Austin McCarron
mccarron.ahc@live.co.uk
Bio (auto)
I am from New Zealand but have lived in London for many years. My work has appeared in numerous magazines in the U.K. over the past five years.
The following work is Copyright © 2011, and owned by Austin McCarron and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Memories of Auschwitz
Beware the son of voices
blowing
through a hall of flames,
where the dead pass in a
furnace of continuous light.
Speak of nothing other than
the state of air.
Find among pariah’s of stone
a vast stadium of wells and
drink from the
depths of its bearded mouth.
Its jaw is blinded with pictures
of love.
Its eye is torn with feet of knives.
Its wooden flag is
lowered with charismatic kisses.
Its soul is filled with
the graves of God and children.
The sound of blood is clean, where
bodies of smoke
with sweet juices from rags of meat
burn like
rivers out of endless resurrections.
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Channie Greenberg
drkarenjoy@yahoo.com
Bio (auto)
KJ Hannah Greenberg's writing has appeared in numerous venues, worldwide, including in: Fallopian Falafel, Horizons, Mishpacha Magazine, Scribblers on the Roof, The Blue New Yorker, The Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Woman, and The New Vilna Review.
The following work is Copyright © 2011, and owned by Channie Greenberg and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Prolapsed Intelligence: The Delusion Inherent in Failing to Remember Accurately
So much pressure on social ecopoieses, initially from excessive outside forces,
But afterwards, due to assimilation sirens’ ability to fell millennia of hardiness;
All of that prolapsed intelligence drops, untoward, into historical waste.
It remains inappropriate to imagine one’s self an inheritor of esteemed qualities,
Earned next to friends’ or family’s ashen remnants or Torah giants’ gibbous shadows;
There’s no nobility in self-acclaimed lineage, just the prostitution of hard-won ethics.
Kaparot can’t become vagrant; they stay other lifetimes’ poindexters, honors, woe,
Because giving in to cultural hoopla never nullified anybody’s shallow endeavors;
Instead, societal depictions, character species, what-have-you, get rubriced wrong.
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David Neves
stud-ly@hotmail.com
Bio (auto)
David A Neves (and please don't try and pronounce it, Lord knows, Lupert makes a real hash of it with each attempt!), is a cute, lil' fella who can chew gum, rub the top of his head (the big one, NOT the little one, you dirty mind, you!) rub his own belly, fart, and watch skin flicks all at the same time! (Talk about "multi tasking!) He is 52 years old, and resides in the scenic, lush, rolling radio active hills of Newark, NJ, within a fart's distance of "Fun City". His future plans: when he finally reaches those "piney woods", and is called to that Great Chinese Buffet in the sky, his epitaph will read: "Here lies the cute 'lil fella. At least his poems don't SUCK!"
The following work is Copyright © 2011, and owned by David Neves and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Easter in Chelmno, 1944
Xристос воскреc! Воистину воскрес
(KRI-stos VOS-kres! VO-istinu VOS kres!)
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed?
I have not seen Him, whoever He may be.
I thought that perhaps He would be
among that large crowd of Yids who
the SS was leading to the showers.
There were awful, dark sounds that
I cannot describe, but nobody came out.
I have yet to see Him.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed?
I figured that he might have been that Roma who
I was talking to briefly, but they came
and got him. Word is that they removed his
lungs while he was yet alive for medical
experimentation, for the good of the Reich,
but he has not come back.
I have not seen Christ...no, not here,
not in this place.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed?
Was He the Communist, or the Social Democrat,
or one of the gay men that I saw together,
or the pregnant mother with two children, all of whom
were forced into a ditch and executed with
many bullets? None of them have risen,
so it could not have been any of them, so I
still have not seen Him...no, not here,
not in this place.
Christ is risen. He is is risen indeed?
I still believe this deep within my Russian soul.
I will not say that He has not risen,
only that I am not now able to see Him.
Not here. Not in this place.
Прощайте (Proshchaitye).
They beckon for me.
It is my turn.
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David Supper
Davidmsupper@aol.com
Bio (auto)
I was born in 1945, luckily in England, although if we had lost the war, as a Jew it is likely I would have been transported to the death camps. I am currently living in Nottingham.
The following work is Copyright © 2011, and owned by David Supper and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Vienna
The heavy presence of history walks by my side,
blackened stone-clad buildings bend and arch
leaning in to me, whispering of sights they had seen;
the wind whines through bare branches,
but in the wide boulevards, across squares,
there are no leaves, no trace of autumn,
winter is on the doorstep, the cold, the ice, the snow,
the rattle of open carriages, heading east.
