could I have slipped
into the well-worn shoe
of comfortability?
How ever
could I have lost
the tingle in my taste
for your you-nique-ness?
How ever
could my heart
lie sleeping safely
in accustomed rhythms of routine
Lulled to
slumber
by conscious efforts
to control and quiet
the steaming inferno
that so nearly ago
was stoked with only
a hint of
your ardor-igniting image?
So yesterday
was it?
that we tumbled
at every chance
into the embrace of
promised trust, acceptance
titillated by refrains of coming
kisses
climaxes
and love thoughts
love talks
How ever
could I have exchanged
the dynamo of our love
for the siren song of respectability,
false modesty
adorning deepened desire to control,
in fear of being lost,
adrift in the flood of passion and
lusty dream-fulfillment
choke-chain
gripping adolescent fantasia
about pusling neck
restraining
retraining
refraining
from pleasure's caress
Focusing instead on projects
Agenda
flimsy newsprinted stories
of fleeting trivia
How ever
could I have bargained
with eternity to gain
tiny bits of temporality
in a self-swindling
swapmeet?
8.6.87
©Steven B. Eulberg
Holocaust Museum June 2003
7-1/2 tones of hair
from "liberated" scalps
The mobile killing squads
the systematic brutality
when we are scared
we readily surrender
our freedom
even our hope
for the illusion of safety.
This time,
the most touching part of the story
is to find there wer emany who resisted,
who fought,
who secreted,
who transported
Jews to safety--
The Danish flotilla,
the clergy,
the small towns....
Will my beloved little town
protect our own?
Will my neighbors band together
for the safety of the targeted?
Or will we feed our fear
by eating each other for a
breakfast of anxiety?
Breakfast of exterminators
tempted to ban
banish
dismiss the undesirable
or
make another place at the table?
Listen! Organize carefully
so we never have to face
what Maja's parents
recall in Germany.
Ask the bigger question
let your curiosity hear the buzzing alarm
and arise
the burning of books
which is unable to stifle the ideas they contain
does close the minds
of those who kindle and feed the flames.
The apathy and petty disregard...
Are we standing aside ignoring
another holocaust?
Are we beginning and conducting
another move for Lebensraum?
A glimmer of hope as the lockstep is picked:
Arizona says, "We will go Orange
only when the threat is close to us
at our own door and not before."
Other states are bound to agree.
A bird in a bush
A bush-free bird
Gone Bush
Goin' bush
walkabout in a bushy state
shrubness
King George's I & II
The rain is coming down
The reign is coming down
when conditions are right
the reign will always fall
will always fall.
King or Queen
Duke or Earl
Lord or Lady
Empress Impressive
Emperor Oppressive
Presidential precedent
the reign will always fall fail
will always fail
7.03
©Steven B. Eulberg