Long Suburb Poems

World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems V - Ber Horvitz, Yitzkhak Viner, Franta Bass

Der Himmel
"The Heavens"
by Ber Horvitz
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

These skies
are leaden, heavy, gray...
I long for a pair
of deep blue eyes....

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Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out a small national magazine....

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You can feel it spinning
                              ...

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"By definition, a ghost is unable to bonk anybody --
save the believer in ghosts."
-- a Rational exorcist of all no things "supernatural" 
  
*   *   *
   
Now, once...

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ALPHA TO OMEGA 

A is for Arturo and Alexis two great Poets,
Who make us all cry and laugh
B is for Besma a great philosopher
And soul sister On Poetry Soup’s graph,
And Beata,and Gordon who 
With their...

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Who is Christopher Carson Burton? 
Who am I? 
Do I know? 
Do anybody know who I am? 
I'm just a regular guy a nobody.
A regular  guy   who grew   from ...

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In the trees
Small fields
Cloudy skies

A camo boy 
Destined to be a man.

In the streets
Between buildings
Bright grey sky's 

A suburban girl
Destined to escape.

Looking up they see the same 
sun.
Looking up they see the same 
moon.

Looking out...

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I moved to San Francisco from across the bay in early 1977. At 19 years old, dad got me a two-bedroom house in the San Francisco suburb known as the Ocean District. It was the...

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Once upon a time in a city called Paris in France, there was a young boy named Michel.
He had been called from the country to live with his grandmother in the city.


Since he was new...

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Herr Schneider and his Heidi 
Lived a staid and peaceful life
In a suburb prim and tidy,
Free of rancour, free of strife.

One blessing only Heaven denied
To this prosperous married pair
No infant’s laugh or baby’s cry
E’er pierced...

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Yet again we turn on the TV
And witness horrible scenes
Of unparalleled violence, hatred and despair

Two teenage boys
Decide to kill all of their classmates
Hold their school up
Bombs waiting to destroy

And the cry goes out throughout the...

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VI.
It came at night, from a local precinct;
Whitney and one of her friends was in jail.
They’d robbed a gas station and shot the clerk,
suspects for murder, and there was no bail.

Miles quickly ran down to...

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IV.
Of curse trying to raise a person right
is much more than a matter of finding work,
Miles didn’t think himself a great person,
so he started bringing them all to church.

He figured Whitney would need real wisdom,
that...

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Growing up in a middle class suburb of Chicago, is it any wonder that Polly learned the art of political malarkey.  Watching the City Council was probably the
place where she learned to see women...

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All over our suburb, lights have suddenly gone out, and panic has seized our hearts. 
Grasping my lover’s hand in the pitch black night, I struggle as he pulls me up. My 
legs are flimsy...

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Great traditional bavila priest,
When you hear about the great 
traditional bavila priest called
          " Kasongo Nguni" 
from bahinga clan, 
Who worked for the bavila kingdom 
On...

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So shocking was that news from France,
we stared at TVs in a trance;
no way to understand.
Those young and old without a chance
were taken down in wide expanse.
Such horror had been planned.

Who could have then foreseen...

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On one night, 
is it because of a bewitched full moon?
while driving my rusty shaking junk car
I became Don Quixote de la Mancha 
mounted on Rozinante holding a lance under the arm aslant,
and with a...

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Bob Robinson had been born in the ghetto,
and his childhood was not a nice thing,
single mother, just a teenager herself,
in a neighborhood known for gang-banging.

But Bob was a truly tenacious soul,
he got his first job...

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MY CHILDHOOD DANCED
                                ...

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I was born at the tail end of the Goldhawk Road
Which runs through Shepherds Bush 
Like an artery, 
And in the mid 1960s,
Served as one of the great centres 
Of the London Mod movement, 
But...

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You hear it all the time these days,
people talk of communities,
but then when you heard what they say
you can’t help but think it’s funny,
they don’t talk of where people live,
or of neighbors getting along,
it’s obvious...

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The street lamps are left hanging in the rain and the lights around it forces itself out of the darkness blowing the light of hope upon the wet night and the tingling of the bell...

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Not asleep. Night in front of me, no stars.
Dark inside my eyes,
I knuckle them, sparks, beams strafe head
             Shoot out of nowhere to...

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The town clock marks out the hours of the night;
Its pallid face looking down on the wet street below,
Empty save for the occasional swish of a car speeding 
To a distant suburb. There is a...

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