Inside the hot chocalatiere cafes, windows steaming,
the buzz of chatter, black and white-aproned waiters
take orders for coffee, cakes rich with calories,
fattening the already fat, the gutteral language,
the laughter, the children, ah yes the children;
happy in their ignorance, their futures rosy,
deaf to the cries, the whimpering, the bark of dogs,
the clearing of streets, neighbourhoods, Juden frei.
The children, the jewels, the future of their families,
the few, the lucky few, who slipped away, transported west,
cold, frightened, bewildered children cheating certain death,
leaving their parents to face the howling wind
that gathered pace and swept across a continent;
nothing remains of them, no names, no-one to cry out -
the Holocaust Memorial sits as an absolution
barely acknowledged, an awkward apology, an embarassment. |
Donal Mahoney
donalmahoney@charter.net
Bio (auto)
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has had poems published in Poetry Super Highway and other publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
The following work is Copyright © 2011, and owned by Donal Mahoney and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Crackling Again
Rogers Park, Chicago
This brilliant winter morning finds
waves of snow on every lawn
and red graffiti dripping
from the walls
of Temple Mizpah
once again
as down the street
stroll ancient men
who every morning
shuffle here for prayer.
As usual, they're lost
inside old overcoats,
their collars up,
their scarves too long,
their yarmulkes,
as always,
in diffidence
askew.
This morning, though,
they don't go in.
They shuffle near the curb
like quail.
They can't believe
the goose-step scrawl
on every wall.
They know their world's
awry again, an encore
of the chaos left behind
when they were young.
The good thing is,
Chicago's better now
than was Berlin back then
even though the temple walls
make clear this morning that
someone's struck another match
and the ovens of Auschwitz
are crackling again.
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Gil Roscoe
hgroscoe@ekit.com
Bio (auto)
Gil Roscoe- From Los Angeles. He's had three one act plays produced in L.A. theaters and
is the author of the novel COMPANY OF THIEVES.
The following work is Copyright © 2011, and owned by Gil Roscoe and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
The Strawberry Van
We pulled into the Cracow train station
with no place to stay that night.
On the platform were two
young, blonde women
wearing beautiful smiles.
They each held a sign
with a juicy looking
strawberry on it.
\"Strawberry Hostel\"
said the red words.
We were soon in their van
and headed toward warm sleep.
We were told we could take
the strawberry van to Auschwitz
the next day.
For a few Zloty
we would get the ride
and a guided tour.
We crossed the Polish plain
in our strawberry van
early the next morning.
A very somber woman
was to be our tour guide.
She asked us to speak softly.
\"No flash photography, please.\"
We unloaded quietly
and spoke in holy whispers.
She walked us past
the room full of shoes,
the room full of hair
and the room full of
chaotic artificial limbs.
How many people
must you kill
to fill a room
with their artificial limbs?
Later, we stood
on the dividing train platform.
So different from
the one of yesterday.
No smiling, strawberry girls
were greeters here.
The next day we attended a concert.
We ate kielbasa and drank beer
with an Italian couple.
It was a wonderful tourist day.
But my mind was still unloading
onto the two different platforms
and what was stolen
from one of them. |
Grant D. McLeman
grant.mcleman@btinternet.com
Bio (auto)
I am a Scots poet born in Gasgow and now living on the Ayrshire coast in the town of Largs. I have been published in several outlets, print and on-line and published a collection 'Street Magic' in 2009
The following work is Copyright © 2011, and owned by Grant D. McLeman and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Final Journey
they are the
quiet lives
without overcoats,
shuffling in the pale
of early morning.
They will go no further
no more ghettoes,
no more yellow stars
in their firmament
no more firmament.
Their labour's finished,
just a shower
to end their day. |
Ivan Klein
ivan@starfirepoetry.com
Bio (auto)
Author of a collection of poetry titled Alternatives to Silence and has lectured and published on Herman Melville. Lives in downtown Manhattan.
The following work is Copyright © 2011, and owned by Ivan Klein and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Primo Levi Departing Auschwitz
The gallows & the giant Christmas tree
...........side by side
Near Roll Call Square,
The huts where he had suffered, matured
...........& survived, the wasteland of the Buna factory site,
All slid past in the slow motion
...........of retrospect, of dream,
As did the memories of the demonic,
...........calculated attempt to demolish his manhood,
The foraging for rotten potatoes & turnips
...........on the frozen ground,
The myriad shades of the dead
...........up in smoke.
...........Finally, the steel slave gate with its ironic motto,
..............sprung from what he would call the heavy, arrogant,
...........funereal wit of the Germans, but now, miraculously,
..............seen in reverse:
.......................“Arbeit Macht Frei”
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