we wake
from our evening stupor
in mild sleep-induced confusion
and stare dumbly into the world
as if new to it;
we break fast with coffee
and seek the sun.

it finds its way to us
and we find our way to it
lover and loved
in a warm embrace
of a forever moment –
captured.

this is the new time

a time to forever weep

as death becomes our compulsion

our abusive lover

promising it will never happen again

while stabbing us in the heart

and telling us it’s our fault

we made it happen

By Haim Nahman Bialik

In The City of Slaughter

A poem, written by Jewish poet Haim Nahman Bialik, was a tribute to the victims of the Kishinev pogrom – part of a series of anti-Jewish pogroms throughout the Russian Empire, particularly Ukraine, between 1903-1906. It was first published in Hebrew as Masa Nememv: later as Be-ir ha-haregah. More great info can be found here – https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/city-slaughter

Rise and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind thy way;
There with your own hand touch, and with the eyes of your head,
Look on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead.
Proceed from there to the ruins, the split walls reach,
Where wider grows the hollow, and greater grows the breach;
Pass over the shattered hearth, attain the broken wall 
Those burnt and barren brick, whose charred stones reveal 
The open mouths of such wounds, that no mending
Shall ever mend, nor healing ever heal.
There will your feet in feathers sink, and stumble
On wreckage doubly wrecked, scroll heaped on manuscript. 
Fragments again fragmented

Pause not upon this havoc; go your way
To the attic mount, upon thy feet and hands;
See the shadow of death among the shadows stands. 
Crushed in their shame, they saw it all; 
They did not pluck their eyes out; they
Beat not their brains against the wall!
Perhaps, perhaps, each watcher bad it in his heart to pray: 
A miracle, O Lord, and spare my skin this day!

Come, now, and I will bring you to their lairs
The privies, jakes and pigpens where the heirs
Of Hasmoneans lay, with trembling knees,
Concealed and cowering -the sons of the Maccabees!
The seed of saints, the scions of the lions!
Who, crammed by scores in all the sanctuaries of their shame 
So sanctified My name!
It was the flight of mice they fled,
The scurrying of roaches was their flight;
They died like dogs, and they were dead!
And on the next morn, after the terrible night
The son who was not murdered found
The spurned cadaver of his father on the ground.
Now where do you weep, O son of Man?

Brief-weary and forespent, a dark Shekinah 
Runs to each nook and cannot find its rest; 
Wishes to weep, but weeping does not come; 
Would roar; is dumb.
Its head beneath its wing, its wing outspread 
Over the shadows of the martyr’d dead,
Its tears in dimness and in silence shed.

And you, too, son of man, close now the gate behind you; 
Be closed in darkness now, now yours, that charnel space; 
So waiting there you will be one with pain and anguish 
And will fill up with sorrow your heart for all its days. 
Then on the day of your own desolation
A refuge will it seem,
Lying in you like a curse, a demon’s ambush,
The haunting of an evil dream,
O, carrying it in your heart, across the world’s expanse 
You would proclaim it, speak it out,
But your lips shall not find its utterance.

Beyond the suburbs go, and reach the burial ground.
Let no man see you going; attain that place alone,
A place of sainted graves and martyr-stone.
Stand on the fresh-turned soil.
There in the dismal corner, there in the shadowy nook, 
Multitudinous eyes will look
Upon you from the sombre silence
The spirits of the martyrs are these souls,
Gathered together, at long last,
Beneath these rafters and in these ignoble holes.
The hatchet found them here, and hither do they come
To seal with a last look, as with their final breath,
The agony of their lives, the terror of their death. 
Question the spider in his lair!
His eyes beheld these things; and with his web he can
A tale unfold horrific to the ear of man:
A tale of cloven belly, feather-filled;
Of nostrils nailed, of skull-bones bashed and spilled;
Of murdered men who from the beams were hung,
And of a babe beside its mother flung,
Its mother speared, the poor chick finding rest
Upon its mother’s cold and milkless breast;
Of how a dagger halved an infant’s word,
Its maw was heard, its mama never heard.

Then will you ask your spirit – Hold, enough!
Stifle the wrath that mounts within your throat,
Bury these things accursed,
Within the depth of your heart, before your heart will burst! 
Then will you leave that place, and go your way
And lo-
The earth is as it was, the sun still shines:
It is a day like any other day.

Descend then, to the cellars of the town,
There where the virginal daughters of your folk were fouled, 
Where seven heathen flung a woman down,
The daughter in the presence of her mother,
The mother in the presence of her daughter,
Before slaughter, during slaughter and after slaughter!

Note also, do not fail to note,
In that dark corner, and behind that cask
Crouched husbands, bridegrooms, brothers, peering from the cracks, 
Watching the sacred bodies struggling underneath
The bestial breath,
Stifled in filth, and swallowing their blood!
Such silence will take hold of you, your heart will fail
With pain and shame, yet I
Will let no tear fall from thine eye.
Though you will long to bellow like the driven ox
That bellows, and before the Altar balks,
I will make hard your heart, yes, I
Will not permit a sigh.
See, see, the slaughtered calves, so smitten and so laid; 
Is there a price for their death? How shall that price be paid? 
Forgive, you shamed of the earth, yours is a pauper-Lord! 
Poor was He during your life, and poorer still of late. 
When to my door you come to ask for your reward,
I’ll open wide: See, I am fallen from My high estate.
I grieve for you, my children. My heart is sad for you.
Your dead were vainly dead; and neither I nor you
Know why you died or wherefore, for whom, nor by what laws;
Your deaths are without reason; your lives are without cause.

