Prologue to a final solution (Scenes from a film unfinished)

The piles of garbage were real

All over the top of the ghetto

To the nearby river

Almost as a replacement

For the fresh air

That sneaked in fromThe outskirts of Warsaw. 

The piles of garbage were smudged

All over the truthIn a sea of panic

As the Police fired into the crowd

And two pregnant women

Were trampled to death. 

Piles and piles were stacked up

In the backgroundAs geese were filmed

Being taken to marketWhen in reality children

Were being shot for stealing eggs. 

Piles and piles and piles

Of the strong and the dying

And the lame and the sick

Huddled in alleyways

Waiting for their Messiah

To rescue them. 

Piles and piles of people

Shaking hand to mouth

In the cold of winter

And the sunset of June. 

They were the many

Who were chained in the shadows

And the many

Who were trappedIn a dual imagining

Of forgiveness and despair, 

Trapped in a ghetto

Like Alice trapped halfway

Through the looking glass

As the world stamped

All over them, 

Before then turning its back.

And the whistle in the wind

Went silent in shame

Before a train journey

To Genocide.

(Wrote for National holocaust dayand inspired by ‘A film unfinished’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z7egcyAdbk)