PSH: Poets of the Week

week of May 12 - 18, 2003

Our fifth annual Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) issue.

Erika Abbott
Lisa Beatman
Jim Bennett
F.J. Bergmann
Tom Berman
Charles Bernstein
Bengt O Bjorklund
Roland Francis Bravo
Lynne Bronstein
Michael Burch
Tony Bush
Howard Camner

Ruth Daigon
T.J. Daniels
Susie Davidson
Cliff Fyman
Peter Shayne Griffin
Arthur Isaacson
Larry Jaffe
Stephen M. James
Kristin Johnson
Tammy Kaiser
Peter Kenny
Judy Z. Kronenfeld

Michael Levy
Scott Malby
Kelly A. Malone
Karen Mandell
Daniel McGinn
Stephen Mead
Neil Meili
Mick Moss
Leslie Maryann Neal
Laurence Overmire
Ben Passikoff
Norman S. Pollack

Vera Rich
Ryfkah
Gabriella Salas
Jeff Schweers
Diane Siegel
Anne Silver
Julia Stein
TL Stokes
Mike Subritzky
Jan Theuninck
Paula Villegas
Michael Virga

BECOME A POET OF THE WEEK
click. here .for. submission .guidelines

Gabriella Salas
Gabriella0000@aol.com

Bio (auto)

Gabriella Salas lives in Texas. She is the board owner of a community of artists and writers with diverse, eclectic and beat style called Literary with a Kick! Poetic Haven. Her works have been published at MiPo, Salty Dreams, Locust Magazine, Poetic Reflections, Skyline Publications and Adagio Verse Quarterly.

She is the Producer and Sr. Editor for two ezines: 2Avant Quarterly and DaNaHo Muse (multicultural art & poetry underground review).

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Gabriella Salas and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Hush Sweet Anne

Walking toward the stars
lighting a frail-boned path,
art spills agony stones
lined collectively for freedom
as a nation remembers.

A high price paid for prejudicial
hatred torn into yellow sand.
Mourning tears and fears
of Jewish children echoing
across the shore
waving innocent flags
of their unconditional acceptance.

Hitler and the Gestapo crows
with swastikas engraved
in historical sorrow, uplifts
a collective pain marked
by a generation tattooed
like the numbers they were assigned.

Wind blows an uncommon sound,
piercing bites of terror ridden into humanity.
Huddled in mass unmarked graves
stockpiled onto the next
era to grieve.

Wailing sounds upon a photographic
wall of agony,
it blows against my face.
Wiping countless moisture
from my eyes shed
in pensive reflection
as the images
retell their plight.

All I can do is listen to skeletons
that walked, talked and breathed
infusions of their past
that held out in determination
against Adolf, Goebbel and Dachau.

Rattling in the concentration breeze
it freeze frames Auschwitz's painful tale
into the museum exhibit,
where life blood
of the next generations
must remember, learn and overcome.

Jeff Schweers
JeffSchweers@aol.com

Bio (auto)

My name is Jeff Schweers, I was born on Long Island, NY, but have lived in Florida most of my adult life. I currently ive in Bradenton, Florida (south of Tampa on the Gulf) and I'm a newspaper editor. I've been writing poetry since high school.

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Jeff Schweers and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

To the remembered:

We passed through fire on our way to heaven
Burned off the impurities that weigh down our souls:
Gold fillings, eyeglass frames and bone
All that remains of our mortal remains
Scattered in the dust
Sift it through your fingers
But never find a trace of who we were
Not there, not ever, not again.

Diane Siegel
Rock6six@aol.com

Bio (auto)

Diane Siegel lives in Northridge, CA. Poetry is two years new as a serious pursuit. She has been published in the San Gabriel Valley Review of Poetry, Dufus, the online journal, and on the Poetry Super Highway as a poet of the week in the 9-11 commemoration in September of 2002. She is looking forward to the upcoming publication of Bold Ink, the second anthology of the teen girls and their mentors of the Los Angeles organization WriteGirl. Diane says visit their website and send them your support.

