Today is HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY. [LEST WE FORGET]
I painted this MENORAH as a symbol of what happened to all those who suffered and died at the hands of the NAZIS, but also as a beacon of freedom from repression, persecution and violence in present times.
I wrote these 2 poems as a recognition of the HOLOCAUST, and what was lost to families, communities, countries and to the world.
SHOAH
They tasted of nothing, these Jews
who were NOTHING.
ate the dust of memories,
their mouths filled with the 'O' of Yewah,
of the powdered bone of a tibia, fibia, or thigh.
They screamed in whispered, these Jews
who were NOTHING.
These chosen Jews who lived,
who cried in languages of the diaspora,
who heard the engine feeding the gas chambers.
They rode the mackerel packed layers of the dead, these Jews
who were NOTHING.
whose skin stuck to their bone,
swam in pools of shoes, spectacles
and suitcases registered like birth certificates.
They smelled the fear of thousands, thes Jews
who were NOTHING.
of boxcars carrying the Final Solution,
of exhaust fumes, Zyklon B
and the winds of ash.
They saw too much, these Jews
who were NOTHING.
The Star of David, of inked numbers,
of yes dying, and dead, a collective record
of God's chosen people.
HERSHL SPERLING
Snow flakes whisper their hurried descent.
Tonight's sky stretched, bleached whit.
I sit in silence, solitude and snow.
We talk of tomorrow.
I think of Treblinka,
the Himmelstrasse, street to heaven.
the Lazarette;
a burning pit of burst pregnant bellies,
foetus on fire.
Never Again.