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week of April 19 - 25, 2004

Our sixth annual Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) issue.

Eliyahu Abramson
Cara Alson
Helen Bar-Lev
Jim Bennett
Tom Berman
Joop Bersee
Bodo
Margaret Boles
Gerald Bosacker
Len Bourret
Alex Braverman
Tony Bush
John Davis
Daniel A. Elijah
Thomas Fortenberry
David Fraser
Maryann Hazen Stearns
Kristin Johnson
Philip Johnson
Tammy Kaiser
Rachel Kann
Ward Kelley
Miriam N. Kotzin
Donna Kuhn
Meredith Karen Laskow
Josie Lawson

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Daniel A. Elijah
dan2poems@yahoo.com

Bio (auto)

I feel honored to have been given a chance to write to the memory of the holocaust though I am an African. But having shared the experience, of what it is like to be under oppression and affliction. I had come respect and appreciate the unrelenting spirit of man to survive in any condition.

As a young man of 22 years old and a Nigerian, I read about the dilemma of history, those affected and their quests for life and man activities,

The world did wrong but even the right was too wrong, the holocaust happened it changes certain things but a man's spirit will always survive.

This remembrance was not and should not be to judge, accused or for revenged but to remember our entire brothers who had to pay with their lives that we might live their lives, their inspirations, their beliefs and their dreams

We gathered to remember, to celebrate and to reminds ourselves that violent only brings destruction

About the poem:
The poem is all about a people calling to their loved ones who die during the period and telling them that live have changed. Even their enemy's "hugs is warm like" they should come with a forgiving heart. Talks about the pain they passed through surviving in the absence of their love ones.

A changing poem in tone and mood progressing from the sadness and pain of the pass to a fact that the world have change-for the better.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Daniel A. Elijah and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

We Remember Them

We remember
Our brothers
Though their moans sleeps
retiring their crucified eyes
mal-nurtured with shivering nights
today, those nights breaths
crowing our soul, their history, our story
Today living their death
their right to earth, we gathered
like reptile of many forest
to the dance of that desolation
we came bare, naked not wicked
They abort our laughter, serve us molten magma
We die living their death
today we came, standing-
not to judge, we are not worthy
blood cleanse no blood, no we will not judge
Brother wake us up
Call our heart to acceptance
Come forth, infant immortality, we wait
Like the African yam does for the rain
We wait, our eyes glittering with memory
flashing like sacked thunder
shattering the pleading skies
Brother, come forth
Come to this china of forgiveness
looking beyond the fragment of history
Come with that sun-filled laughter,
For men are men not like the earth which is earth
Come for their hug is warm
yes like the inner thigh of dogs at sunset,
Accept us now
Burning like temple candle into eternity
Come brother.

Thomas Fortenberry
Kurvanas@aol.com

Bio (auto)

Thomas Fortenberry is an American author, editor, reviewer, and publisher. Owner of Mind Fire Press, he has judged many literary contests, including The Georgia Author of the Year Awards and The Robert Penn Warren Prize for Fiction. His award-winning work has appeared internationally in publications such as Amelia, Cicada, Maelstrom, Contemporary Southern Poets of 1997, Poetry Magazine, Writer's Choice, Fiction Network, Soul Unmade, Poetry Superhighway, Ariga, Eternity, Gravity, Uno, Lower Than the Angels, Wooden Head Review, Ectopia, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Lumi Virtuale, Storytellers, Left Bank Review, Prairie Poetry, Biblioteca di Babele, Painted Poetry, Main Street Rag, Independence Boulevard, Midwest Book Review, The European Legacy, Poets4Peace, RAWA, EnterText, The World Book of Healing, Haiku Hut, Verse Libre Quarterly, Taj Mahal Review, Slate & Style, Dew-on-line, Saathee, Peshekee River, Babel Magazine, Reading Matrix, Listening to the Birth of Crystals, The Book of Remembrance, nth Position, Annetna Nepo, Consciousness, Literature, and the Arts, and the introduction of H. G. Wells' The Outline of History. www.mindfirerenew.com

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Thomas Fortenberry and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

I Shall Live On and On

The Final Solution
wasn't final, but it's over

however, I Shall Live
echoes on and on and on

down through time
the memory of death camps

marches in to the oven
as The Theory and Practice of Hell

falters and fails, labors, gasps for breath,
naked and defenseless as the day it was born

one last rape, stillborn,
of the so-called other side of civilization

I don't know much
but I know Hitler's Willing Executioners

weren't tried, and aren't true
blue through and through

it's just like the commander braying
"there are no sick men

in my camp. They are either well
or dead." And they are all dead

inside and dirty and damned
if I will ever silence my voice.

