2023 NEW POEMS
Black Scar
VOX POPULI/
Scar black scar
the artist’s long
black scar
symbol
in the earth
of the rip
in the body human
payment
in flesh all wars
are economic
the cost
charged the poor
black
the blood of Danny
long since
blackened
dried and caked
oh Danny boy
who is no more
he whom I loved
and he whom they loved
the Ebert’s older son
remember him
he played a drum
the paper boy on Linden
I Apologize
to my precious elders;
the valuable ones,
those thick-fleshed
indestructible Jews
I have known,
those who
endured; those who
had the clenched tooth
grit to flee before
the ovens were lit,
those –bergs and –steins
and –skis
those tailors artists bakers
peddlers scholars music-makers
who did not become the incinerated trash of Europe:
My own people, once stalwart as the stars,
must now weep as we, their stunning progeny,
disappear like shadows
into the cracked cement of sweet America
our brainless heads sucked under the white foam,
merging, whistling, forgetting, drowning, dancing,
no lessons learned, refusing to keep anything.
Copyright 2023 Judith R. Robinson. First published in 5AM. The poem won the 2011 Reuben Rose Award from Voices Israel. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
Copyright 2023 Judith R. Robinson. First published in California Quarterly. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.