Peter Austin
peteraustin@rogers.com
Bio (auto)
Peter Austin is a Professor of English at Seneca College in Toronto, Canada.
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Peter Austin and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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Beech Wood
Beech Wood: can you see it?
Silver-slippered breeze
Playing hide-and-find-me
In among the trees?
Cricket-chirr and crow-caw,
Linnet song and thrush,
Skittering of chipmunks
In the underbrush;
Bees, among the bluebells,
Drunk upon their scent,
Drifting in a zigzag,
Drowsily content....
Pretty; but the truth? No.
Picture this, instead:
At a place near Weimar
Fifty thousand, dead:
Communists and gypsies,
Homos and the like,
Jews and Slavs and half-wits -
Foemen of the Reich;
Starved or shot or poisoned,
Rotting in a pile,
Maggots in their nostrils
Pallid, fat and vile.
Oh there was a Beech Wood
Though of birds bereft.
Some who found disfavor
Here were marched and left
By their wrists suspended
From the limbs of trees
Till they shrank and blackened
Into chimpanzees.
This was entertainment;
This was the gestalt
At the Nazi death camp
Known as Buchenwald.
(Beech wood is the English translation of Buchenwald)
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Phyllis Johnson
pjwriter7@aol.com
Bio (auto)
Phyllis Johnson is an author and photojournalist. Her book, Being Frank with Anne, is archived at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It has been requested by Miep Gies, the woman who helped hide the Frank family and was reviewed by Buddy Elias, Anne's first cousin and CEO of the Anne Frank Fonds in Switzerland. It is available at Amazon.com, www.communitypresshome.com and at the New York Anne Frank Center's website bookstore. Phyllis's other poetry book is Hot and Bothered By It, midlife humor for women.
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Phyllis Johnson and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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excerpt from "Being Frank with Anne"
Slit sighted
curtain watching,
you see dirty children
pass by
just like your life.
A noisy dog
announces his presence
and your quiet presence
in hiding makes
your insides
howl in sympathy
for the grim Jews outside.
Rain begins to fall
and umbrellas
with legs come
into view. Rain
tries to wash away misery outside
but falls short.
A morbid mosaic
of gray ruins,
red gunfire
and pale white faces
of orphaned children
interlock into pieces of
a nightmarish puzzle,
having no borders,
no logic.
Like spokes
on a wheel,
you all sit
around a radio
plugged in to get
news of the
outside.
Quarter to two,
everyone sleeps
but you.
Sitting at the
writing table,
you feel your very soul
come alive.
Living life twice
through your writing.
You describe
members in the Annexe.
A kind of hodge podge
vegetable soup.
Each having his
or her own
colors and tastes.
Each complementing
or contrasting
the other. They form
a blend in this
sink or swim lifestyle.
Each bobbing for
air and attention,
a fair share.
Some stirrers,
some settlers,
some sinkers.
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Renee Summers
Renee.Summers@umb.edu
Bio (auto)
Renee Summers of Boston/Scituate, Massachussetts, is a member of Sea Glass Poets, South Shore, Boston, have self published If The Potter’s Hands Shake, Waves, have appeared in Ibbetson Press, The Aurorean, Max Magazine, Mariner Newspapers, University of Texas Medical School Newsletter, others. Am a volunteer pension counselor at the New England Pension Assistance Project, Gerontology Institute, UMA Boston, and read for the sight challenged at the Talking Information Center, Marshfield, MA
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Renee Summers and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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The Holocaust Survivor
The Scroll was unrolled, repaired
of char and water, but still so scarred
and the readers began the weekly portion:
Shmini, a catalog of firsts
“and it happened on the eighth day”
A Dedication of the Holy Sanctuary
the lighting of the Eternal Light,
an acceptance by the people
of priestly benedictions and blessings
....Of Aaron.
Why the eighth day? On the first –
a quiet consecration of high priests
chosen to serve the Holy of Holies -
they were given the rights.
After seven days of deliberation and seclusion,
came the spiritual abilities, a foundation,
a focus, a state of mind. On the eighth
day, as was G-d’s way, came the new beginning.
A safe haven in the Tabernacle
for the hallowed servants of the Lord
and his Torah, gifted to Moses.
Grasped from the Holocaust of memory,
the survivor script is discernible
On that blemished scroll
lifted from a protective grave.
No grave will ever give up the six million
who could have been called weekly
to read from that Holy Book.
They can only be called to read in memory.
