Poetry

One Drop of Blood

Published on November 16, 2018November 16, 2018 by willmelnykLeave a comment

cattle car

One Drop of Blood,
Hatafat Dam Bris

How do you tell the story of blood?
How do you sell the ruddy tale
to a deafly silent humanity,
bent upon the ageless insanity
of the spilling of blood?
How do you proclaim
that in the blood is life,
to those who kill and maim
in their wanton love of strife;
hearts mired in the blood-slick mud
of hate?
In a moment,
in one drop of blood
freely added to the seas of red,
in living solidarity with the dead.
In standing side by side
with those whose blood was shed.
In one drop of blood,
the blessed affirmation of
the love of life.

W.W. Melnyk
(C)16 November 2018

Living on a Star in Terezin: a Poem

Published on September 14, 2017September 14, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

terezin-aerial-view
Terezin Concentration Camp

Living on a Star in Terezin

When I was young I’d lie
upon the cool grass at night
and gaze upon the sky.
And sometimes I would wonder why
I could not live there, on a star,
and in the heavens dance!
Clean and bright, and pure they are,
I thought, to my earth-bound sight;
tiny, shining beacons of the night.
Now, no longer young, and soon
perhaps to die,
now indeed I live upon a star,
between the river and the plains
that stretch as far
between here and home
as if among the starry skies I’d roamed.
A fortress battle-star of brick and earth:
the tortured turf now sick with sorrow,
void of mirth or stellar dance;
Eight pointed prison bastion of a star,
that is an ugly scar
upon a battered dream.

It Must Be The Hat – A Poem

Published on September 6, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

Tevye

It Must Be The Hat

Why the hat?
Why do we always wear a hat?
What’s with that, I asked,
with the hat?
He looked at me with eyes
as brown as the hat, wise
as the Good Book.
“Look,” he said. “Look,”
and touched the brim
of his brown hat.
“It’s not a whim,” he said,
“of man or God, that
I wear a hat, a hat as brown
as any clod of clay.
It reminds me, in a subtle way
that, like this hat I, too,
am like that bit of clay.
Anyway,” (he looked at me
and winked an eye,
and raised his pointed fingers
to the sky) it keeps the sun off
and the rain.
And otherwise I can’t explain it:
the hat, I mean.”
He tipped the visor up,
and scratched his head.
“Of course it just might be,” he said,
“we never get a chance to put it down
before we’re yet again
run out of town.”

Passing Out the Shit: A Poem

Published on September 4, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

Cattle car 2

Passing Out the Shit Bucket
at Zgorzelec Station

Pass out the shit bucket, he said,
on the siding, in the rain.
The stench had closed our lungs for hours,
for miles, as the wheels clacked
over crumbling rails.
Stumbling, stumbling over emptied pails
of shit the nazi cursed
and shot old Josef for the fun of it.
And Josef, tumbling out the door,
rolled in the stinking stuff, but he
was dead already, and cared no more.

©9/3/2017 Walter William Melnyk

from ch 32 of Pavel’s Violin

A Child Comes to Terezin. A Poem.

Published on August 29, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

Attic

A Child Comes to Terezin

(New Prisoners were housed sometimes
in the dark unheated attic of Podmokly Barracks)

It’s dark in the attic, Mama,
dark and cold, up here.
I know I’m six years old
and oughtn’t fear,
But it’s dark, dark up here.
Hold my hand, Mama,
I hear people moving, in the dark
and someone touched my leg.
Someone touched my leg,
but not someone; something.
Mama! Hold my hand!
Where are you? Something bit!
Why is it so dark, in the attic up here?
And why, Mama, is it so cold?
I know I’m six years old
and oughtn’t fear.
But it’s frightening, Mama,
up here. In this dark.
I promise not to cry, Mama.
But, will we die, Mama?
Up here, in this dark?
Why can’t we go home, Mama?
Why?

One Thousand Visitors

Published on August 13, 2017August 13, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

1000-visitors

Many thanks to the more than 1,000 Visitors so far

to Pavel’s Violin

Look at us! The almost dead.

Published on June 27, 2017June 27, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

Jewish women and children arrive at the “Selection Ramp” at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In less than an hour, they will all be stripped naked and die in one of the gas chambers. Look closely at each face. Never forget them.

arrival auschwitz

We Are Almost Gone

Released at last
from the dark cattle cars,
the nightmare past
we hoped. Ours,
a futile grope for ended dreams.
The sun is bright,
the blue sky hurts our eyes,
and dark smoke, still beyond our sight,
where horror down a narrow pathway lies.
Look at us! The almost dead.
You cannot hear the muffled cries,
the silent miseries of dread.
The few short minutes left
before the gas, bereft, bereft
of hope. Our waning minutes pass
without time; eternity already lies
before us: blue skies,
and keening chorus.

The Boat from Odessa, a Poem

Published on June 14, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

Occasionally I like to post a poem from another collection. This one is from Walter William Melnyk, Selected Poems 1997 – 2014, available on Amazon.

Black Sea Moon

The Boat from Odessa

We are, all of us, going to Sevastopol,
pearl, or opal perhaps, of the Black Sea.
Each of us on a journey meant to be
for the saving of souls,
others’ or our own.
We bring our gods within us, we think,
(on the brink of our understanding)
to a land of ancient gods,
old before ours were young,
on whose whim hung
the fate of countless peoples come and gone.
A strange interlude,
out here on the sea,
for those who turn aside to brood
upon the question of how gods came to be.
Are they here because we’ve brought them,
like an escort for the great Divine?
Or is it that we’ve sought them with such zeal
that we’ve taught ourselves to feel
things we only hope to find?
Each claiming to be sighted,
while calling others blind.

On the Black Sea, 2006
(C)2006, Walter William Melnyk

An Evening in Terezin

Published on June 12, 2017 by willmelnykLeave a comment

Evening

Original German by Ilse Weber in Terezin, c. 1943
translated by Walter William Melnyk, 2016

When we leave work in the evening,
home lures us with no colorful, shimmering lamplight.
We stand, hesitating, before the door
at the horror of our darkened room.

They have taken our light in punishment,
because someone has done something wrong;
what, exactly, the camp has not learned.
We’ve been living in the dark now for weeks.

So you stand on the porch
looking up at the sky with all the stars.
The evenings are now so beautiful and long –
the whole barrack agrees.

Thus we have only now learned to understand
how wonderfully the golden stars shine.
And above all that you should go to sleep,
so you will not have to cry all night.