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A Stolen Memory A Mirthful Chorus By Sy Roth We surrounded him Asked to let go. She stared at the misshapen face, Unshaven sandpapery skin Eyelids a tabula rasa Fluttery sere skin And we could see the humor blossoming in his ending. He would enjoy her singing. Bent over him, her breath a morning gust of air Drifted across his face. She sang him Old Man River As he lay dying, At least the first verse, Loud enough, she hoped, to wake the dead. They stood transfixed And smiling, She invoking the spirit of Robeson Hoping to steal his baritone dirge Suck it into her whole— White-haired matron singing: “That ole man ribber He mus' know sumpin'” She began “But don't say nuthin', He jes' keeps rollin' He keeps on rollin' along.” She warbled. A moment’s pause as they gathered their thoughts. While the second verse escaped her, She hummed it instead Expecting him to waken and fill in the missing verses. Lips inches away from his eyes Her breath only an Oreo-memory away. They were prompted to join her Her arm a swirling carousel Pointer finger aloft circling, their signal-- “You an' me, we sweat an' strain, Body all achin' an' racket wid pain, Tote dat barge! Lif' dat bale!” They mouthed in unison A chorus of kindred words for her and him And smiled their best Caucasoid Porgy and Bess. Only, he met them with his silence. Ashen ghost of the man Head set against the white, sodden pillow Hissed his last. But they sang him their dirge And filled his room with their laughter-- “Ah gits weary An' sick of tryin' Ah'm tired of livin' An' skeered of dyin', But ol' man river, He jes'keeps rolling' along.” No tears immersed them in the absurd. They just kept rolling along Cheerful for their last serenade. A Mournful Awakening by Sy Roth Sleep’s voluble accompaniment, A C-Pap cello out-of-tune, lazes restively like a disturbed sleeping hound usurping the quiet of the bedroom. The night set adrift on its tidal waves. Squeaky crawls the moon’s light Slap-dashing against dappled Mickey Mouse sheets, cracking through window chinks skritching raccoons seeking entrance. Horns bleat somewhere in inky refrain-- town criers bellow news to a somnolent brain. Morning options lift a truncated sleep the ceiling ablaze with promises unkept traipse from eyes cemented closed with a.m.’s glue. Clinkety-clank of Sir Gawain’s armor heard plaintive wrestles mightily into the room and empties Lethe’ dreams from the brain. Feet flop like pimpled pancakes ready for turning to the cold floor. Crawly insects text the day-- chopping them into frenzied scrawled brevities tattooing them onto their sloughing skin. Morn readies itself to mourn another day. My Umshlagplatz By Sy Roth OK, so where does the story begin? My option I suppose. I could start with a note of victory, The victory of having overcome adversity And rising to the top of the pile. But, of course, that would simply be bull. Instead I choose to start with the nadir, Thinking perhaps that it would be far more engaging Perhaps it might help to point out that we all have a choice. So, this is where I choose to begin--- With the image of a man running away Finding safety somewhere else Perhaps not safety entirely But certainly, away from a point of origin That was or could have been his demise. My tsunami. A bit of melodrama never hurt anything, Right? Indulge me as I mount the steed And hurtle over the reality To spawn the creation of something As I struggle not too mightily with the truth. Ghostly images of an old non-digitalized film Rocketed a steady stream of images Of shrunken men and women who had acceded to their victors Their right to exits To make them bereft of a place on this planet. I watched them in their umshlagplatz eat their wishes, Wait out the victors To cipher out their place in the grand scheme that was being played out With their flesh and their frozen minds. I see them in my mind’s eye The family gathered in their placed on the ground Surrounded by baying dogs And shouted, spitting hatred iterated like a broken record A flapping, broken filmstrip nipping at their collective unconscious-- Waiting. So this story begins with the distant pop, pop, pop Of imagination and the burden of parents who survived While their siblings were immolated and erased from memory And I sit there among those spilled dreams of family, Working diligently to erase the knowledge of being a victim. But they invade my thoughts and I struggle to make them less voluble. From them, Their screams were a silent film, The reality to powerful to voice To bring heads to thank the heavens, Only chagrin. The now wrapped in shiny gift wrap And wonderment at having survived, Yearning that the new generation Does not hear the pop, pop, pop of annihilation. But, my choice, Fully expecting only be warding off the inevitable. Original photography by Robert Sundheimer with his permission Her Riant Eyes By Sy Roth Bedeviled by the finger pointers She stood slouched against the red-brick ruins. They saw a blankness But her riant eyes spoke of other things. Her eyes marshalled their energy As they passed her by. In their ambling to nowhere, she saw their decrepitude And the swollen egos, flabby globs overhanging their belts. Her rods and cones, stood in military parade rest behind her heavy lids In a colorful array, arranging themselves With their rigid shoulders and tucked, droopy chins Marching in goose-stepping cadence, gliding to the music of the street. And the wind whispered her trials In soft susurrations of heated breath. In her ears, the tintinnabulations of bells Caroling dirges in the darkened spaces of their lives. Their deus ex machina machinations Could not stifle her riant eyes When she swept away from wall To step off the curb. She last-stared at a blue sky Closed her eyes and whispered Shema to the bleating horns of traffic That gasped but did not grasp her goodbye.
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