Turn, then, your gaze from the dead, and I will lead
You from the graveyard to your living brothers,
And you will come, with those of your own breed, 
Into the synagogue, and on a day of fasting,
To hear the cry of their agony,
Their weeping everlasting.
Thy skin will grow cold, the hair on thy skin stand up, 
And you will be by fear and trembling tossed;
Thus groans a people which is lost.
Look in their hearts – behold a dreary waste,
Where even vengeance can revive no growth,
And yet upon their lips no mighty malediction
Rises, no blasphemous oath.
Speak to them, bid them rage!
Let them against me raise the outraged hand,
Let them demand!
Demand the retribution for the shamed
Of all the centuries and every age!
Let fists be flung like stone
Against the heavens and the heavenly Throne!

And you, too, pity them not, nor touch their wound; 
Within their cup no further measure pour.
Wherever you will touch, a bruise is found,
Their flesh is wholly sore.
For since they have met pain with resignation
And have made peace with shame,
What shall avail your consolation?
They are too wretched to evoke your scorn.
They are too lost your pity to evoke.
So let them go, then, men to sorrow born,
Mournful and slinking, crushed beneath their yoke.
So to their homes, and to their hearth depart
Rot in the bones, corruption in the heart.
And go upon the highway,
You shall then meet these men destroyed by sorrow, 
Sighing and groaning, at the doors of the wealthy 
Proclaiming their sores, like so much peddler’s wares, 
The one his battered head, the other limbs unhealthy, 
One shows a wounded arm, and one a fracture bares. 
And all have eyes that are the eyes of slaves,
Slaves flogged before their masters;
And each one begs, and each one craves:
Reward me, Master, for that my skull is broken. 
Reward me for my father who was martyred!

And so their sympathy implore.
For you are now as you have been before 
As you stretched your hand
So will you stretch it,
And as you have been wretched

So are you wretched!
What is your business here, o son of man? 
Rise, to the desert flee!
The cup of affliction to there bear for all to see!
Take your soul, rend it in many a shred!
With impotent rage, your heart deform!
Your tear upon the barren boulders shed
And send they bitter cry into the storm.

here we are
sons and daughters
of past
of present
of future
here we are
off to war we trod
our once bright souls
now dull, unshod
bent double by the weight
of vainglorious expectation
beneath the gaze
of a blind
or uncaring god

here we are
robbed of joy
sent with inbred hate
to kill brothers
to kill sisters
or die trying
for the sake of
political hubris

here we are
proxies of weak-willed men
destined to water foreign fields
with a blood stolen, spilled out
as wine from broken amphora

here we are
dread shadows in your darkness
waiting patiently to show
how long your chains did grow
a damnation you yourself did sew

and we
one day
will laugh

my good fortune
in this life,
is to have the children
i have;
to have the wife.

i am
where i have
always wished to be;
i am
inherently,
and blissfully
happy.

saved to
the great galactic cloud,
resting until reboot
with worries
about continuity
gone

because

if i die every moment,
i live in the next,
like some sentient flip book
animated and anticipated
by whomever looks my way;
and while every frame
is silent and still,
together they are art.
it’s the motion that matters.

fin.

i wonder, sometimes
if my brain
is a quantum transducer
because
these are the things
i wonder, sometimes

this idea
that somehow
i come
from somewhere else
and am
being beamed into
this slowly decaying
meatsuit

it’s unrealistic
like heaven

then
i wonder, sometimes
if my brain
can receive
perhaps it can send
like a transmitter
and there are beings
somewhere
watching vignettes of my life
every beautiful, ugly little bit

i wonder, sometimes
about what i am
about how i am

he’s honest
honest is closest to truth
he’s feeling guilty
guilty about succeeding
off the dead
off the memories
he’s sad and depressed

dead mother
dead brother
dead father

what’s it all about?
why bother?

but
he’s honest
he tells the story
because it’s important
someone needs to know
everyone needs to know

so
much
guilt

let us stain the silence
with words
let us stain nothing
with our presence
a vacuum exists
to be filled.

come one! come all! come and see!
this act of frenzied masculinity;
hear our loud and adjective-filled song,
it is HUGE; it is WIDE; and it is very, VERY LONG!

come hear the music of the Canadian oppressed,
come sing along with the Canadian distressed;

with it and ours we plan to penetrate,
the capitol city of our fair state;
(and to hell BTW with the fourth estate!)
know that we are engorged with rage,
we will not suffer your rule-lined cage;

come hear the music of the Canadian oppressed,
come sing along with the Canadian distressed;

for this – this god-blessed, virile and noble cause,
brings a global, anger-filled and thunderous applause;
we’re here to save you whether you like it or not,
so just lay back and take it, it’s for you we fought.

come hear the music of the Canadian oppressed,
come sing along with the Canadian distressed;

black is surrounding comfort
that leaves us alone and safe;
it is night without nuance
and a place in the dark
where one can shelter
away from the burning light,
that carcinogenic beating blaze.

let us alone with the night
to gather with the timid things
that seek the safety of isolation,
wrapped in the harbour of blind obsidian;
black is best as it holds us closer,
this place of merged shadows;
it sings to us of sweet sleep .