MADONNA FEELS SORRY FOR SANTA CLAUS, KNOWS

he only comes 
once a year



CHRISTMAS STAMP MADONNA

knows, once
you've licked her

you won't want
her to return



MADONNA ISN'T SURE ABOUT HANGING UP HER STOCKING

doesn't know
when he comes

what he will
fill her

stocking with



MADONNA  HEARING  THEY'VE  FINALLY  FOUND  A  GENE
RESPONSIBLE FOR CAUSING ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION

is thrilled they
finally found

the real
blue gene



YOU TAKE FOR GRANTED

the dripping lilacs
the blue petals
battered, holding
on, holding their
brightness in hot
steamy air as if
to become brighter
once hail melts 
from the slick
dark stems. A
postcard wouldn't
do it. How much
should I try to 
tell you. If there
was a photgraph
I'd be the blond
in the black velvet
fitted suit. It 
would be Cape
Anne in November.
The lilacs would 
have flamed and
pulled away, a 
summer romance
now short as
the weeks. The
woman,lets think
of her as a spy, maybe,
guerilla, stealing in
ton where no one else
could go, camouflaged
as some poet, man
crazed a little
scared who visits
rooms she can't 
stay in, undresses 
and lies down with 
danger, cocky enough
to suppose she
could lose her skin
or her balance. The
blue of lilacs, her
veins thru flesh
cashmere, roadmaps
to places where
there are roadblocks,
blue of the gas, the
blue tattoos. Even
if I was alive 
the numbers would
have been worn
from where I pulled
from what tied me. You
take the lilacs
for granted, the blue
leaves in the bottom
of Dresden china,
cyanide glowing 
with a bluelight
that zaps like 
no lover


LODZ GHETTO

There's a minimum
of three days wait
to bury the dead
and sometimes

ten days.  Even
with 200 grave
diggers only
50 graves can

be dug in the 
hard ground.
"Hearse driver
who are you going

to pick up?"
"I'll find some
one, we have
enough corpses

in the ghetto."
"And who will
pick you up?"
"No one will

have to, my 
mare will bring
me to the cemetery.
She know the way."



THE COLOR OF THE LAW

is blue  blue
of tattoos of
crusty blood
the law has no
color of any
thing growing
not green not
an earth color
not what is
natural  color
of law is blue
a gas of zyklon
B blue of what
changes skin
is indelible
bruise blue
of tortured
rose smelled
and buried


SURVIVOR

did I really
stand, with a 
knife at my throat,
and draw young boys

as the German doctor
castrated them?
Did I really
talk to the SS man,

ask where my
parents were
and hear him say
they flew up the

chimney


SURVIVOR

There were no tomb
stones. I didn't
know where my father
was. It got colder.

Then we were rounded
up. Cattle cars.
When we got to Auschwitz
I was holding my

mother so tight. Then
they told my mother
go to the left, sent
me to the right. I

wouldn't go. Then a 
soldier came with a big
gun. I said I wanted 
to go with my mother.

He hit me so hard with
the rifle I fainted.
I never saw my mother.
Then, I'm with some

women. They tell us to 
take off our clothes.
We couldn't understand.
What does it mean,

"take off our clothes?"
Then they said they're 
going to shave our heads.
Nobody said anything.

They said "a shower."
Nobody talked, nobody
screamed or cried.
We knew shower meant

gas. We took orders.
Whatever they said,
we just did. We looked
at each other. No

tears. Then, we 
saw water and when 
water came out we
cried, that's when
we cried



ONE SURVIVOR

we were in a gypsy camp
surrounded by an electic 
fence. Smoke became a
cloud, black ashes

falling on us.
Once I saw the head 
of a naked woman.
It was my mother.

It was October.
Their heads were shaved.
They were carrying
bundles of clothes. Before

she was shaved, she was
beautiful. I was glad
she couldn't see
me. In the morning

I had to believe
she'd frozen to
death before she
got to the wire



AFTERWARD

if you close your 
eyes you see

earth and the
sky burning,

how little is
needed to peal

away what is 
human, put us

into animals