UNSUNG HERO

Why would anyone dig up the graves of those atrocities when they have fasted from that horror
since Uris meticulously detailed Mengele’s sexual experiments on children in QB VII?
I threw that book against the wall and read no more about those monsters,
saw no more films, not even Schindler’s List,
though a commercial later revealed the red coat that will always haunt me.

One man, just one man, unsung hero,
removed my fingers from the eyes of my mind to look again at Buchenwald.

Buchenwald: where 56,000 people died.
more than American soldiers killed in Viet Nam.
Buchenwald: all those attempts to architect the cells of Hell.
Those were real—tiny, bare, infested—not Dante’s circles.
Death spaces for Jews, Poles, Slavs, mentally ill, physically disabled, gypsies, Free Masons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, political prisoners, gays, sexual slaves,
children.
Outdoors: Vernichtung durch Arbeit—“worked to death,”
and screams of pain in the “singing forest” when those men—strappado
Oh, I cannot write what they did to them,
and Gernick Schuss, 1,000 Russians shot in the back of the neck, and the
children.

One man, just one man. What can one man do?
He can tell a lie. He can tell a lie of mercy.

Like Shiphrah and Puah who lied to save baby Moses.

The headquarters at Buchenwald was dark on that rainy day.
The Nazi command had fled. They knew the Allies were closing in.
The phone rang.
How many times?
How many times did that phone ring?
What if no one were there?
But, he was.
A hand reached out.
The hand of one German man
who had the presence to tell the guttural lie of mercy.

Command told him: “We will blow up the entire camp,
raze the rooms,
destroy the 1,300 prisoners left,”
including Elie Wiesel,
Elie Wiesel, whose luminous Jewish humanity gave lie to deranged Nazi fantasies.

The unsung (I sing of him now!) spoke:
“We’ve already destroyed it! It’s done!”

(Oh, Sweet Lie!)

“The prisoners are blown up.
The evidence is destroyed.
We covered up what we did.”
(as if the blanket of history could ever be pulled over that bed of horror).

The solution was simple, more brief than my imagination.
No reason to complicate mercy.
The Commander answered: “Okay, ‘In ordnung.’ Okay.”

In a few hours, the camp was liberated,
Weisel saved with the others,
the Nazi command tricked.

The name of the one man unknown forever.
The result of one act can change everything.

Originally published in Rat’s Ass Review

DON’T DRINK THE WATER!

Walking out of the monstrous
gilded cathedral, glinting
in the Mexico City
afternoon sun,
I pass a crippled man
one leg, one crutch,
a dirty hat,
before his toothless grin.
I drop in 20 pesos.
I want to stuff every peso,
every bill Americano
into the hat.
I don’t.
Instead, I go to McDonald’s
for a plastic bottle of agua.
20 pesos.

Originally published in the Communicator's League

FEAST

The snake spake its lies
in soothing pigeon-cooed voice.

Eve heard the fang-words
dripping with evil

did not pluck the apple
in her naked hand

snatched the snake
by its shiny throat

throttled it until
it writhed its last

lay limp on the branch
eyes glazed in amazement

apple-branch, spit-roasted it,
sated drooling Adam.

Originally published in the Communicator's League

STEENY

We called him by his last name,
never Reggie.
Just Steeny
or “Steeny Weenie.”
Back in the 50’s before geek
became a word for uncool or nerd,
before Dylan glorified GEEK
in Ballad of A Thin Man,
Steeny was the object of our taunts,
the bullying we all did
before that was a word anyone cared about.
I jumped in too,
feeling icky inside
when I helped pile on the abuse,
always in a group, never alone
when we pummeled him.

He just took it,
no expression reflected from his coke-bottle glasses,
no hand to his hair when we mocked his cowlick,
just moved on down the hall,
used his locker door as a shield sometimes.

O, that Halloween night.
Boy, did we have a lot of candy!
A surfeit of sugar in all forms.
Still soaped windows,
left lit bags of shit
on porches when we rang the bell,
watched the furious owner
stomping his shoes dirty.
Devil boys.

That night, bulging bags.
I had to carry mine with two hands.
Around the corner, Steeny.
Alone, bag full.
Like piranha we attacked,
ripped the bag from his hands and ran.
“Steeny Weenie.
Steeny Weenie.”
Only then did we hear
the night-shattering sob.

Now, as my daughter weeps,
shakes before me, her own bully demons
pulsing in her heart,
do I remember Steeny.

Originally published in the Communicator's League

GOD'S TOYS

What if all the stores
collapsed into rubble
hauled away?
Or disappeared into the sky
like some concrete Rapture,
all the children left behind
no way to buy new toys
no need to wheedle parents?

Children look at playthings
in their homes,
broken, rusted, boring.

What for
the children of Eden
had Adam and Eve stayed,
eschewed the apple?

