In honor of Anne Frank’s death (circa February or March) in 1945, I’ve written this poem.
“Little Gervais”—
our breaking point,
a Norman Rockwell painting,
vandalized with a boot print.
The Château d’If—
our resting place,
a bed of nails
where we hang ourselves
by our entrails.
The former—
a gypsy catalyst wrapped with skin.
The latter—
an island prison fortified by sin.
Brick by brick
mortar begins to harden.
A wall within
bought at a bargain.
Children–
often the source
of our greatest inspiration:
Augustine’s songbird
sweetened the surrender of his Confessions
and Anne Frank’s immortal words
weathered typhus,
a swastika of silence.
Nausea, vomiting
and stomach pain—
friends, all the same,
helping a child dig her own grave.
Symptoms of a lab-grown race—
a shameful science
with an Aryan face.
A diary,
documenting a life in hiding;
her pen,
an ally in the fighting,
inciting a literary rebellion
against Svengalis and Nazis—
cannibals,
tearing body and flesh
to pieces;
spitting out bones
like animals,
praying in the name of Jesus;
hijackers,
stealing religious icons,
and taking unholy communion—
an elixir of their promised land,
milk and Jägermeister,
a concoction of their own execution.
And what of innocent men
wrongly accused, convicted and imprisoned,
undergoing a transformation
from believers to deceivers
like Edmond Dantès
to the Count of Monte Cristo,
cleaning up a conspiratorial mess?
And what about Tom Robinson’s fate—
a machination born of abomination,
a racial ruse and subterfuge—
a gangster’s paradise of religious treason?
Revenge with a hint of atheism
calls to those in such season.
But once vengeance
replaces God’s wrath,
Beckett’s bad “breath”
breads nihilists into sociopaths.
Or we count the cost
and do the math,
lifting our heads
in humility
and pleading “insanity!”
From the gallows of shame
we’re rescued
as God closes escrow,
offering keys to the kingdom
to every vagabond and addict.
Mercy,
a motion for dismissal,
opens its doors
to the depressed and manic.
Perfect love
is not earned
but credited
and grace is debited
from a heavenly treasury
to orphans
worth more than the tokens
in their pockets.
Even demons believe
Michelangelo painted
what the Vatican said,
“God is not accidental;
God is not dead!”
He makes life meaningful.
Otherwise, all things—
good and evil—
are permissible.
The name of every Jew
is on His mind
like a phylactery on His forehead.
The Star of David
He stitches onto His Hebrew heart
and a picture of Anne Frank
He hangs above His tri-fold bed
with a phrase that’s better lived
than read:
“Joy is having a tender heart
but suffering turns tears
into works of art.”