David Fraser
ascent@mail.bcsupernet.com

Bio (auto)

David likes to balance his life among a variety of activities in the areas of writing, education and sports. When he is not formally working as an educator, he is either writing and researching or involved in one of the following sports: alpine skiing, ski teaching as a full time professional ski instructor at Mt. Washington, BC http://www.mtwashington.bc.ca/winter/default.cfm, windsurfing, tennis, golf, cycling, hiking. In addition he likes to garden, listen to the blues, and search for his way through Taoism. He has built his second water garden which has become his new daily sanctuary. His is learning and refining his Spanish fluency and will travel back to Central and South America in the near future. He lives among the flora and fauna of the British Columbia West Coast.

David is the editor of Ascent Magazine - Aspirations for Artists (established 1997) http://www.bcsupernet.com/users/ascent.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by David Fraser and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Room Full Of Leather Shoes
(On visiting The Holocaust Museum, Washington, D.C.)


Herded into lines we wait
Beside oven-baked brick walls,
The intentional steel exhibit
Elevator doors close us in
A crowded group
Alone.
We exit from the other side
Like cattle, and
As in the hospital.
Corridors, corrals
Of mental pathways
Guide our experience,
Move us through text,
Static and moving images.
The brick is rough to touch,
The wood of the cattle cars,
The slats on group bunks
Handed down smooth
Full of body oils, and
Tears of human souls.
The personal affects
Of anonymous victims
Await us behind glass;
Rusted conglomerations
Of scissors and spectacles
Leading us up to
The room of leather shoes
Silent molding layers,
Piled sediments
Sifted from the erosion
Of the human soul.
The flash of present
Images
Outside these walls
Show more of shoes
Left without their bodies,
Raining new layers
For each new decade now.
We move on within and
Without these walls.
Beside the shoes
Their gray smell haunting,
A wall of children's art
Burns into our sadness,
Its silent screams
Buried
In the fragile paper images of life
Beside the shoes
Mixed in among those scratches
On the ceiling
Of the chamber.

previously published in the print magazine,
Lunatic Chameleon, May 2003.

Maryann Hazen Stearns
faerhart@yahoo.com

Bio (auto)

Maryann is currently an Associate Editor of MindFire Renewed. For more information please see submission guidelines. She also enjoys membership in the Woodstock Poetry Society, the Alchemy Poets, and is currently an Associate Member of Poets & Writers. She is also Guest Editor and active member of Sol Magazine. Mary is the proud recipient of the Silver Rose Award for Poetic Achievement. She is also an occasional Poetry Editor, Poetry Competition Judge, and CMT. Mary teaches Poetry As Pastime at Sullivan County Community College, in New York, (when there are enough interested students). She has had poetry published throughout the US, Canada, Switzerland, Great Britain and India. Mary has had work appear in over 30 print publications and anthologies, as well as 360+ electronic publications and is also listed in A Directory of American Poets & Writers.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Maryann Hazen Stearns and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Warsaw

In my hands I hold the perspiration of destiny,
the fear of manic fate. Belongings no longer
belong. A personal possession is something
new, intense, inconceivably deranged.
A star on my lapel, a symbol of segregation,
a ticket in my hand to an unknown destination.

Sol Magazine Poet Laureate Competition 2002
Honorable Mention; May 2002.

Kristin Johnson
kristin@poemsforyou.com

Bio (auto)

Kristin Johnson, a twice-produced playwright whose short humorous play on the founding of the National League of American Pen Women, "No Women Allowed," will be performed at the 2004 Swouthern California State Luncheon, graduated from the University of Southern California Master of Professional Writing Program and received her bachelor&Mac226;s from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She has published three books, including Christias Cookies Are for Giving (2003, with Mimi Cummins) and Ordinary Miracles (2004, with two-time Nobel Prize nominee Sir Rupert A.L. Perrin, M.D.), is an award-winning poet and short story writer (1999 Edward Moses Graduate Grant in Creative Writing, Blue Mountain Arts Tri-Annual Poetry Contest First Place, 1997 and 2000) and a finalist in the 2003 British Short Screenplay Competition. She has published numerous articles, including the groundbreaking "Hollywood East" in the Desert Post Weekly, and currently reviews books for the prestigious, popular Web site MyShelf.com. Her JFK-themed one-act play "Greetings and Salutations" received five nominations for the 2003 Desert Theatre League Awards in 2003. Her new e-book of poetry, IN THE MOOD, is available from her Web site, Poems For You, www.poemsforyou.com. She lives in Palm Desert, California

