To Flora Tree
The walls, the ceilings still show the bluish haze
of Zyklon B which killed both your grandparents.
When we saw the cans piled silently
you asked if I was seeing what you saw - modern
art installed within this mausoleum.
And I saw you pick a flower from the soil,
so that when you got home you'd plant a memory -
a morbid memory of Majdanek.
Gold, Ashes and Myrrh
Here they would lay the dead, to prise
the gold from gums which had been gassed by Zyklon:
a cold post-mortem to prolong the carnage.
A few paces away, the ovens, the ashes falling;
the muted river which declines to tell.
Violins never play here.
Here, only the silence and the charred death.
Here, only the torpor of old memories,
the open spaces which once smelt peculiar.
A heap of ashes rests in silence, evermore.
In the Gas Chamber
The blue Zyklon haze upon the ceiling
dries up the slightest trace of any tear.
This is not the place for weeping. Only for silence
filled with the screams and shrieks of victims
before their loss of consciousness,
adding to the list of photos with two dates.
OSWIECIM
At the Entrance of Birkenau
It was this way that the train passed
on its journey to the city built on mud,
the city which was dying of Zyklon B,
the city which was drowning in its own ashes.
In the Doll Chamber, Auschwitz
This boy whose cap is rammed down on his head
has turned his eyes on me, admonishing: You've read the story and know where I'm being taken.
This girl's black hair is slightly tousled;
she doesn't want to look my way, for her to say: You've read the story and know where I'm being taken.
How many unsmiling children in this room;
how many faded little dolls just staring
from the wall. A few paces away, some metres,
their wailing hangs suspended
trying to find a way to flee the gas.
The Ashes of Auschwitz
Who knows whether at night these ashes stir?
Tourists
I
While we are walking, the gravel grates beneath us.
We march on in our trendy, modish shoes;
our cameras slung around our necks, and big,
plastic carrier-bags holding our souvenirs.
II
Dying for a fag - smoking forbidden.
This place has had enough of too much smoke.
III
Ronaldo Rossoni wanted his photo taken
to show to friends when he got home. So, in
a Lacoste T-shirt, the hue of July's sun,
and jeans to match, plus Diadora sneakers,
his head slightly inclined and with a smile,
he struck a sexy pose, the Bogart style.
Behind him one could read Arbeit Macht Frei.
IV
Holding a white flag with blue stripes and a star,
some squatting and some standing and craning necks,
this Israeli group has come to venerate its race
in brethren who died because they were not Arians.
Let's take this photo because our blood is here;
because our brothers' ashes smother this city.
We've travelled all this way to feel the holocast,
To fully understand the sense of massacre.
And then one day we'll tell you just what happened
in the cities of Jenin and Ramallah.
