Hello Marilyn,
              An intersting idea here but I find I have two main problems with it. It reads more like prose than poetry to me and I feel that the comparison with Auschwitz is more than the situation in your poem will support. Of course, I don´t know what the departed owner of the shoes may have done, but nothing in the poem as it stands seems to warrant the comparison with Nazi concentration camps. I feel this one needs a fair bit of reworking. Hope this helps.


Best wishes,  Mike



--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---

Interestingly, this poem was written before those recently posted on the
subject of shoes.  Marilyn



             Shod


After your departure, I stumbled
in the darkness over a stack of shoes
I'd assembled from under the bed
and in nicks    and crannies, but caught
my balance like a martial artist.

These English and Italian loafers
and moccasins, some hand-sewn,
were perhaps bought to make up
for those worn as a child that bound
and distorted like the war you escaped
from or later when bread and rent
were more pressing.

A friend instructs me to give these remnants
away.  I hesitate, for you may walk back in.
This sweat-filled mountain of sorrel, mahogany
and buff points me to an image in chalky grays -

piles of shoes from prisoners at Auschwitz
and Krakow separate from other remains.

I boot your heap under the bed and clear my path.


Marilyn Injeyan
February 9, 2003