CUTTING POMEGRANATES (David Paul 2003)

 

There are some poets whose voices ought to be heard urgently and Miriam Halahmy is one of them. John Rety, Hearing Eye Press

 

The vitality, freshness and originality of vision compels us to read on. Miriam invests everyday things with a life of their own. The pomegranate cut open reveals a bitterness of seeds, but also the promise of renewal.  Wanda Barford

Judentransport 3

Paris, June 22nd 1942

For Great Uncle Louis Zylberkland,

died Auschwitz July 23rd 1942

 

 

Part of my blood lies there

perhaps my smile

the way I slouch when tired

our DNA threads the years;

 

I open the letter gingerly

stare through tears at his death

camp number 16290

shut my mind to those four weeks.

 

Dragged back to Poland, his birthplace

the papers sweat in my hand,

tattered form photocopied grey

Berlin ticked in thick important pencil.

 

I take the dictionary

hungry for each word,

it falls open at Machtkampf

struggle for power, masculine,

 

search back for Dringend, priority

sofort vorlegen, present immediately.

Urgent work shovelling 1000 Jews east.

 

Miriam Halahmy