Skip rocks in a stream,
swing on a tree branch,
fruit wars,
count the stars,
love their pets,
outrace the four rivers.

Originally published in Mad Swirl Magazine

COSMETICS

Unexpected rain,
a misty, penetrating day,
constant damp, cloudy gray.
As our old truck pulls up with food items,
a long line of people,
many waiting since dawn for our mid-morning arrival,
cheer as we drive up.

At the last minute, we’d thrown a few boxes of cosmetics
onto the truck.

They line up in the drizzle for the food—
mac ’n’ cheese, salad dressing, canned veggies,
frozen chickens until they run out—
children do a food dance in the rain.

Rich people sometimes ask:
Do they really need the food?
We say: When was the last time you stood hours
for a box of mac 'n’ cheese?

The truck crammed with staples,
we set out the cosmetics by the tires,
a splash of beauty products—
lipstick, shampoo, mascara, body lotion, nail polish—
the boxes soaking in the rain.

The women and girls break rank,
no stress about their place in line,
as they scrabble through the bottles, tubes,
beautifying treasures
to paint the gray off their faces.

When was the last time
you knelt before lipstick?

Originally published in Spindrift Literary Magazine

PET RAT

died this morning,
barely breathing
when my wife picked him up
from his cage.

Our grandson
named him after his favorite
Cubs baseball player,
asked us to keep Rizzo
when his dad took
an out-of-town job.

She held, petted him until the end.
"He is cold," she said
through her tears.
" I want to keep him warm,"
as she swaddled him.

He passed in her arms,
a last whisker twitch.
She petted him a long time after.
"To see if he is gone."
He was.

I wondered which one of us
will keep the other
warm
when our time comes?

Originally published in Spindrift Literary Magazine

MS. LACEY

My beautiful third grade art teacher.
You flunked me for refusing to create
a Thanksgiving place mat,
but extolled me for mastering the color wheel.

Stunning, black hair, framing your white skin,
blazing red lipstick,
igniting a crush,smitten as early as eight.

You probably wed some nice guy because you told us
about some jerk you were seeing then who tried to scare the girls
by bringing a snake to the picnic blanket
and how you grabbed it, like Eve should have,
wrapped it around his neck.

You just didn’t wait for me to grow up and marry you.


Originally published in Spindrift Literary Magazine

SHAVING


I shave every day
even when I don't want to. 

My father went to a barber for his shave,
towed me along.
Many of his friends clustered
at this social club. 
Haircut and a shave,
the hot towel brazed his face,
steam mingled with acrid cigar smoke. 
Bantered with the barber, other men—
politics, the unions, the Cubs.
The strop, strop, strop of the sharp razor.
Watched closely,
I was scared of a cut. 
Eyes averted the pin-up calendars
decorating the wall space
no woman ever entered. 
 
Afterwards outside, 
the pop, pop, pop
of the shoeshine’s 
white rag.

Originally published in the Pangolin Review

EXHILARATION

That summer, a newly licensed teen
eager to drive anytime,
my Step-Mother remembered
what she forgot at the store,
a green pepper, sour cream.

Sometimes, on purpose,
I forgot some of her items,
anxious to drive back
when she beckoned,
handed over the shiny keys.

Years later, my wife and I retired,
after we drive together
on our little shopping trips,
she forgets more and more,
sends me back,
a green pepper, sour cream.
I am delighted to drive.

Originally published in Rue Scribe/Underwood

RISING

Early in the morning
your mind a carousel
riding thoughts, memories
up, down,
round and round
on, off, 
giraffes, unicorns, lambs
or
gargoyles, serpents, dragons
you must choose
hang on tight
face the day. 

Originally published in Rue Scribe/Underwood

LEAVE-TAKING

Does the mother bird rue
when her fledgling leaves the nest,
drop the worm while the
father squawks and squawks,
soothes her ruffled feathers?

We humans though scratch and claw 
when one of ours moves far away
sad over 
the very reason
we raised them.

“But I am not a bird,”
my wife cries, 
as she nests in my arms. 

Originally published in Rue Scribe/Underwood

BIRTH



an egg of pain
fingers flutter atop
   sway and fro
what can break the pain?
   song snaps glass
   a song can…
   shell crack
   struggle out
                      love
flex wings
                      sing

Originally published in Mad Swirl

FOOL ON THE HILL


Whooping, laughter-screaming, silly young boys
sprint from the lunchroom toward a hill
launch their bodies aloft
roll, roll, roll into hysterics at the bottom,
jump up and do it again
despite the threats to take away their pilots’ licenses. 

I thought this.

Fling off my suit coat, rip off my tie,
kick off my shoes (not my argyle socks),
roll down the hill, mirth abounding,
tattoo dark green grass stains on my dress trousers,
as the sun smiles
and the clouds scoff
at my wanton foolishness.

But I didn’t.

Originally published in Ariel Chart

BLUE LOVE


A tribute.

