More Poetry from Germany

Computer time

Right now the computer is not an orientation tool,
it’s a disorientation tool.- David Allen

Halloween in Hamburg
Un net time un met time
what is real what is virtual
what is the silence we no longer
hear in our heads

speaking to people rather than objects
no phone as filter, nothing held in hand
but chocalate and coffee
or a book or a pen
nothing to distract

what am I lacking of knowing
what have I not said heard read
when the world wide web is not next to me
has the world ended?
why wasn’t I told?

It was just one of the times
when a certain subtle silence became
I was much younger than this
when, neither drug added nor alcohol influenced,
I was reading a book, Poe or Baudelaire….

Ideas from 10-31 1-22-13

Ballinstadt
The Immigration Museum of Hamburg
For Carlos and Anne
for getting us there

Here is where they came
and stopped, to be checked for
anarchy or tb
both fatal enough
to keep them from further west

Here is where my grandpeople came
from Ukraine and one from Hungary
I never knew it’s amazing what you learn
the tales the family never spoke
of a country now called old

Here is where I was born
where they left for the Northern Parts of America
family legend is one went to Brazil made milllions
lost everyones names and addresses
family legend says

Here is where I was born
where grandpeople came
because Jewish was not a place to be in Russia
in too many places
in right past 1900

Here is where I was born
because my america, this country
would of not of been my birthal
if they had not sailed to Hamburg
and been given permit to sail on

would my parents,
whoever they might of been, then
lived through Hitler, Stalin, war and famine
would my grandparents have been
mensheviks or bolsheviks, the words were important

This Poem is a too late way to thank them
child, I did not know of pogroms, of  burnings,
of Czar sanctioned murder, only that
it was better, they said, to be here
this was enough. and still is.

From a thought on 10-31   reviewed but not substantiallychanged on 6-28-2013