Haiku – Jewish

Here are two additional poems, written in the 1980s, regarding the Shoah

Haiku – Jewish

Death Camp Museum
Mauthausen
welcomes you
with a sign

“NO DOGS ALLOWED”

Two Bar Mitzvahs

One side of the shul was full
of the usual: cousins, aunts and uncles,
business partners, and the live-in maid.

The other side: if there were a dozen,
(and noticeably no grandparents)
the Rabbi was counting high.

We, the regulars, whispered our theories,
but we knew they weren’t theories at all,
but the truth.

The Big Side of Shul left Europe in the 1880’s,
the Small Side too late:
just Mother and Father and now four children
and the uncle and his wife from Argentina,
(I heard him mumble something in Spanish to his wife.)

The Left Side of Shul was full of hoverings
and presences, and uneasiness,
much like, I think, the aftermath
of Mengele’s rotating wrist
at the Auschwitz platform
after the Selektion.

(But the Full Side, thank God, never complained
that the Empties had ruined their day.)