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lyrics

Who can forgets Krakow’s hours, the bugle call,
the plaintive phrasing cut, felled as if in battle,
an irritant to be scratched, or Ivesian delight.

I am a tourist, take advantage of my currency,
eat wild boar in an ancient restaurant, drink best beer,
buy my mother an amber broach in the market.

South of the old town near the castle walls
I look down on black and white seminarians
snaking Indian file to the Cathedral, soles

barely touching the pavement, smart young men
old enough for sexual fever and violent death
to unzip their skin wall, succumbing inside-out

eviscerated, slime evaporating to ordained dust.
At a similar age, half of those surveyed in Britain
claim ignorance of Auschwitz.

I refused to go:
because I’m a poet
and would have used the occasion to write a poem

unable to name all those slain by celebrity killers
names like Bianor and Oileus, Iphition
Hippothous, Xanthus and Thoon.

Sometimes it’s more difficult not to write and refuse
to engineer clay or mix inks to your purpose though
poets have an obligation to inform and confess.

credits

from New Chapters, Eastern Europe 1990, released April 2, 2023

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John Bennett and John Laidler image

John Bennett and John Laidler Sydney, Australia

John Bennett is primarily a curious poetic life-form.

John Laidler loves making sounds, and walks at approximately 4 km per hour.

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