"Mispossessed"

on the platform at Auschwitz,

after the wooden doors of the cattle cars slammed shut

and the single bucket  used as a toilet, let it's stink go.

I imagine there was relief.

Standing up for three days straight and I can't stand up

for a good two minutes without resting my elbows on the sink

or letting my hips slip away from me

like when we did the "bugaloo" in black and white

to a heavily shark-skinned Dick Clark until the single

"colored" couple, my sister said, dancing their asses off

was the beginning of intergration. Since then i've tried

little celebrations. Little cakes with candles that won't explode.

Shorter poems. Had a girlfriend who made her own

bad clothes. Perhaps

Marriage obscures all perspicuity. Emma, my Jewish neighbor,

left her ring on the night stand and her husband, thinking that

she had left him, hung himself.

See what I mean? 

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

Life stinks in seasons, so seems. Sun shines and the mind wonders when it's going to rain and change the atmosphere.. time wasting, being what is is. No matter extremes, there is always something better or worse. Life carries on without watchers or weepers or - the wasteful.

Your final three lines says it so well, 'Life' has absolutely no idea what it means.

[Beccy]

'Little celebrations,' so important, more so perhaps than seemingly bigger ones.

The juxtaposition betwixt the undoubtedly stumbled steps of relief when the stink of that bucket let go and the uninhibited "bugaloo" of intergration, or perhaps equally as valid in point, the freedom that those poor souls who perished at Auschwitz never had the chance to experience, is quite brilliantly observed; and I just love the wordplay of your title.

Beccy. X

[h d e rushin]

thank you my dearest. I'm getting stronger after a short illness. Working my a*s off to just 'catch up' with the rest of you. dana.

[Beccy]

Get better and stronger soon. Beccy X

[Papaya]

My grandmother was in Auschwitz. She was taking care of and hiding Jewish children in Poland.
Life messes with us and the traumas cloud our judgements and actions. Heavy thoughts in this piece. 💛

[h d e rushin]

thank you Papaya. for those kind words.