Long Chimneys Poems

World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - IV - Primo Levi

Shema
by Primo Levi
translation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable houses, 
who return each evening to find
warm food, 
welcoming faces...

consider whether this...

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The three little pigs came to the ball
Tried to blow the castle down
It didn’t work
It was made of solid gold
So they gave up and sat at their trough 
Ate noisily 
And snorted quite a lot

They...

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Stars fall under failing skies...stars fall...stars fall...
But stars do not cry.
Into Ochs valley, through the Vale of White Horse...prancing 
besides a Dragons Hill;
It was here that a Roundhead - did a Royalist Cavaliers blood in...

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THE GRIM REAPER (JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE) 

The Grim Reaper; again awakens from another well-earned day of sleep
From within the bowels of this cavernous earth, from his cave, so deep

His cloak and scythe;...

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THE GRIM REAPER (JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE)

This Grim Reaper stirs from another well-earned day of heavenly sleep
From within the bowels of this cavernous earth, from his cave, so deep

His cloak and scythe, been...

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The ride to the country is uneventful
Except that I feel a little like
A man riding inside a cannon ball.
Yuliya's father Igor drives
I'm also up front (the honored guest)       ...

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'Twas the night before Christmas and outside was blizzardly
Mrs Claus was busy hanging baubles on the Christmas tree
Santa felt cold and shivery and was succumbing to the flu
And told Mrs Claus "I'm feeling ill, what...

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Voices of creation speak Type A and Type B,
and polyglot dialects through Z, 
somehow under what lies in shadow
from B through Z,
anyway, Type A conscious I am alive
in this indoor moment
awake but not directly sun-absorbing...

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Exclusive Birth Rights

I am German and guilty as charged by history and evil parental culpability
privileged by life and proxy thus I refuse to forget ancestral perpetration
though I propose without any diminution that systematic genocide is...

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pitty-pit-pat, pitty-pit-pat ...

dark attic, echoing ... tenderly
rain on tin roof above,
her nana's voice, ages hence -
lives ago, really ... calling …

       "Little Tea Pot, Little Tea Pot -
 ...

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'Twas a sound I thought alarming, most assuredly disarming;
Up I rose from peaceful slumber to discern what it might be.
While my candle flickered, wavered; whilst my heartbeat halted, quavered,
At my window I was favoured by...

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They crept upon our shores eating away the inner core
They crept upon our shore knocking on our barricade doors
Tall stout men with peevish eyes and strange looks on their white faces
Invade our quarters looking for...

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I'd love to paint, a picture for you, of images in my head.
Of a quirky old town, I'll set the scene, as you rise from a crooked bed.
The room you're in, whilst large in size,...

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Walls Make Bad Neighbours

‘All in all we are just bricks in the wall’ deconstructed by Pink Floyd
                  ...

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American Pies and Porkies

I’m not American though I spent a year in California the land of beaches Hollywood 
‘flower power’ ‘Big Sur’ with dopey dreams and have walked ‘bear’-foot in Yosemite
thus I followed the elections...

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  On white lines on valiant wheels
I head north leaving behind the City of Sails
       with its humourless streets,
    its casino steel and glass Sky...

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A variation of a variation on a theme by Dr. Seuss...

The Grinch's twin brother lived also alone,
Because he, too, was supposedly bad to the bone,
And a sad tale it is how his heart turned to...

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Banks could startup environment 
improvement clubs 
where people invest together
using the joint power of an investment

Governments could put forward
environmental improvement ideas
so the banks new where to direct
group investment saving

people with ideas could put them forward...

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`

I opened the rusted iron gateway
bound in chain and wire, to find a landing
caked in muddied footprints, scattered about like roaches
Magpie shadows course the rain soaked streets
and puddle patterns reflect temptation as light flickers
from second...

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They stand alone in stark contrast to their surroundings.  Derelict, they speak of a time past, when they played a role in, no, were the heart of the community.  Gone is the smoke...

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Earth crosses her heart at midnight
Shaking loose dust upon battered edge
Scorn mocks the piercing night as daylight 
Moves swiftly with open jaws waiting for a fight.

I can recall the days when she was in full...

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Buna
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Mangled feet, cursed earth,
the long interminable line in the gray morning
as Buna smokes corpses through industrious chimneys...

Another gray day like every other day awaits us.

The terrible whistle shrilly...

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Raisin just stared at the chaos ahead
A kitten, confused as she sat there in dread
The world has gone mad, all the people have flipped
She glared at a window where blood and gore dripped

Folk wearing specs...

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Naked trees whose dilapidated bodies have outgrown the test of time
shoot unseemly  into the unaccommodating sky flustering as they walk by
Nude trees laden with deceptive shadows waiting for the morrow
Echoing  a somber tune...

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No dad should leave his family for a mistress
and break the sacred marital vows and transgress;
who is selfish and has no love or pity
shall find none when they are sought,
when he finds himself distraught!

I worked...

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