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Diane Siegel and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

I Think I Will Watch the Holocaust on TV

In respect of the dead there will be no commercials
No sales pitches for cat food or deodorant
In respect for the dead there will be no interruptions
Just this night
Just this premiere evening
We will forsake commerce for tears

You can watch her falling deeper
falling deeper into darkness and hate
You can sit there on your couch
and cry for her in this latest version
Cry for Anne, this time standing
behind barbed wire on the movie set
made just for your viewing

It is what happened we are telling you
The final chapter of mud
The part of the shrinking
The part of the sleeping, the dying
This is the version for our time

What we notice bears witness to our time
Hate those crass ads, hate them really
But when we watched in the sixties
did we notice the theme music for breaks
the blaring alarm calling owners to feed their cats
this brand
Did we notice or just welcome the break point
The five minutes when we didn't have to cry
Didn't have to worry about the footsteps in the apartment
above the shop
Didn't have to worry about treachery and betrayal

Not for the five minute commercial
that was when we ate
went to the bathroom,
lived outside the ghetto
the camp
the trains

Maybe life is like a commercial
A break in years between dying
between hatred and killing
A break to do business
Before killing
Before lining up the victims

Can't keep it up all the time
Thank God for commercials
I can't take watching her die one more time

If you look at it all together
Edit it into one reel
Pick them for impact and variety
Documentaries
Dramas
Newsreels
Even let the Twilight Zone
pull the escaped Nazi into a painting
Eternal suffering on an oil paint cross
If you take out the commercials
You will be standing next to the
cupboard at two AM
Crying until you wish your mother
dead and gone would hold
you until the sobbing stopped
A break,
a break
a noncommercial break
To breathe again

Anne Silver
anneqd@yahoo.com

Bio (auto)

Anne Silver is the author of "Bare Root" Terrapin Press, 2002.

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Anne Silver and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Sensing

Look! A penny!
Walking home in the smog-smudged sunshine
on the first of many crappy days in my new school,
walking with Joanne Sonnhalter, my new friend next door
who liked me even though I had a Detroit doo-whop do
and she had a straight blond curtain of hair.
“Look! A penny!, as if she didn’t hear me the first time.
I squatted, had my fingertip on Lincoln’s face
when she yelled
Don’t touch that. You’ll be a Jew.
The eggshell air shattered, the white chips rained,
my spirit - dust on the ground.
My grandmother told me
Polish kids had beat her
when she was my age and
because half of my family
had been fuel in Germany’s campaign
to rid the world of us just eighteen years before,
I felt my luck was suddenly as worthless
as that penny
and left it on the asphalt
as I would so many other pennies
that would be hurled at me in Arcadia, California
The only thing I said on that long walk home was
I already am a Jew, Joanne.
And she said I was just looking out for you.

Julia Stein
galiastein@earthlink.net

Bio (auto)

Julia Stein has recently published two books of poetry, Walker Woman and Shulamith. Both are published by West End Press and distributed by University of New Mexico Press.

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Julia Stein and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Dark Girl

Ashen haired
dark Jewish girl
mother of the starving ghetto
the burning ghetto
our lady of the bunkers
with her grenade
black hair huge dark eyes
too dark to have passed
outside the ghetto
leading her children through the sewers
to the dark forest

the dark ghetto girl
the last round-up
in the Warsaw ghetto resistance
beret on her head
herded to the death trains
squeezed in a car with eighty others
she pried loose a plank
jumped off the train
ran into the blackness of the woods

how dark
so dark she blends into the night
blends into the forest with the partisans
look for her
with her gun and her grenade
in the darkness of the forest
the starless black sky
you'll never find her
she still lives.

T.L. Stokes
pongee7@yahoo.com

Bio (auto)

T.L. Stokes lives in Snoqualmie, Washington with an English Mastiff named Bogart. Previously, her work has appeared in print and online literary journals, some of which include: Ancient Wind Press, the 2River View, Stirring, Ludlow Press, Little Brown Poetry, the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, etc. Currently at Pierian Springs. Upcoming in Comrades Press Print Journal, UK, the Gin Bender Review, and Compassionately Stoneground Books, NY. Recently she joined the staff at Little Brown Poetry as one of their poetry editors.