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Kristin Johnson and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Viktory

For Dr. Viktor Frankl, founder of logotherapy, who believed that his
horrendous suffering during the Holocaust achieved a greater meaning
because he chose his own state of mind and saw validity in his ordeal.

Gray and white
Twilight zone
Barbed wire
Not catching the mind
Guard dogs
Not gnawing the heart
Storm boots
Not stepping on the soul
Is life beautiful?
La vita
La principessa
Standing in bread lines
For a cup of watery comfort
A crown of thorns he wears
The crown writing in blood
The words of hope
The words of triumph
Life is beautiful

Philip Johnson
pjohnson69sol@hotmail.com

Bio (auto)

snapshot:

Diagnosed with Crohn's Disease 1982. Resection Op April 82. Presently employed as a Care assistant.

Voluntary Works: Member of Board of Directors Cheshire Carers Centre; Northwich Town Councillor & representitive to both Vale Royal Borough Council's Anti-poverty Exchange & Northwich Health Alliance come poet.

The spark of inspiration can come from anywhere at any hour for me - from people watching to things I hear or read or even in the middle of the night (suppose events must sometimes be mulling in my subconscious before outpouring). By far my best work is written spontaneously.


Achievements to date:
Work published by Poetry Now, Anchor Poets, North West Disabled Writers Group, Mid Cheshire Writers Group, Cheshire Carers Centre Newsletter, National Assc for Colitis & Crohn's Disease newsletters, local, regional and 1 national newspapers.

Electronic Formats: Write Away, Caught In The Net, The Red Pencil, The Wandering Dog and Writers Hood.

Philip Johnson @ moon a'la monde
http://www.philipjohnson.org.uk

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Philip Johnson and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

The Little Orphan Raphael

auditorium
in the darkness
the weeping skirl of a violin
en review

its bow an elegy to the absent
and unbeknown

how full the heart
of The Little Orphan Raphael
importance of every note struck
each breath a life
in limbo



ladies and gentlemen
children

the count goes on

for souls
still lost

cries
yet to be bled

for the sun still to rise

Tammy Kaiser
Tammykaykaiser@aol.com

Bio (auto)

Tammy Kaiser writes from her home in sunny Seattle. She amuses herself by taking frequent trips to theme parks, collecting vintage antennae balls and kissing all the frogs she can find. Kaiser recently spent an entire evening counting the paper dots inside her three hole punch. Weekly trips to the pharmacy keep her sane while raising her two children and supporting her soon-to-be-doctor husband. Kaiser has personal ties to the Holocaust and devotes her life to the study of Genocide.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Tammy Kaiser and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

camp band

we were an orchestra
the symphony we played
made them forget the hunger
for a while
a very short while

the master race never
intended for us to play
a symphony

they came and took
some
of the instruments
i watched them parade
away
rain beading on the bell
of the horn
the reed of the clarinet
soaked

we became an ensemble
playing still in the morning
as they marched
to work and in the evening
as they marched back again


then our ensemble became a quartet
and notes did not sound as strong
but instead drowned under the
weight of the rain and the
ash

our quartet became a trio
a duet
and now
a
solo
flute
playing whimsical tunes that no one wrote
and no one will remember
as we march
our last steps
with them

Rachel Kann
emceerere@hotmail.com

Bio (auto)

Rachel Kann...

