Years Have Sped By

Poems

The Numbers on Your Arm

I ponder over arms with numerals tattooed . . .

You've felt the sear of lash,

Upon skin, upon your flesh . . .

And in your very blood . . .

 

I feel your forehead is heating .

You no longer feel

the searing electrical numbering needle -- --

While less human you've become . . .

 

Now you're merely a number upon your arm . . .

And engraved upon my mind

are the lives of so many beings --

annihilated!

 

And amongst them-my nearest . . .

My dearest . . .

My mother . . .

My three sisters . . .

My one and only brother . . .

 

G-d Almighty.

Why? Where did they err?

For what iniquity? . . .

And I, in dark despair,

cry out:

"Come to my aid,

G-d of the universe!"

 

You have dug your own deep grave -- --

The order comes - to leap!

A forceful push --

And down you go . . .

You are buried deep . . .

A gun's discharged --

And there you lay

Motionless,

In a pool of blood . . .

 

Earth-covered, your body lies . . .

No longer one of the human race . . .

You are now only a number . . .

And I wonder -- -- --

Shall I not ask of you now,

When you yourself are puzzled

As to how???

 

"Do not ask of me now

How safety I found . . .

How I was able to remain alive --

To relate all that horror!"

 

In reality, I'm no longer human . . .

only gore . . .

I'm only the numerals on my arm . . .

Ask of me no more . . .

For I do not understand . . .

I no longer remember . . .

And talk of it, I can't.

 

Too deep is the bloody incision . . .

In my great desolation

Do not ask . . .

Do not question . . . .