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by T.L. Stokes and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

after we left the ghetto

April 19 - May 16, 1943

We forgot it was spring
somewhere in the world,

so busy were we counting minutes,
our steps. We tasted each spoon of food
until it was gone.

We listened for wings at the door,
boots on the cold street,

my heart was steel.

I held my children
breathing in the scent of their
little bodies.

My own body was that of a warrior
suddenly, I ran errands
under guns, dropped
pieces of paper,

and always, always
time was like bats against our ears.

I could see death
in multiplying shadows,

rising taller, black
was its throat,

slit and bleeding.

Sometimes death was a maiden,
stroking the lucky ones
who passed quickly,

without closing their eyes.

Hush, hush my children
we will all go together,
our home is gone
swallowed by cloud,

and silence covers
all the rest.

We are in a strange place now.

Come closer while we stand on the ramp.
Trains are leaving, they've taken
the luggage.

Hold tight. Here, be quiet!
I slip my heart into your hands,
put it under your Star of David,

shhh don't tell anyone,
there now, go,

go with the man.

Mike Subritzky
kusza@ihug.co.nz

Bio (auto)

Background: Born in Kati Kati, New Zealand, from an old Polish noble family (enobled Poland 1495). Education Saint Joseph's Convent Waihi, Waihi College. Retired professional soldier. Captain. Served in the Royal New Zealand Navy, Royal New Zealand Artillery, Royal New Zealand Air Force, US Navy-Task Force 43 Antarctica, Polish (Independent) Reserve Brigade. 13 Tours of Duty, including peacekeeping Operation Agila (Rhodesian war). New Zealand war poet. Numerous published papers, documents, articles and poems in a wide variety of media; a dozen books on a variety of subjects and, The Subritzky Legend (Heritage Press, 1990) - Official New Zealand Sesqui Centennial Project, The Vietnam Scrapbook "The Second ANZAC Adventure" (Three Feathers, 1995), History of the Polish Government (in exile) 1939-1990 (Three Feathers, 1996). Nominated for New Zealand Book of the Year Awards 1996; named Book of the Quarter by Texas State University April - June 1998; honoured by the NZ ex-Vietnam Services Association by having a copy of his book The Vietnam Scrapbook "The Second ANZAC Adventure" laid at the Vietnam War Memorial "Wall" in Washington D.C. during the 1997 pilgrimage; awarded the American Vietnam Veterans (honorary) Distinguished Service Medal 1997, citation "for his contribution to all veterans of the Asian conflict and immortalising the Vietnam Veterans of New Zealand for all time". US Congressional Cold War Citation 2000. Numerous poetry awards. "The Flak Jacket Collection", an anthology of personal war poems 2001. Assisted with with the official New Zealand Millennium Television Series "Our People - Our Century" TVNZ, 2000. Most recently was selected to have his work published in the Australian war poetry anthology "The Happy Warrior". President IWVPA 20001.

Subritzky has written some of the most important New Zealand war poetry of the 20th and 21st century, and is one of the best known New Zealand poets on the international scene.

He is regarded as 'The Kiwi Kipling'

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Mike Subritzky and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Welcome to Auschwitz

"Welcome to Auschwitz." The survivor said.
A paradox really, he's a Christian and his name is Stanislaus.

I step down from the bus and blink into the kaleidoscope
of a dappled morning sunlight. Nothing has changed!
It is all still there! Just like the photographs taken by the Home Army.

No bodies, but the awful presence of death,
enormous death, 10 kilometres of death…
Auschwitz 1 - A Slave Labour Camp…
Auschwitz 2 - A Death Camp…
Auschwitz 3 - A Chemical/Munitions Factory…
Death envelopes me, engulfs me, enters my body
through my eyes, mouth and ears,
whilst in the hedge-grove a song bird warbles…
Perhaps a blackbird or maybe a thrush.

