Slide into my soul.
Tiptoe around the boundries of reason
and gently place your hand in mine.
Join presence :
a place where spirituatlity
and nature coexist -
where you may wander through
the five stages of grief
and yet still inhale
life. Walk gently into solace,
where love
stifles guilt.

The Secret

Stamped -From his heart to the grave. He carried it on his chest until the day he died. Some say he wanted to start fights, others say he was just a believer. I knew better. I had heard the story more than hundred times, how he escaped prosecution. The beatings were terrible. They pushed and pulled his skin so many different directions that in the end, it was better they finally branded him. It was a mark that defined him: his life, his hardships, his hatred, and his reason behind his final act. Joshua Adam Slepinksy. Born 1916; Died 2006. The man who forgot what real was.

A long, long time ago, Mr. Slepinsky was my neighbor. I used to awake in the middle of the night to his screaming, and would run next door, terrified that he might wake up and think I was one of them. I would hurry and turn on the light, and quickly wrap a warm wash cloth around his sweaty forehead to calm him. Sometimes he cried, other times he would scream at me in a language I wished I didn’t know. Other people in the neighborhood were afraid of Mr. Slepinsky. They thought he was crazy – some even thought that he had gotten out of prison, but I had learned early on never to make assumptions: people can be wonderful, despite their battered shells. Looking back, I think I was the only friend the old man had. I never saw another car at his place, or any visitors stop by. In the five years he lived next to me, I never once saw another person knock on his door. Most of the neighborhood shunned away from him.

One cold Winter day I was out getting my mail, and I heard a crash. Mr. Slepinsk had slipped on his icy driveway. He had lost his footing, and had landed square on his back – the wind knocked completely out of him. That was how I met him. I went over to give him a hand – and although he glared at me through steely eyes, I knew in my heart that he was grateful.

From that day forward, I went over to my neighbor’s house daily. I would bring him the mail, cook him dinner occasionally, and clean his house while he would tell me stories of how he had been punished. He told me of his hatred towards them, and how they had maimed him for life. One day he lifted up his shirt to show me the mark that caused him so much grief: a swastika tattoo spread across his wrinkled chest – faded from years of neglect. The tattoo was so large, it nearly covered his entire torso. The ink had faded to a medium shade of gray, but it clearly was done with more emphasis than I could imagine. Mr. Slepinsky told me that he was a victim of the Holocaust. Sometimes while reliving the stories, he would start screaming in German – and I would pretend not to understand. Generally he would scream phrases consistent with torture, but occasionally throughout his ranting, he would mumble “Sieg Heil,” or Hail Victory – a term used by the Nazi’s throughout the War. I imagined he had heard the phrase so many times that i t was his subconscious reminding him of the terrible atrocities committed against his Jewish brethren.

I was making dinner for him one night during the Christmas season – Hannukah for Mr. Slepinsky, and he began his usual diatribe. He complained of his days of torture, and gave me a graphic representation that I shuddered when imagining. I asked him if he had any oregano – I was making lasagna, and wanted him to enjoy my homemade recipe, but I had forgotten it next door. He said that he did, and came over to the cupboard next to the stove where I was cooking. I’ll never forget what I saw next. Mr. Slepisnky was wearing a white tank top – with a light jacket draped over him. As he reached his frail arm above me to get the spice, I noticed a small scar on the inside of his left underarm. Old tattoo ink remained around the scar – and I was horrified by what it meant. For the next few weeks I would continue to visit Mr. Slepinsky, but in the back of my mind, the sinister memory burned.

My final visit came one night 13 years ago. He invited me for dinner to tell me about his life prior to the mark. He began lamenting about his wife and four children. Nostalgic memories poured from his heart, about the beautiful life they lived, and the warm Sunday dinners they shared. He told me about growing up in Germany, and the friends he once had. He rattled on about his mother and father, and the care they provided for their family. His father had two jobs and worked tirelessly to provide for little Joseph. He began to cry as he told me how his family had been taken from him. While tears rolled down my face, without thinking, I blurted out: “Es tut mir leid," the German phrase for “I’m sorry.” Mr. Slepinsky jumped out of his chair -seething inside. I have never seen such hatred from a person. He tore across the table in less time than it took me to realize what I had done. He shouted at me to get out of his house and never come back.

Two weeks later he moved, and for the next 12 years I wondered what had become of the bitter man. I prayed that he had met someone else to take care of him, and that he had somehow forgiven the young boy who lived next door so many years ago: a boy who himself had lost his grandfather many years ago the same War fighting against the Americans. Then last week, I stumbled across this headline, and knew that the man I wished I could have saved would have known the secret that I discovered:

Waffen-SS Survivor Shoots Himself in Chest, Carves

“I’m Sorry” Into Swastika Tattoo; Identified as Jewish Traitor

Election woes

He says he loves us
reminds us that we are all
one color: Americans.