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Robert Walton
dragonlemontree@sbcglobal.net
Bio (auto)
I am a rock climber and mountaineer. My speculative fiction stories about climbing have been published in the Sierra Club's Ascent and several other magazines and journals. A dramatization of one of my stories was broadcast on KUSF on November 22nd, 2006. It was broadcast subsequently on NPR. I've had three children's books published. My short stories have won numerous awards: the Deep South Writers’ Conference 1995 Contest, first place in Fantasy/SF; 1st place in the 2008 Saturday Writers short story contest. A story of mine won the Central Coast Writers Club 2007 contest; another is on the short list for this year's Mountaineering Literature prize in the UK. My poetry has been published in a number of obscure periodicals.
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Robert Walton and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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The Rains of Sobibor
Insistent claws,
Smaller than a rodent’s,
Have furrowed the corners of your mouth.
Looking at your still face, I see that
Gravity’s touch
Was never a caress.
In an empty doorway
A light sways, windblown
And windblown drops shine
Like galaxies trailing starfire.
You survived until now and now
The falling rains are tears,
Not just for you.
Citronella scent of candles --
I cup my hands to hold the glow;
It cannot be held.
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Rolland Vasin
rvasin@vhcoaudit.com
Bio (auto)
Rolland Vasin(aka Vachine), is a naturalized native of Los Angeles, and son of Encino booksellers, Alphabooks, Rolland is a performance poet, and for decades dabbled in improvisational theater and stand-up comedy for which we was recognized as the Laugh Factory's 3rd Funniest CPA in Los Angeles. Rolland uses the pen name of Vachine (Vah Ch [as in church] Eeen) which is the Romanian pronunciation of his last name, which means "neighbor". A student in UCLA Extension and Esalen Institute Poetry Workshops, he has performed at Beyond Baroque. As a member of the Anansi Writers Workshop, Vachine has featured at the World Stage, the Encino Barnes & Noble, and wabisabi occasional series. He has published in Gnome and Powered By Possibility, is anthologized in the forthcoming Master Class: The Poetry Mystique (Duende Books) and reads at Open Mics across the U.S. An auditor of child and family nonprofits, Rolland speaks to groups globally on governance, workplace ethics and fraud deterrence. His Firm, Vasin, Heyn & Company, also conducts audits of corporate social responsibility codes and is a sponsor of the Poetry Superhighway Contest. Rolland currently lives, and bodysurfs, in Santa Monica, California.
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Rolland Vasin and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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IAMsterdam
I saw the Dam, heavy stones and mortar,
set between tidal floods and canalside houses.
For one home's tour I stood behind,
two New Jersey Jewesses,
big dyed hair and diamonds.
Projected on the wall, an old newsreel,
a wave of Blackshirts marching in a stadium.
The Fuehrer's thin arms flail above his podium.
On the opposite wall, the film's flicker animates
Anne Frank's portrait.
At my elbow, a toothy, blond,
blue-eyed son, cherub-white face
Ranonkel on his nametag,
snaps a sig-heil salute.
His teacher hurls a finger of scorn in his face.
Loose diamonds fall through the oven grate.
I can't breathe for the odor of burnt hair.
Hard rain falls on me all day.
Copper gutters overflow.
Pallid gulls in Dam Square are soaked,
will not fly.
I cannot love Ranonkel.
I have no other choice but to pray
for willingness to hold bricks
in the dike against the next Shoah.
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Salvatore Buttaci
sambpoet@yahoo.com
Bio (auto)
The poems, letters, and stories of Salvatore Buttaci have been published in The New York Times, Newsday, U.S.A. Today, The Writer, Cats Magazine, and widely elsewhere in America and overseas. His newest book, A Family of Sicilians.. is currently available at http://stores.lulu.com/ButtaciPublishing2008 He was the recipient of the $500 Cyber-wit Poetry Award in 2007. Buttaci has lectured on Sicilian American pride and conducted poetry workshops and readings. A retired teacher, Buttaci lives in Princeton, West Virginia, with Sharon, the love of his life.
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Salvatore Buttaci and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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Williamsburg, Brooklyn: 1945
Nightmares
in my youth
after World War
Two were peopled by
sad walking skeletons
in black-striped prison-camp garb
released into the hot April
sunshine, marching on their lives’ last legs,
liberated, though you could not tell cause
for joy in those cavernous eyes, mouths agape,
scabrous feet shuffling living-dead bodies empty
of any semblance of humanity: crushed, broken.
and in my nightmares the screams of those in my city
who learned of their Holocaust departed cried Kaddish,
attempting no doubt to wake the dead from their deep cindered sleep.
