Your Life or Mine

 In the end,
the end has come and gone.
Is this your 
life or mine?
Will you defend
the atrocities unending
or are you able
to condemn
cheap questions sent
by proxy unrepented?

such

 such simplicity
reminds us, no, presses us
up. flush. against the wall
of history.
all of you who
have died
I will (re)join you
even if only 
according to the dividing
line: living-line-dead.
There you have it
or not.
I'm a meaningless person,
but even  I understand
the arrogance of Absolute.

 Confessions are cheap,
be they sincere or not.
How will you end
your puny life?
Will it be swept away majestically?
Oh, sweet heart, unlikely.
Once I had
a Mother and a Father,
two good folk
who kindahadtoloveme.
And now? And now?
I am the quintessential
Neanderthal Girl
who lost everything
while questing Something.
Post Script:
If you think your death is consequential,
think again, non-friend,
think a

gain.

Geography Unknown

 no one visits
their ancestors anymore.
Ghosts don't lie,
or do they?
Why must we choose
each time: Israeli or Palestinian
Jewish or Muslim?
Dead or Alive?
We are the half-and-halfs,
the quarterlies, the fly by nights
the eternal refugees.

Team Other

 You
who would be clean
I accuse You
of being
just like all the rest:

one of us
or not one
of us but a member
of Team Other
Friend/Enemy
in the end,
it's all the same:
Living, Dying
in your own
small bubble,
You  struggle;
you blame.

 I confess
I am insect,

no more, no

less.

Like a baby

born in Lodz

1943 my

life carries

no consequence.

Who among us

is loved, truly loved?

Your pet cat?

your intruder, Rat?

Lice-infested,

shit crusted

your inmate,

your timeless scapegoat

Your Yid, your nemesis.

All is well

in NaziVille.

The vigilantes are hunting;

the victims are chanting.

God

is the Master

of Cruelty,

or

if god does not exist

and magic is not alive

then surely

those who must avenge

will avenge

with weapons of  fog and dust

with—

with—

fabric that bends

and longing that never ends.

Lodz Ghetto, 1943

 Lodz Ghetto, 1943

Travel back with me,
I cajole you, Jewishly, femininely 
my brown eyes can fade into hazel then green.
I died young, so I rest young.
Our Noble Elder
shook hands with the Devil
He too will be deported.
But that is not now;
That is later.
I travel
in rhyme, in time
and I conversed
with the Angel of Death.
He flirted in the manner
of tearing the wings off an insect.
But that is of no
consequence. I urge
you to follow me even though
I have been dead for close
to a sharp century.