wants you to come visit her at http://www.inspirachel.com

has performed in venues from Disney Concert Hall to Royce Hall to Nuyorican Poets Café, and shared the stage with DaKah (70 piece hip hop orchestra), Rahzel (The Roots), Sole (anticon), Tre (Pharcyde), Kim Hill, Medusa, Antipop Consortium, Jerry Quickley, and more

has toured across America sharing her words on the Chicks in Arms tour, on the SlamAmerica tour, and solo

has self published 2 books, "Idolizer/atrix" and "Haunted by want/guided by Don't-need"

has self produced 2 cds, "PoeTTrY MOUTH" and her latest one, "word to the WHY?S"

has had her poetry appear in various book anthologies like “So Luminous the Wildflowers” (Tebot Bach Press) and compilation CDs like “Luca Moved Upstairs” (Rosemary Records)

performs her own one-woman poetry performance piece, "Haunted by want/guided by Don't-need"

produces poetry/music extravaganza, "co-lab:ORATION" at The Temple Bar in Santa Monica, CA

is the winner of the 2003 “Different Type of Groove” $1000 invitational slam

is a member of the 2003 Los Feliz Slam Team

was a member of the 2002 Long Beach Slam Team

was a member of the 2001 Long Beach Slam Team (west coast regional champs)

was a member of the 2000 Hollywood Slam Team

is in a poetry-electronic band called expect:ORATION

performed her poetry for HBO's Def Poetry Jam, BET's The Way We Do It, ABC’s Eye On L.A., and more

is a part of Higher Vibration's upcoming Spoken Word DVD, and the Special Edition Belly DVD (Artisan)

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Rachel Kann and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

The Hollow Cost

I like little neuroses that make me think I control things… like my destiny…
For example:
I am scared of fire, inordinately.
I am scared of things burning me.
I smoke incessantly so that I can be the greater thing. It’s a teeny tiny cherry and a big ol’ me.
I’m at least 3 million times the size
a’ that little bundle of fireflies
at the tip
of my cancer stick.
And I think about it.
A lot.
This fear of fire within me.
I of lighter carrying fame.
I, who have nobody else to blame.
I am simply playing a game
wherein
I can bully the miniature ignition.
I have to,
because sometimes,
in my dreams,
I am burned beyond recognition.
And because I am steeped
in a hokey new age-y pop culture-y tradition
(that i wasn't even wishing for…)
Sometimes I will think about past life regression
or some other cheesy shit from tv,
and think, like,
“maybe in a past life,
like back in the 50s,
I went down in a plane crash,
all romance novel-y,
a burst of flames crumbling into the Atlantic Sea.
Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me!”
…but then I remember to think freely
and realize what I really do believe,
in fact,
maybe all that esoteric hocus pocus whack crap
is simply a defense I am weaving,
‘cause I cannot fathom how to face the grieving
if what I really think is the reason
for my eternal pyrophobic season
happens to be true,
see,
deep down,
I believe in genetic memory.
I believe there are memories trapped within my genes
too painful for me to begin to perceive.
And its funny,
I mean,
I grew up as a minority,
I wasn’t exposed to hardly any of my history very early,
I don’t know my family tree
past my grandparents,
the past is an empty urn,
they were immigrants,
and now, sometimes I feel like its my turn
to be an outcast, wandering the hollow stone lined streets of my genetic memory
and I never know where my feet are taking me
until I feel the heat begin to burn me up again.
And I always do.
See,
If your roots your dna your worth as a human being your integrity your history your entire reality were burned to charred black ash
wholesale,
indiscriminately,
without a shred of dignity,
just two generations back,
you’d have an issue with fire too.
It’d be part of you.
Indelible and true.
I guess I’m just trying to prepay the hollow cost
of some next holocaust.
But I’m sure the cigarettes’ll kill me
before some next hitler gets a chance to.

But what are you gonna do?

I guess it’s just part of being a jew.

Ward Kelley
Ward708@aol.com

Bio (auto)

Ward Kelley has seen his poems appear in journals world wide. He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee whose publication credits include such journals as: Plainsongs, Another Chicago Magazine, GSU Review, Rattle, The Chaffin Journal, Midstream, Zuzu’s Petals, Oracular Tree, Ginger Hill, Sunstone, Pif, Whetstone, Melic Review, Thunder Sandwich, Potpourri and Skylark. He was the recipient of the Nassau Review Poetry Award for 2001. Kelley is the author of two paperbacks: “histories of souls,” a poetry collection, and “Divine Murder,” a novel; he also has an epic poem, “comedy incarnate” on CD and CD ROM.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Ward Kelley and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Forgiven

They forced me to bring my daughter
to this place of death. This is a final,
ugly insult to a father, but my place
is to pretend strength by her side.

I don’t think she knows this is the end.
She believes in the ultimate protection
of adults . . . I have failed her pitifully.