I am afraid and the hyper-vigilance of the soldier returns…
I want my rifle, bayonet and combat gear.
"Jesus protect me." I whisper

I stand beside Ada Steiner - Auschwitz No. 67082,
she is from Haifa and the blue wound on her forearm
is clearly visible…For her this is no visit,
she is returning to the nightmares of her childhood.
Stanislaus also bears the blue wound,
they nod and greet each other…children who survived.
One a Jew and one a Christian.

"My dear Comrades!
I could not eliminate all lice
And Jews in one year.
But in the course of time,
And if you help me,
This end will be attained."
So said Hans Frank,
Nazi Governor General of Poland.
Auschwitz, 10 kilometres of death…
A true monument to German Efficiency!

The gravel crunches beneath my feet
as we walk between the electric wires
and enter the gate, the sign reads
"Work Will Set You Free"
…Another bloody paradox.

And all the while Stanislaus calls the numbers
eighty thousand Russians starved here...
Thirty thousand Poles; gassed mostly...
Two hundred and fifty thousand gypsies...
many thousands of political prisoners, mainly German...
and 2.5 million Jews…
"Zyklon B" at its very best.

January 27, 1945, and Liberation.
7000 starving inmates remain,
836,525 items of women's clothing,
348,820 items of men's clothing,
43,525 pairs of shoes, 460 artificial limbs,
7 tons of human hair...and so he continues...
I see the mountain of children's shoes,
and leave the warehouse as the tears begin to flow.

In the sunlight once more, I walk down the avenue
past the work-party gallows, towards the gas chamber
and the sole, remaining crematoria.
I hear the sound of gravel (and bone fragments) crunching underfoot,
and the warble of the songbirds nesting in the hedge-grove.
I will wash away the taste of death tonight
with a bottle of good Zubrowka vodka, and sing…
But I shall never forget this day,
or this place, or the murder that happened here. NEVER!

Jan Theuninck
jan.theuninck@belgacom.net

Bio (auto)

Jan Theuninck was born (54.O6.O7) in Zonnebeke (Belgium) where he still lives. Also known under the pen name of ORC, a few of his poems became famous e.g. "Stalag Zehn B","Papirac","Yperite", "Tyne Cot" and "Shoa", which is an early warning against an ideological hate. Native speaker in Dutch, he writes in French, sometimes in English or German. His work has been translated in many languages and is given in courses at different universities. Jan Theuninck is also an abstract minimalist. Known works are : "Beyond the limit", Fagospatose, Homo multiculturalis T., Pantospherose, "3B", etc...

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Jan Theuninck and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Stalag Zehn B

the feldwebel became a general
the campdoctor , a professor
and we the jews - it&Mac226;s banal
we stayed jewish - no error .

Paula Villegas
MISSOPHELIA@aol.com

Bio (auto)

Paula Villegas lives in Santa Monica, California. She has worked in the mental health and addiction field for 25 years.

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Paula Villegas and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Untruth

The lies
They told
We believed
We were fooled
Innocence
Killed us

We blamed
Ourselves
For so long
For not knowing
The tricks
The traps
The brain
Bending
Turning
Our minds
Against us
Stripping us
They wanted
What
We held
Most sacred

We kept
It close
His it
To the end
We died
Intact
They died
Empty
We rest
In peace
And our children
And their children
And all future
Generations
Rejoice.

Michael Virga
mavbuon@hotmail.com

Bio (auto)

Michael Virga (mv) is a cyber-poet residing in Birmingham, Alabama. His poems have appeared on-line & in print.

The following work is Copyright © 2003, and owned by Michael Virga and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Holocaustic

No water drips
from a shower head

leaking gas.

No birds
are heard around

a cleansing camp

or from the tower
as the clock concentrates

like the wolf's eyes narrow.

After the rain
pellets the brush,
the birds pick up
where they left off.