Social Injustice ~ 3 Poems by J.Lois Diamond

 

 

Social Injustice ~ 3 Poems

By J. Lois Diamond

Narration by J.Lois Diamond

 

The Bodies

            The Bodies, an

            exhibit at South St.

            Seaport shows

            cadavers all decked out on

            lawn chairs.

 

            They sip

            formaldahyde soaked

            Pina Coladas through

            straws of golden light

            then jumping, screwing

            in the air,

  high five each other in

fanciful ascents, fling footballs

 

Yet where were these bodies bought?

            From China, museum says

not donated  by deceased but

are “unclaimed corpses”

            no doubt  sold from

            Falun gong’s labor camps,

            from stolen graves

            of religious dissidents

 

            And what do we learn

            from seeing the specimens?

            how a drop of blood

            flows through veins,

            how feces becomes brown

            from bilirubin (red) and biliverdin (green)

            born from liver’s bile ?

            How frightfully long is the

            phrenic nerve until it

            snaps on to diaphragm?

           

            No I think the monks were right

            to sit on vulture mountains,

            or speculate on skeleton bones

            suspended on grizzly hooks since

            this fossilized farce is monstrous.

 

 

Where is Bess?

  Where is Bess,

Ms. Myerson on

a day when

shoppers are shot

in France

buying pickles in a

Kosher Paris shop

before Shabbos?

 

In forty-five she is

crowned Miss America

as the war comes to a halt

Some Americans blame the Jews

for  U.S. presence in

the bloody battles

Then stark images of the

camps are splashed on newspaper

pages

Bess alone gives them pride

 

Today Bibi and Israel’s Ambassador

both travel to Paris

inviting French Jews

to flee, to save their skins

to sail for Israel

the land that is always

at war

where Jews are unwelcome

by Palestinians who have lost

their beloved land

They demand that the

Jews go back to

where they came from

and so

they vanish

 

Where is Bess and her crown?

Not in the Seine

Not in the Rhine

Not in the Volga

Perhaps in the sea, in

the very dead sea

floating all alone

in the mud

with her crown

 

 

On Thursday Afternoon

There is a whoosh,

then a loud popping sound

that shatters the ears of

those sipping Saki

 

Then a shower of screams, flames and

desperate climbs out

of windows onto

the street

 

Three buildings gone

A giant hole on the block

and a search for remains ensues

Two men blown apart

Eleven buildings evacuated

A hundred homeless

All from a seedy contractor

who siphoned the gas and

hid his tracks as

he swiftly rescued the

land-lady’s son