Even here in hell she looks so beautiful.

I don’t have the words to explain to her
that the great capacity of some men to love
is matched by the sum of others who hate.
There is a diabolic fulcrum to our earth.

Her soft brown eyes rip my soul in half,
she smiles softly to assure me . . . me!
The most difficult, painful lie of my life
is forcing the sides of my lips upward
to return her smile. All the while I want
to cry out against a world who would
think to destroy us.

The line moves forward and we inch up –
they tell us our bellies must touch the person
in front of us.

We came into life alone . . . but we go out
part of a sad, shuffling herd of souls.

She motions for my ear, and I bend down
to her sweet lips to hear the incredible,
“Pappa, we have done our best, so we
are forgiven.”

I rise quickly to hide my tears . . .
we are prodded again to inch up.

Miriam N. Kotzin
mkotzin@worldnet.att.net

Bio (auto)

Miriam N. Kotzin teaches creative writing and literature at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA.  Her poetry has appeared in literary magazines such as Boulevard, The Southern Humanities Review, The Mad Poets Review, The Mid-American Review, Confrontation, Iron Horse Literary Review and Painted Bride Quarterly.   Online her poetry can be found in The Drexel Online Journal, Three Candles, The Vocabula Review, ForPoetry.com and is forthcoming in Blaze, Word Riot and Front Street Review. Her short fiction appeared in ELF:  Eclectic Literary Forum (print) and Littoral (online) and will be in the launch issue of Xaxx.  She was a featured poet on Poetry Super Highway April 5 to 11.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Miriam N. Kotzin and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

One, Two, Three...

Tell me.
..Nacht und Nebel
how long
..Einsatzgruppen
will you
..Chelmno
take
..Belzec
to count
..Sobibor
to, say,
..Lublin or, if you prefer, Majdanek
six
..Treblinka
million
..Auschwitz-Birkenau
give or take
a few
dozen,
..Nacht und Nebel
even
..Einsatzgruppen
six or
almost
.. Sobibor
seven
dozen
..Belzec
give or
take, say,
eighty-two
..Chelmno
give or take
eighty-two
children from Lidice?

How long
..Nacht und Nebel
will it take
..Einsatzgruppen
you
..Chelmno
..Belzen
..Sobibor
..Lublin, or, if you prefer, Majdanek
even without  interruption
..Auschwitz-Birkenau
even without thinking?

When you reach
the end, begin
again.
Start now.

Donna Kuhn
Donna@OnlineWebArt.com

Bio (auto)

Donna Kuhn has published over 200 poems in print and online journals and anthologies including poethia,aught, big bridge, generator press,over the transom, red dirt, unlikely stories, sidereality, xstream, muse apprentice guild, juxta, 5-trope, moria, poetry new york, dallas review, poetry motel, sonoma review, poetry motel,pudding magazine, lost and found times, onyx, ambit, fusebox and sendecki. Her e-chapbooks are "no bird on yr arm" published by Tamaphyr Mountain Press (2003) and "red plastic mystic fish ladle" (2002) published by Xpressed . "when yr eyes snow" is her first print chapbook published by Foothills Publishing (2003) and a second one "up bluen" is newly released from furniture press. (2004)Three mini-chapbooks were published by poems-for-all.Visual poetry has been published online by generator press, juxta and xstream. She is a visual artist and dancer as well and she lives in Aptos, CA.

Visit Donna on the web here: www.onlinewebart.com

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Donna Kuhn and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

bird born down

mountains hate a bird, mother
mountains hate inside stars born down
i am running with blue a lawn
the kitchen out dumb nazi moon
i am writing with cruddy furniture
hitler dress u with trees
i can dance like everything we hear for horses
old howl of mean faces
a bird over my crayons

i can dance like crayons
a bird over my blood
faces dream home
old howl of mean furniture hands
frozen eyes born down with a bird
my body was hiding moon

hitler dress u with a bird of hiding
i know i feel trees
we hear yr out of hiding
i know i feel stars born down
moon bird to piano blue
settle shadows
settle shaodws with u


alethea, if u hear me miss
hear the trouble
if u can't be spotless horses
for horses born with furniture
i am running to hear the nazis
alethea sitting the kitchen out

say alethea against the city
hiding stars for horses
dumb nazi if u can&Mac226;t be
it will fall apart
i am hiding everything
born down with a bird
i know i feel stars miss this
say that again with spotless falling moon

faces like rain for transportation
over my blood crayon faces dream
i forgot he died but leaking
i lost my broken eyes
another crinkled vacant u missing.