On his first day of college,
he held his tray in a crowded cafeteria,
eyed the room for a safe spot.
Ah, an open seat, three coeds
and one other guy,
strangers to each other
so he fit in.
He sat down with the guy on one side,
a slim blonde girl on the other.
His eyes focused on his tray,
on his uninteresting food,
which he began to pick at,
finally glanced next to him into the eyes of the blonde,
the beautiful, sparkling blue eyes
that chose to gaze in his for forty years.

More than beauty,
a startling painter,
a teacher of craft, 
specialized in blue
as if her blue eyes were her palette, 
indigo, azure, turquoise, cobalt, robin’s egg…
sad and happy blue, 
world-wide galleries. 
No blue marriage though,
twins, world trips to historic forests, 
hearts knotted.

Years later, as the disease slowly
discolors her mind,
he holds her frail hand,
looks into her eyes,
the blue replaced by a cloud of gray,
no spark, not even an ember.
Finally, he releases the hand 
too weak to grasp back
rises
shuffles down the hall of the Unit,
his broken heart 
more full of love 
than it was at that table
long ago.  

Originally published in Ariel Chart

SHEEPSHEAD IN EARNEST

In Florida on vacation, 
our kids pranced on an old pier,
fishing poles in hand.
“Maybe we’ll snag some Whiting!

None of us caught anything.
We tried up and down the pier
in all the deepest parts, 
never the shallow end.

Came a hearty, old man, faded overalls,
a once white, dirty t-shirt,
long, silver, greasy hair,
a big burlap bag over his shoulder.

The old man went straight to the first pylon, 
poured out some fish bait
from the bag he placed on the pier,
pulled out a rope with a hook on the end.

Below, crystal clear water.
Stuck a piece of fish on the hook,
dropped the rope down 
the side of the pylon.

Snap, an immediate lurch.
Dragged up a big, beautiful
black and white striped fish,
wiggled as he threw it in the bag.

Another piece of bait on the hook,
another huge fish lashing the pole,
into the bag, into the bag,
fish after flopping fish. 

Everyone stopped fishing. 
Someone whispered: 
“Look at that!”
“What kind of fish is that?”

Only one among us knew
about the strange fish. 
“Them’s sheepsheads.
Good eatin’.”

Into the bag, 
into the bag, 
as if he were alone,
the old man did not look at us.

He only saw the fish
and the expanding bag,
flopping around on the pier
beside his holey shoes.

He stopped,
his bait gone, 
swung the wriggling,
bulging bag onto his old shoulders.

A Hemingway look-alike,
conqueror of the sea, 
he strode away,
an old man headed for a sale.

Originally published in Ariel Chart

AFTER DEATH

Don't tell me 
my dog’s not 
in Heaven.

It doesn't mean crap
if you think there’s a Heaven or not
and if we can't know for ourselves
how can you know for my dog,
who loved me more 
than any human ever did,
showed me in a million ways,
always wanting to walk, play,
lay by me when I was sick,
not eat till I was well, 
bark every bogeyman,
possum or garbage truck away,
eyes on my every move  
till death did us part. 

What a special man 
I was to her.
I loved her,
walked her, 
mapped our neighborhood,
played with her,
threw uncounted sticks,
scuffled her floppy ears, 
every sniffle to the vet.
I was dog’s best friend.

We gave each other more comfort
than even Heaven could. 

If lots of people
conjure or assume
some kind of afterlife
for humans,
angels, harps, gold streets,
virgins sucking down grapes,
a smothering Oversoul,
one God, many,
don't tell me Lola
is not there, 
damn it. 

Rollicks in those green fields,
romps with other animals,
chases down those sticks,  
inexhaustible as my love.

She is.

Originally published in Ariel Chart

DRUMMER'S BLEAT

Your wife called me

                                        your father
who also smoked
in his young stupid days
because movie stars and cowboys did
and his parents said it was bad 
but smoked constantly in front of him--
    
                                      sobbing

about your lung cancer diagnosis
because your 52 year old self
is curled up on their couch
refusing to talk to anyone

                                       including

your two sons, the engineer and the artist
who never smoked for some glorious reason
even though most nicotine-raised children almost always do

                                        living 

in other towns
they begged you
not to smoke for years and gave up
because you would not
                                        listen

or read the letter we wrote
begging you to quit
because we had seen the ones 
before who did not
                                         listen

die in such dirty, x-ray screaming,
gasping, choking ways
made their inevitable demise
worse than it would have been

                                       but now
what can we do
except commiserate with someone we love
cannot turn the clock back one second 
because time is all you have
and all you ever had 
and it is going to be shorter and worse 
by far than it would have been

                                 recalling

what your best friend in your band, 
the best drummer in town,
just before he died

                                  lamented

a story we often told you: 

It is my fault. It is all my fault.
I did this to myself. 

Originally published in Ariel Chart