Best Chaim Poems

World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - VI - Chaim Nachman Bialik, Erich Fried

After My Death
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
translation by Michael R. Burch

Say this...

Read more of this work...

Holocaust Poem: "On The Slaughter of the Jews"
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Merciful heavens, have pity on me!
If there is a God...

Read more of this work...

Swing of the bat, contests
Fielders’ gloves, ball in motion, 
Run, slide, throw - called safe!

Innings are by turns,
Dramatic or biding, boxscores
Revealing  who’s up.

Catching foul...

Read more of this work...

I wish I could have 
     seen and heard Theodore Roosevelt , 
Eugene Debs and Calvin Coolidge 
   ...

Read more of this work...

Age 51 is often when one’s unable,
To buy the status quo, it’s old and needs mending.
New sports car, how youthful!  Refuting the label,
Of premature...

Read more of this work...

The bustle and tune of city,
Is composed by the Architects.
Eyes upward, not staring at feet,
Take in cornices, gargoyles and chimneys,
Building high notes reaching down -...

Read more of this work...

You are blameless to not swim,
Where water is ingenuously cool,
Too cool for fish to frolic,
Whoever heard of a Procrustean waterbed?
I am taking swimming lessons at...

Read more of this work...

Life is time that's awarded to do what you will.
It's your deeds then recorded that chapters will fill.
It's a miracle given, divinely ordained,
That by passions...

Read more of this work...

(just in time for summer reading...
recounting emotionally disastrous campy turbulence)

Amidst a raft of fellow (Brandywine Valley
     Y.M.C.A) resident campers
  ...

Read more of this work...

Torah: Black Fire on White Fire, A Nafka Mina

Every Place, every Space,
In ink, 'tween signs, ‘tween lines,
Everywhere He, Where are we?

Ask, "Mi Hashem Aylai?"
Not, "What's...

Read more of this work...

Not to Show Off One's Learning
(?? ???? ???? ???????)
 
 
Instead Self Effacing, B'Tz'nyus,
Otherwise, Imbibe Drink of Ego,
Schnapps in Shrinking Hollowness,
Rather Honor Your Fellow,
Not Me!...

Read more of this work...

Sweet 16, Sealed in Wax
 Nothing compares, can't hold a candle,
To our togetherness in love,
Hand in hand we share our "One-dle",
As a ship in harbor,...

Read more of this work...

Torah: Black Fire on White Fire

 
 

Every Place, Every Space,
In Ink, 'Tween Signs, ‘Tween Lines,
Everywhere He, Where are we?

 

Ask, "Mi Hashem Aylai?" 
Not,...

Read more of this work...

this alteh kocker nostalgically reflects
     being ma late mama's boytchik
(now, she long since deceased,
     whose cremated remains...

Read more of this work...

Especially one courteously wrapped ably
anonymously gifted to
an aspiring gourmet Chef Boyardee
i.e. not surprisingly... revealing mystery
person none other than...
yepper namely me.

Moost anyone can show
off culinary karate...

Read more of this work...