While the other
fusses over fiscal ideology:
Make the rich richer
and the poor poorer

She loves the promise of
closet space: you can betcha
Maverick will make it so!

He is a working man:
never falter, never fail.
Get back up!
Don't back down!

Push and pull
Grunt and Shove
Tag - you're it!

Tired of defending
my reasons
behind insight.

Veterans for McCain -
they shout and scream:
try to make me believe.

As if I love my Country
less - because I believe
in Hope and Change...

I may be the only one
in a Red world that
wears Blue, but
all the while

I dream for
you too...

Painkiller

Pain swallows her slowly
Driven backwards
As her world slips away
Regressing, not progressing
She tries
She cries
She yearns, aches, prays
For help
Again and again
God doesn’t answer
She can’t hear Him
LISTEN
She cries
He has heard
Reality fades away
More pills
Make more pain
Distortion
Loss
Envy
Everything wasted
For her moment
Failed misery
Beaten by love

Thou Shalt Not Kill

Sleep deprived soldier

Death becomes a looking glass,
solemn eyes glare back at him
from the grave.

Staring at the barrel of the gun
again – for the third time today
He pulls the trigger for effect.

Roulette – the game of fate

It fails again, and he’s left
with memories of all
the lives he took away.

Tears roll.
Rockets blare.
Children cry.

He begs God
to take his life.

He has stripped fate
from the innocent
and wants punishment,

He covers himself
goodnight, and
closes his tear-stained eyes -

Hopeful that
tommorow
he can go home

Who Decides?

How is it that we ended up here,
In this catechism
bound by
His covenants?

Afraid to touch
to even smile
at one another...

The
magnifying glass
has broken,

yet we still
hide
under this veil
of uncertainty,

terrified that
what we might find
will keep us from
eternity.

You
are
damned
from
within,

condemned
by
love,

without
even
knowing
where
morality
hides.

Forgive me,
for I know
not which
words are
Lies,

Which Truth
simply
died with the
Cross...

Until then
my dear

Goodbye

Broken

Tired of trying
Of feeling
Send me
Away
Bake me
Chill me
Whatever it takes
Flying low
Fuel is gone
Break
Secure my thoughts
They
Are Being
Swept Away
By this
Pounding
Migraine

Freedom of Sight

The woman peeked
through her prison of cloth
wondering what it would be like
to see the sunset
outside with her hair down.

A lifetime behind burkas,
freedom was a prayer
that Allah could not
seem to grant her,
and she willingly accepted.

The month of Ramadan
ensured her that
He would reward her someday,
and in death she could embrace
true exhaltation.

Faith stripped her of insight,
and though she felt the eyes of the world
upon her as her oppression grew
she was blessed with ignorance
for she did not understand.

Only when the Americans
came tromping through her city
did she began to realize that
one could watch the beauty
of the earth without a veil.

So she continued to pray,
that someday her
burka could be removed
and she too, could laugh
and cry in freedom.

Her children would go to school
and new possibilities would emerge.
So she sat outside sipping her chai
and watched the sunset
through covered eyes -

praying that one day
Allah would lift her soul
to the heavens above
and she would open her eyes
fully for the very first time.

A Daughter's Lamentation

He sits by the phone,
wondering who might answer.
Drunk again, he weaves in and out of awareness -
commiserating with loneliness.

Carefully plotting to get a willful listener,
he cries into his glass of vodka,
practicing his sorrow to avoid
the familiar dial tone.

This morning he was a man of
brilliance and insight -
the smartest I have ever known

Yet by nightfall,
his slurred recitations
and redundant belligerance
has stripped him naked.

He remains a has been -
an old, tired, drunk,
who lost his soul
to a bottle of illusions.

TOOTHACHE

Mouth
suffer
constant pain
drilling like
a jack-hammer
into my brain
frustrated
hurt
SCREAM
chills
fever
corruption
from a simple
toothache
or is it in my head?
AHHHHHHHH

Floating in Stillness

I have been lingering
inside this space
of solitude -

a space
of hope
and insight;

wandering effortlessly
in and out

of time
and
reality.

I have found
a piece of
my lost soul;

grabbing it
as it fluttered
by.

I have roused
what I thought
was dormant
forever;

waking from
a disturbed
sleep.

I have
found
my
voice
and
have
shouted:

I
AM
ALIVE

Gustav

Pitter
patter
the rain
scatters,

erasing
whole
cities.

Gusts
of angry
dust,

sweep
memories
away.

Blood
of the
flood,

is carried
downstream,

as the women
pray
that their
children
will be saved

from nature's
angry wrath.