Meredith Karen Laskow
meredithbead@earthlink.net

Bio (auto)

Meredith Karen Laskow is the Poet Laureate of Placentia Library District and lives in Placentia (Orange County) California. In addition to writing poetry and essays, she also creates hand-crafted jewelry which she sells at galleries and craft fairs, and teaches a weekly exercise class for cancer survivors.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Meredith Karen Laskow and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Terezin

Ohio State University, 1970:
Eight students gather at the Hillel Foundation
to take part in a multi-media memorial
for Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Our contribution centers around a book
of poems written by children in Thereisenstadt,
a "model" concentration camp for artistic youth.
Out of 15,00 children, all but 100 perish.

I'm unfamiliar with this shard of history
although I am a Jew born to a mother
who laments hundreds of extended relatives lost in the crematoria,
to a grandmother who will not utter her native German
because "It is an ugly language spoken by uglier people."

The creator and choreographer of our program
is a Jew born to a mother who watched
three siblings re-emerge as blue smoke from Polish ovens.
No one else in our performance group
has previously heard this collection of verse

although all of us are Jews born to fathers
who either fought in the corpse-drenched Europe of W.W.II
or were rescued from it
as typhoid-ridden hollow-eyed living skeletons.

We walk and sway in unison
to a tape recorder moaning the somber piano of Eric Satie
and stop, like Partisan Jews hearing Nazis in the forest,
to recite poetry so meticulously saved
by the German propaganda machine.

And because all of us are Jews born as seeds of hope
in the aftermath of six million sacrifices to Aryan theology,
we cry at the writing of children who could have been us.
Two short of a minyan, we nonetheless
bear witness for those who could not

and we end our presentation with the title poem.

A little boy, certain of his impending death, wrote
"I never saw another butterfly."
I want to tell him:
We are the butterflies of the next generation
so we read the poems
and dance

and I will never forget the simple words of a dying child.

Josie Lawson
josie30@btopenworld.com

Bio (auto)

I am a Hastings poet in the 1066 area, UK -I perform read my poetry with 'Other Words' and sometimes with other organisations - I am a Shorelink Community Writer. An editor/founder of a non-profit magazine entitled Ebb & Flow Community Magazine, postal address of PO Box 117, St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex. TN38 9ZJ - UK -(gift donations appreciated to help its continued production) - I gave up due to newspaper change a freelance position as the Hastings community correspondent for The Argus newspaper based in Brighton, UK. December 2003

I have written for years - my first letter being published in The Argus in 1980. I have been published in periodicals, a couple of american anthologies...interviewed on hospital radios, gone out live/recorded on one radio show, numerous radio phone in's and once about ten years ago, an interview on Meridian TV news having been dubbed a poet friend of a sheep.(subject - controversial noise)

Published under different pennames but mainly Josie Lawson for the last 5 to 6 years. There is also a past bio in the poets fun page of firstbiz chicago on the internet under my present name...you might learn a bit more...

I still enjoy all that I do...somethings it benefits me as a lifeline as I have many disabilities, but I try to overcome them....I like to move forward - I have overcome many drawbacks with sight (glaucoma - cateracts) and hearing (menieres disease)..osteoarthritis (lots of minor setbacks) and becoming more positive in thinking writh regards a pituitary adenoma.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Josie Lawson and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Historical Notion

I do not know much about the holocaust
Except for what I read
The thoughts and anguish you hear
When you mention the dreaded word.+
Sometimes you know people
Who would know and feel more
and then you feel the jolt
Your heart should know more...
You sense the fear in them
The knowledge you should leave alone
When you really don't know as much as them+
In this year 2004.
Huge numbers of refugees were
refused entry to England in 1938
Huge numbers died as a result so the media says.
Is History going to repeat itself?
I think I will leave well alone
As one of my friends once advised...
It could only hurt my soul
and it's best, to say nothing at all.

Stolen Mummies | Brendan Constantine is My Kind of Town | Up Liberty's Skirt | Feeding Holy Cats
Mowing Fargo | I'm a Jew, Are You? | Lizard King of the Laundromat | I Am My Own Orange County
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