Thanks Ryfkah. Welcome back. Missed you. Arthur
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryfkah *" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 1:47 AM
Subject: Re: New Sub: A Visit with Sonny in Ward 3.
This poem has chutzpah King Arthur...well done.
kol tuv, Ryfkah
In a message dated 12/30/2002 7:06:35 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
> A Visit with Sonny in Ward 3.
>
> The river was cold as death in November '56
> when I piled my clothes on my neck,
> slid naked through the reeds
> and swam into Austria.
> We had fought their tanks with bottles of petrol,
> that is no myth, but many of us died for our impudence.
> They smeared my brother against a wall
> as he screamed at me, " Go!"
>
> You do not really want to know
> how we waited and waited for days.
> We fought tanks with bottles and waited
> for you to come to us but you never came.
> In the end some of us died screaming, some went home,
> some of us came to you;
> slid through reeds and swam a river
> that plucked the breath from us.
>
> I stood on the far bank and shivered
> as I watched the river curve on
> through the stubbled fields and low farms
> on towards the smeared walls and clatter of tanks.
> I was seventeen when I came to England with no language
> except,
> a job please and how much is a loaf of bread
> but I could live now with no bundle on my back
> and walk without looking behind.
>
> I have been home three times since
> to see my sisters and give them money.
> The river still swirls brown under the Margit Hid
> but the smeared walls of the city
> are whitewashed now.
> Do you think they will put all this
> on my gravestone, Arthur?
> or just my name and some dates?
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