I was just a boy, nearly five years old, afraid of the dark,
of the shadows on my night-time bedroom wall, so frightened
when from my bed I would hear our Jewish neighbors weep
perhaps into pillows, then at open windows,
it seemed to me, wailing cries to the night stars,
to an unjust heaven, to the shoulders
of Yahweh. Litanies of names that
once marked lives of loved ones now dead
blew out from trembling lips, names
cast to night winds out there
as I tried to sleep,
held my ears shut,
wept, sharing
nightmares.
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Stephen Mead
mead815@yahoo.com
Bio (auto)
In the early 1990s, Stephen Mead published poems in such journals as Onionhead, Bellowing Ark, and Invert, but upon moving to Provincetown, Massachusetts, Stephen decided to concentrate more on visual work. In 2000, Stephen started seeking publication again forhis writing and his art combined. Since, then, thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web, his work has appeared internationally both in cyberspace and hard copy. Since then, his writing has often appeared along side his paintings and, at other times, with text superimposed on his visual art. In 2004, Stephen began experimenting even more with these poetry/art hybrids creating a series of e-books, including the award-winning We Are More Than Our Wounds. From there, Stephen began experimenting with his art and poems as films, at first creating slideshows with captions, and then doing his own soundtracks and voice overdubs. His DVDs are available through Indieflix.com . In 2006, Stephen put technology to use, releasing Safe & Other Love Poems (CDBaby.com), a CD of poems set to music, as well as two print editions of his image/art hybrids, "Selected Works" and "Tree Companions", a fractured fairy tale for adults (Lulu.com). Stephen has also released two novels, Hang Onto Your Teeth and Where Time Goes through Amazon.com in addition to a photography book, Notes From The Interior at Blurb.com. Currently, he is working on a film series entitled Swan Songs,which incorporates live footage superimposed over his paintings and digitized images as well as his own singing voice.
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Stephen Mead and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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Lamp Shade
They do not know its' tale-----
one Fraulein ancestry bequeathed
& only slightly yellowing
through years of different homes
voyaging in fields, German-emerald.
What blood still feeds
those waving blades?
What face, Marguerite,
this light bulb glows from,
with a being luminous still
as your hands of silk
turning the sheet music,
taper-fingers bright
on clef lines?
Most days were so studious,
a young promise cashmere kept
the lamb of: supple, pink,
with kid gloves at night
after the lotion went on.
During recitals
just a little lipstick
was the one treat
& butterfly barrettes
pinning the neat brown hair.
Workers shaved that first,
ignoring stories
of how she was courageous
in the train, whispering
"Don't worry little one",
to her brother, age four.
Gold star to gold star,
she held him so close
& then screamed "Bastards!"
when the rip-away came.
Later other laborers
marveled at how pliant she was,
the skin's elastic stretch,
its milk-pure hue
so snug on the rods,
another product well-done
from the factory of Mein Kampf
manufacturing these Jews
to useful household accessories.
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Thea Iberall
iberall@charter.net
Bio (auto)
Thea Iberall is a poet, playwright, and scientist. She has a Master's Degree in Writing (USC) and a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience (U Mass). As a performance poet, Thea represented Los Angeles at the National Poetry Slams. Thea has had over 40 poems published in anthologies and journals, including Rattle, Spillway, New Works Review, Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets (Tebot Bach), poetrydiversity, Peregrine, and The Southern California Anthology. She has a poem in Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust (Time Being Books, 2007). She was a semifinalist in the Atlanta Review International Poetry Competition. She is featured in the documentary GV6 THE ODYSSEY: Poets, Passion & Poetry. Thea’s produced plays include: 'Primed For Love', 'At Seven', and 'Amacry! The Neuronic Musical'. She is currently touring with her one-woman show 'The Only Thing Greek About Me is My Name'. Her contextual poetry book 'The Sanctuary of Artemis' is to be published this summer by Tebot Bach. Thea resides in Long Beach, CA.
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Thea Iberall and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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The Small Fortress at Terezin
From the cemetery, it is a long walk back to the small fortress.
Its gate is painted sharply black and white, a contrast
to the dull red brick of the thick barricades of the prison.
32,000 inmates went through it during the war, either dying from
typhus and torture or else being transported on to other camps,
the big ones, the killing ones. Only the dead stayed at Terezin.
I tour the cell blocks, solitary confinement cells,
delousing rooms, hospital, mortuary, guard's swimming
pool and cinema. Nazi officers and their families watched
movies and swam while Jewish men were beaten with nail-studded
posts and whipped with strips of thin wire.
