Hi Ryfkah,
Your poem reads really well. The disonant sounds echo 'the times out of
joint', the individuals hammered into the ground by war and its aftermath
This a poem of great scope which its spare form conveys with the powers of
the few well chosen words, so it feels like a skeleton marching.
to 'tramp to paradise' is both original and ironic and carries the weight of
'neither/ hope nor despair' forward very powerfully. There is a feeling of
closure as you revisit the start image of 'mud sploshing' in your 'tramp
to...'.
The poem lives in my memory. My uncle,Taddy Goledskinovski, was a Pole and
escaped from concentration camp, making his way to England to join The Royal
Air Force. Years later I learned that the concentration camp was in Eastern
Poland, ie was Russian. And that his escape route took him entirely through
German occupied Poland. Though he never talked about any of this. One
imagines what he suffered.
Incidently, my father-in-law was freed from a prisoner of war camp in 1945
starved badly and describes graphically how he nearly died from chocolate
and other American well-meaning food forcing.
Truly, Philip
>From: Ryfkah * <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: paradise
>Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 23:41:22 EDT
>
>paradise
>
>mud sloshes
>skeletons march
>the road to nowhere
>
>our camp freed
>many perish from chocolate bars
>other acts of loving
>kindness with neither
>hope nor despair
>
>some survive
>
>our number not yet called
>we parade
>on blood-soaked ground
>
>germany conceals
>poland denies
>england bars
>america ignores
>
>displaced persons
>we are citizens to no
>place brethren to no
>one with nothing to do
>
>go to a land I will show you
>thus commands G-d
>and we tramp
>to paradise
>
>Ryfkah 10/13/02
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