The Refugee

I am a refugee now
I am running like mad across a frosty green Poland
My head in a sack
And the blood in my brain screaming
"How did this happen?"
And "Where am I now?"
Who is so blue in this freeze
Who is so grey with the history
Rain dancing all on my face without mercy
And the muscles relax
And I just have to laugh
Through the loose teeth and tissue
The symphony builds under your boot
And the horns drool in harmony
Dancers all swoon
This is my bloody tune
My last gasp of the past
My thorn in the side of the violence of time
I won't scream, I won't writhe
I am laughing and burning alive
Like a thornbush
That grew in the hot countryside
Now the fire is high
And I am not consumed
Yes, this is the room
This is the old song from memory
This is the sound of the Jew
Who refuses to die

April 4th, 1944
I recall my old address no more
I live day to day on the glossy dancefloor
Of a wide countryside full of disappeared people
I sleep in the churches
Eat grass like a goat
The calendar hangs on the wall of my memory
My name is inscribed up the sleeve of my coat
Here I am

Take this document with you
The lines that I wrote as I bled through the night
In a strange rusted land
I have ripped the page out
It is here in my hand
Here I am

Person of the book
But I have lost my page like so many others
I am left to inscribe my own name
On a torn one
We will have a new book scattered far
Across the expanses
The scrapbook of signatures scrawled
In forgotten, lost diaries
Texts to recite when time's bloody boot
Dances and kicks in the bone of our chest
Like soft earth
And our ancient hoarse voices
Will echo in song
And resound off the curve of a high stony ceiling
The curve of the arch
From our death to our birth