Shake

YOU ASKED ME THAT I WRITE TO YOU
IN VERSES ELEGANT AND TRUE.
NOW SHAKESPEARE, WHOM I DID CONSULT,
PUT DOWN HIS PEN AND SHOOK HIS HEAD:
“NO! NO! YOU MUST NOT SPEAK TO ME..
WHEN YOU SEEK WORDS TO SPEAK YOURSELF.
YOU LOVE? YOU CARE? YOU CHERISH ALL
YOU SEE AND HEAR AND SENSE …NOW SPEAK;

YOUR WORDS WILL THUNDER, HEARD BY NONE
BUT BY THE ONES YOU LOVE.” THEN SHAKESPEARE
JUST TURNED, BENT DOWN AND GAZED AT WORDS
THAT HE HAD WRITTEN. CROUCHING BELOW
THERE WERE NO WORDS FOR ME TO SEE.

Career

22/12/2013

Career

 

I am a poet unrenowned,

 Unpublished and unsung.

I’ve scribbled verses as a boy,

And as nonagenarian.

 

The question is; If I am not     

A poet, writer or the like,

What am I then? I’d better think

Of all the roads on which I hiked..

 

A chorus of well-meaning friends

Were resonant I should attend

A university abroad

With glittering titles at the end.

 

To study law in Switzerland?

To practise law? This was too much!

This thought was squashed at birth and yet

I think I could impress a judge.

 

Well then, this very clever boy

Should study languages, become

A highly skilled interpreter …

Rejected (though it would be fun).

 

Parental counsel and suggestions

Began to highlight engineering

For Jews in Nazi Germany

As the most valuable training.

 

I acquiesced. My father’s contacts

Got me a job as ‘Volunteer’,

To learn the rudiments of turning

And fitting iron, brass, and steel.

 

Kristallnacht spelt the bitter end,

My father was arrested, shipped

To Buchenwald – but did not speak

Of how his dignity was stripped.

 

Some six months later we arrived

In Melbourne, and within a month

I was apprenticed to become

A turner, fitter, and so on.

 

I rose to very moderate heights

While making things in brass and steel,

But on retirement I raced

To where at home I truly feel.

 

I read, I listened, and I wrote

About my thoughts. And now it seems.

I had performed the miracle

Of catching up on youthful dreams.

No Rancour

3/05/2014

I have been in the gold of marital bliss.
I‘ve cringed and trembled in the chill of discord.
Now I am old and any touch of hands
Bespeaks not passion nor the rise of rancour.

 

Mankind Believed

17/04/2014

Mankind believed – and I was a believer,
That on your death a band of angels would
Conduct your soul to paradise there to
Enjoy a life of pious luxury.

The other possibility, endorsed
By me and many others, did envisage
A rowdy crowd of devils dragging me
Through fires searing sinful, wicked flesh.

I think that age has taught me an alternative.
To wit there are no angels and no devils.
And life is nothing but a one-way street,
A towering unresponsive wall stands at the end.

Business of dying

18/2/2014

Business of dying.

This business of dying has its funny side,
Apart from causing grief to the survivors
I like to speculate like all religions do
Just where we’ll go when we are dead.

This speculation has an apriori:
Life after death exists! This is not only
My firm belief, but every creed since Moses
Created paradise and hell and in between.

The catch is that there seems to be no choice
Which railway station will be at the end.
The track is laid, the rails in perfect order.
You are invited to a first class seat.

A Letter from Paul

1/1/2014

 
Oh, John

Men can do anything and in a small way
it does happen again today that men
become animals or unfeelingly regard the brutal behaviour
(vide Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo). But this
rather “massproduction style attempt” of pursuit
and annihilation of a complete group of men will never happen
again in Europe and in the non-islamic countries.
Here the young men have changed, and we all
who know through our parents and friends
what really happened, must pass it on daily,
that is our duty. I myself learnt from my father only on the eve
of his death what he had to suffer in 1933 in the torturecellars 
of the SA (Berlin Columbiahaus), in 1934 in the concentration
Camp Sachsenhausen and later in Wokurka (1944-
1949), this was Stalin’s camp in Siberia). He
should have talked earlier, it would have given me a different
view of the world. Not knowing that on
the following day he will die I promised him never
again fascism, never again war, never again cruelty
and for that do everything that I can.
Paul

Brown Skin

29/11/2013

Brown Skin

I lost my memory. It’s no big deal.
I can recall the sandpit where I built
Tall towers, castles and the hills between,
But now I find it difficult to tell
Who of the carers helped me when I cried.
When I had lost my bearings, lost myself?
I know that she was tall, that she was built
On ample Polynesian lines, brown skinned.
I thanked her at the time. I cannot now.