Showing Results 1 - 9 of 9
Lately, there’s no trace left
Of Yankl, son of Yitskhok,
But for a tiny round dot
That rolls crazily through the streets
With hooked-on, clumsy limbs.
The lord-above surrounded
The whole world with…
We’re laughing our heads off:
None of us wears a top-hat
We just go around with heads—or without heads—
But the Rabbi of Uman
Holds up a mirror to the sun.
We laugh our heads off
When a gang comes…
How does it look, the yellow patch
With a red or black Star-of-David
On the arm of a Jew in Naziland—
Against the white ground of a December snow?
How would it look, a yellow patch
With a red or…
On the roads of Siberia
Someone may still uncover a button, a lace
Of my torn shoe,
A leather belt, a shard of a clay mug,
A page of the holy book.
On the rivers of Siberia
Someone may still…
Good night, wide world.
Big, stinking world.
Not you, but I, slam the gate.
In my long robe,
With my flaming, yellow patch,
With my proud gait,
At my own command—
I return to the ghetto.
Wipe out…
My steps are set down stiffly
on tired, empty paths.
This morning a little town of Jews
called me “Anti-Semite!”
All of them in wrinkles and in rags
out there pointing at me:
“Him! That guy! We…
Every day they took from us whatever their hearts desired. They said to us, “We are needed to protect you from the mob.” We had no choice but to believe them. We had to take being cheated. They…
To be or not to be—that’s not the question.
Sense or nonsense—that’s my obsession.
For too long, Divine reckoning
has shredded human thinking.
The sum total of justice is a round number:
bright…
So since we are in the midst of writing a song,
We will write also about the destruction of the holy community of Kremzir,
Even though this happened five years before,
In the year 1643, on the 9th of…