Below the fortress walls I discover a tunnel.
It’s almost a third of a mile long. I stoop down to enter.
Small openings every 100 feet barely light the way.
The openings are covered by metal gates, so there is no escape.
I look out, see that I am following an old moat between
the fortress walls, the place prisoners were executed. The tunnel
finally opens up to a field of yellow flowers, a place with a mass
grave of 601 corpses.
I go to the museum in the SS barracks, but find it hard to look
at the exhibits. Outside, an old couple, neatly dressed in suit
and dress, drive by on bicycles.
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Wanda VanHoy Smith
wandavanhoy@yahoo.com
Bio (auto)
Wanda is a member of the Redondo Poets who reads at Coffee Cartel. She has been published in a few anthologies and featured here and there and has too many chapbooks.
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Wanda VanHoy Smith and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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Rachel's Courage
A wicked October wind rattles windows
behind bars in the Portland Pest House.
A wild eyed woman with tangled hair
is strapped to a bed next to mine and is raving.
She refused to lie down after a nurse confiscated
her pack of Camel's smuggled insid a Kotex box
I hide my face in a pillow, damp with my tears.
I don't cry from pain in my throat but because
my friends are out having fun on Halloween
while I am locked up in this quarantine hospital
with scarlet fever.
I switch on my portable radio which my weeping
mother sent along to cheer me bacause she knows
I am frightened and lonely.
I turn the dial from news of the war and find Vincent Price
reading Poe's tale “THE MONKEY'S PAW” over airways.
The ward doors bang open and I cower in sheets
expect to see Poe's decaying character from a grave
Iron lungs that look like coffins are lined up in the hall.
A nurse with nose and mouth covered in a mask enters
moves my mad woman neighbor to the end of the ward.
The nurse briskly changes sheets on the bed and a girl
with lovely sad eyes is put next to me
The child tells me her name is Rachel and she escaped from
Nazi Germany with her Aunt and cousin on a boat.
She doesn't know where her mother and father were taken.
The true tales she tells in our six week confinement would
make Edgar Allen Poe shiver.
When I need courage I think of Rachel.
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Zyskandar A. Jaimot
jaimot@hotmail.com
Bio (auto)
Zyskandar A. Jaimot is from Orlando, Florida.
The following work is Copyright © 2009, and owned by Zyskandar A. Jaimot and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
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achtung achtung SCHIWE SIZN es verbotten!
[death prayer is forbidden]
Throughout March
When yellow stars of crocus
Come and go
Throughout the ‘gleichshaltung’
When Herr Goebbels distorted
Stalingrad into victory
Throughout the beginnings of 1943
When allied bombs
Began to crumple buildings
German women –
Most “pure” Aryans –
Marched to ‘polizei’ headquarters
On the Rosenstrasse
Demanding release of their spouses
Jewish men – consigned to die
By goose-stepping troopers ready to bring storm
From Berlin’s railway station
The trains continued to roll
Whistles signaling a horrible premonition
Or was it a recurring ‘nachtmare’
Images of snarling dogs
Herding frightened prisoners
Silently consigned to Riga, Osciem, Thereisenstadt,
Across flowering fields
Where yellow stars of crocus
Come and shortly go
Never realizing the dreaded Gestapo
Efficiently snapped pictures
And made meticulous notes about
These purebred German women
Carrying banners defying the invincible Reich
Insisting on freedom for their husbands
And the people of Berlin
Hid their eyes and closed their minds
While these women screamed and shouted
For illusory justice
Hoping to end
Ongoing ‘konzentrationslager’ madness
Hoping to end atrocity
At least for their own ‘ehemanns’
And on a bright day
When yellow stars of crocus briefly bloom
Jail cells opened as train whistles wailed
Or was it
A child’s screaming in terror
Which summons recurring dread
As the recently released cry
Thankful for another day
Whispering
Praying that those packed on trains
Should be as lucky
As they were now – ‘zugts afen mir’
Leaving for homes momentarily saved
By love of those Aryan wives
Only a few
Observing the ritual ‘schiwe sizn’ –
Sitting on low stools mourning
Coming death
Knowing
They and their wives
Would soon be permanently taken away
From life
As fleeting as the yellow stars of crocus.
• {this is a true story of German women’s bravery on the Rosenstrasse during WWII} actually this is an addendum to another poem posted 'just a man and his dog' after meeting one of these women in munich. by Zyskandar A. Jaimot, Orlando, Fl. for ROSA M., the old woman in Munchen who I was privileged to know..
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