Jewish Memorial

they must be grey

quiet blurs of humanity, tossed randomly

by Fortune’s dice

and there entombed

the whispers of many, cloistered echoing

to others, entice.

to be a Jew,

yes god forbid – and men forbid too

your right to Life

still yet You live,

In german shame, german stories,

german sighs.

How long the stretch

from block to block, each coffin

gently sloping rests?

How long the pain

from son to son, each man

upon other men impress?

I mourn for You,

my human brethren, as the living

must surely mourn.

I grieve for You,

and all the children, snuffed out

ere their candle shone.

yet make not Vengeance

newborn to history, must babes

this shroud of shame to don?

blight not their youth

with sin and gravity, for a deed

they could have forsworn!

So rest, so rest-

for now the living, all must Rest,

before the Dawn.

Those lights

Those lights -

Ezekiel’s whirlwind, fire enfolding,
Born and bred of the sky.

Baby’s first cry, life exclaiming,
Fluorescent tears left an eternity to dry.

Dead souls, their painted faces,
Breaking at horizon’s shore.

Brush of a fox’s tail, playful paces,
Tilting nature’s palette more

Above us, the cosmos pivot
All these stories, every tale

Surge to pry all words asunder
cast as ships the darkness sail.

Was there a time not yet bespoken
where we as ions happily danced?

On our shoulders no world beholden
Passion and youth in tandem pranced?

Those lights, and us, how we surrender!
Caught like fish in magic’s ebb.

and nature, philosopher,
Opens wide her ponderous gap -

Soon earth’s matter, around us shatter
Atoms, quarks sucked in the flush.

We stand still, in time’s sepulcher
hear the clamour turn to hush.

From your hand, a warmth beginning
Touched by light a world renew.

No past present future yearning
may this moment sublime yield -

A greater ecstasy or glee
than you and I, these lights we see.

She, Mona Lisa.

Do you smile
Or do they know?

Those very many years ago
These brushstrokes made with expert hand
Tell they your tale? Did they portend-

The hundred thousand flashing lights
Machine mutters, day and night
A life behind the polished glass
Prostitute’s cell, and sell you must.

Da Vinci’s, or so they say
A woman owned, your story clay
Shaped and molded to their taste
Da Vinci’s whore, he sold your face

A face the scientists now explore
Eighty percent, maybe more,
What joys and sorrows due to thee,
Joys and sorrows that they see?

All who come will surely trace,
The oft admired meeting place
of lips, sensuously undulate
skywards, or so we speculate:

O Mona that you lived too soon!
Were you a lover, dame or lun?
Patient of syphilis, blood and gore
Give us the dirt, and then some more.

Light the flame of our desire!
Stoke our heart’s coals, make raging fire!
Then like history let us combust
Turn from you and turn to dust.

And when the ashes gently fall,
And the crowd our lives recall,
And silence does reverberate,
Peace and rest facilitate.

In the night when drunk with sleep,
Do those corners softly creep
From their immortal fleshy throne,
Down to life, or death below?

And will you hang stiff in the dark,
The smile from your countenance plucked,
Will your eyes then smile to see
A woman, unsmiling but free?

Jönköping

She sits at the curve of Vattern’s frozen belly, while a flock of swans beat at the dark blue waters, trying to simulate their summer frolicking. She smiles. They play in vain. There is no cure for this weariness, this dreary half-waking.

She sighs, a cold breath. The lithe swans scatter as wind cuts through their ranks, a punishing executioner’s knife, covetous of the youthful and lively. She thinks of her childhood, of King Magnus, and days nearer the beginning of things. Perhaps it was as cold then, she couldn’t remember. Too many pillages and burnings, their ravages do their damage. Tighter now, she pulls her clothes over her hoary body.

Harder the wind blows. Sometimes she leaves her icy seat, go down to that part of town where more people linger, more people move. Too fast, really, for her slow eyes. Quick, ground-devouring strides, their legs like motor, a technology she still can’t quite catch. Perhaps that’s just how it is nowadays. Everything everyone is moving on, and she’s just there, waiting for something to give. Some kind of technical fault, error message, virus. Of course in the end nothing gives, nothing except her.

Sometimes she feels like the poor china that people are too embarrassed to set on the table when important guests come. Or a poor relation that people want to forget. They zoom past her with their eyes down, hands in their pockets. She likes to pretend they still think of her sometimes, on the warmer days, when the wind is kind, or when the sun shines a wee bit brighter. Those times she dons more colours, hoping to catch a glance or two, or if heavens allow, someone to stop, take a breath, take a picture.

God, it is cold. She strikes a match, looks at the flame. Such a fragile holocaust of warmth; so quickly alive, so quickly dead. She strikes another match, lights up her smoke, and watches the fumes travel out over the frozen waters. It’s been her weakness since middle age, when the machines came. The fights wore her down, but their smoke gave her comfort. Maybe she’s still paying for that betrayal, but it’s been too long past for that to matter. It’s been too long past anything really.

Now she rises, white clothes gathering about her. Her hands and heart are ice, but her eyes lukewarm as she looks out towards the lake’s horizon. Vattern is melting, yes, there is always that. Perhaps an early spring and maybe, just maybe, another chance for green.