Long Stiffer 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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He was coming.
He was coming fast.
He was coming to pay us a visit.
A brooding, lethal monster 30 miles out.
He was coming straight at us
and nothing or no one could stop him

Our house was on the...

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I tell u what shell b the first to tell you 
Tim is crazy he aint even jealous of the devil
he gots propellas on the metal
Rest aside those doubts about me
weapons of destruction I don;t...

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When sky is grey and east is clouded high
with ever coming stiffer breeze give mind
to take in sails and make things right with try
to keep bow pointed straight toward great swells kind.
Then we were close...

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Hills are to blaze a dance upon death,
and moonlight whistles a chargin' fall.
Lighting rounds over heads draw breath,
petals reddened in love do befall.

Silence brings not but grimace,
for the reapers breath so icy cold.
Blood turns dead...

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Eyes that are empty
As I look in the bottom of the glass
The color of sky blue
Behind fearful and sad
Underneath, a mystery
And I don't have a clue
What to do...

Embers burn and sparkle
Into the night quietly waking
Neon...

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Soul mate!!! Do not go that way
Seemeth it good but I know the result
Cries made with blood and lots of regret
Emotions tumbling out of a pained heart
Do not let the road entice you
The many good...

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I don’t know why I said it, 
But Mom gave her head a spin,
When I claimed, “I’m so unlucky
That I simply cannot win.”
She pinned me with her gray eyes,
And she said, “I beg to differ.”
I...

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She That Embraced The Darkness In Her Veins

With her mind not sick of dark devious games
she opens dead doors, tossing in more painful blames
in newly acquired realm, no mercy was real
as darkness ate away, weeping...

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He sat up in the corner and he sensed impending doom
With two ‘two leggers’ flat against the wall across the room
His mother said don’t worry that you’re just a tiny spider
Stand your ground, my son,...

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(07/11/2011)

How my life got this bitter
Only one can be blamed on
Everybody says I need to move on
Huh!-move on and hurt won’t go together

Inside too many holes I have fallen to
But never found which one called...

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As I pass through

As I pass through life,
I see different colors, 
different smells, different
sounds and different taste.
Nothing ever be the same,
The roads get rockier and stiffer 
as I pass through each time.
The sky never stays...

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Hair black as snow's
An awkward crooked.                            
Smile, to...

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Let us dance in the old fashioned way
bodies entwined, nothing much to say.
Two people in love just shuffling along,
to some old romantic, favourite song.

Oblivious to all, just us in the place,
you, me, the music, a...

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In life there are choices that you must make
Now some of them can turn out good and others bad
But the way you handle whatever the consequences are
Determines the strength you have
And I can’t promise you...

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Dog footed deep rooted fist and fouled
Cankerous flea infested unglorified scowled
Floating above the four walled space
Drowning not thyself but every chequered face.

Wing wilted uninhibited web footed guest
Seeking not short lived stay but being adept
Burying your...

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Limn of Ballerina Feet


Slaving, aching in separate rooms of satin palace,
    Two haggard maids make faces wry while weeping sweat,
Their ten sore daughters with bloodshot i’s, callused
     Wince...

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Empty Shell

I caved in its head in my haste to be fed
On the candy that should be inside
But inside was hollow, that’s too much to swallow
So I smashed the damned thing open wide

Dad gave me...

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She stares into the casket
open, not what he wanted,
but she did, even more now.
“Stiffer than he’s ever been.”
she snickered, silent, unheard.
“O M F G thirty years;
look at you in your blazer
and that idiotic badge;”
she toasted,...

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Land where my fathers died,
but was it all in vain,
I'm sure the ones before me cried,
When they call his name...
Some still say we've come so far,
But man I beg to differ,
The games the same the...

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