man screams,
“We don’t wear that in this country!”
to a Sikh teen about the turban of his faith.
A university student calls for the murder
of his Jewish fellow students
It cannot happen here,
not in this place, not in this age.
It cannot happen here,
Not in this place, not in this age.
Yet swastikas are spray painted
on a Jewish business.
In 2018 on October 27th,
A madman entered The Tree of Life Synagogue,
spewing hatred and shooting eleven dead.
But no. It cannot happen here.
Not in this place, not in this age.
Yet remember,
Executive Order 9066,
those rounded up and sent to camps
here in this place.
Look hatred in its devil face,
see if you still can believe,
still convince yourself—
It cannot happen here.
Not in this place, not in this age.
I’ve revised and reworked an earlier piece written in 2017 as a response to the terrorism of Hamas and the war Israel has declared. It seems to me that this slaughter by Hamas and the retaliation that Israel is now forced to take cannot be what any God wants. Surely, it is not what the Palestinian people or the people of Israel want either.
The blood of children
falls as rain
on Holy ground.
The blood of their parents
chasing after
as if to save it,
stopping it
from concreating the land
to evil born of old hatred
as the world,
emptied of all care,
watches.
No uprisings.
No shouting in the streets
as this blood rain of innocents falls,
flooding the silent world
as nations watch,
hands bloodied
in pretense of helplessness
before turning their backs.
The seven descend.
Each with wings spread
enough to fill a house.
Shalom upon their tongues.
Throughout the compass points
they search to find
all the gnawed bones,
the muscles and sinew,
the heart and entrails
torn with teeth of hate.
And once the seven
gather all the tiny bits,
With flaming swords
used as needles,
they try to stitch
all humanity’s bloody bits
into one thing well knit.
Neither their swords,
nor spirit of their breath
have the power to seal
the meat and sinew to bone.
And then they know--
those who showed no mercy
would be given none.
Their heads hang--
Inshallah upon their lips
as they ascend.
Their flaming eyes
weeping tears of fire
as they see the red rider
striding across the land.
It is then the seven know
humanity’s avarice and hate
had broken the fourth seal.
Maa shaa’Allah a whisper of smoke
within their throats.
From the seven sets of fiery eyes,
their tears of fire
stream Retzon ha-el
across the night sky.
I tear the trailing ivy
From the trunk of the crepe myrtle tree,
A routine autumnal yard task,
Look up to a partly cloudy Texas sky,
Think of madmen and bombs,
A madman and eleven shot dead
As they prayed on Shabbat—
No words, no words come
Even the birds fall silent.
merge with the unrepentant sky,
learn the truth, the reasons why
suffering and fear and hatred abound,
feeding upon human souls,
destroying what Nature did so elegantly design,
the beauty of humanity
from the inside out--
until we are devils,
our mouths foaming blood-tinged froth
while our claws fill with sinew torn
from our innocent brethren,
who different from us,
are deemed worthy only of hate—
and the earth turns
on its axis of destruction
in an unrepentant sky
as any God that be cries.
The violin of a two-year-old
Sings the plaintive cries,
“Daddy, Daddy!”
The lone flute of a three-year-old
Soars above the din,
A painful wail,
“Mommy, Mommy.”
Then the scratchy oboe
Of perhaps a four-year-old,
Keening for an aunt to be allowed to come
And take him to her home to stay.
Next all the whimpers,
Sobbing, moans
Squalls, and laments
Of trumpets, tubas,
Violas, bass and all the rest
Join the cacophonous clamor
Of such a discordant melody,
Harmonious to the hardened of heart
Who give ear to this orchestra,
Deserving of nothing but the pain
Contained within the symphony
The progeny play,
As less than they.
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Hearing The Mermaids Sing 