|
 Deborah Rey is married and has
one daughter, and one grandson. She lives at the
French Atlantic coast, with her husband, Dingo-Dog, Bardd Blewyn,
and six cats.
She is the co-founder and Chief Editor of La Fenêtre Magazine,
Reading Through The
Write Window:
http://la-fenetre.net
They never asked
They never asked
if I was scared, or traumatised,
they never asked.
They never asked
how, through my child’s eyes,
I saw the brutal, dangerous
Nazi occupation,
they never asked.
They never asked
what went through me
when, with my child’s eyes,
I saw a German soldier,
laughing,
take a baby by its feet
and smash its little head
against the wall.
They never asked
how it felt to see
my father cry. An actor,
forced into hiding underground,
or be deported, because
he would not go on stage
for them and resisted.
They never asked
if I was scared to die
when they never asked,
but told me,
to take over from him
and resist.
They never asked
how come I knew
the difference between
what was good and bad,
right and wrong,
resisting, or collaborating,
they never asked.
Nobody ever asked
if I felt any hatred
for those who, not to survive,
but often cowardly,
or out of sheer fanaticism,
collaborated and proudly
stood by and watched
those who refused to yield
be shot, deported, or -quite
and ugly sight -
starve in the street,
they never asked.
Not many ask
what I have done
with those disgraceful pigs.
I killed a few, denounced a few
and, after the war, spat on a few
and do not ask of me today
to shake the hand of one of them,
please, never ask.
They never asked
why I did what I have done
they never asked.
You do not ask
but I will tell you why.
I stole and cheated, I killed
and betrayed, because it was
– if you were to ask me now -
the only way to stop
the madness that was raging
in the world. For some it was
an ill-founded righteous cause
to fight the Nazis, collaboration
no disgrace, but
if you asked me, while
they never asked,
I had an inbred knowledge
of what was right, or wrong,
an instinct sharpened into
wordless comprehension
of what had to be done
to save as many lives
as possible, no matter how.
They never asked
me to be a hero
and if you asked me
now, I never was
and never
asked to be.
I do, though, often ask
myself,
why they never asked
if I wanted to be
born.
© Deborah Rey 2006
Free the Soul mit Arbeit
I stood in front of
the glass cage
filled with locks
of blond, grey,
black, brown hair
and searched and searched
for just one tiny curl
of hers.
Hers? It was long
and blond and stood out
like a lion’s mane,
proud,
the same as she.
I searched but did not
find it.
I stood and stared
at thousands
and more
pairs of shoes;
big shoes
small shoes and
tiny little shoes,
and searched and searched
for hers. Hers?
Brown, sturdy,
flat-heeled, sporty and
larger than her normal size
‘cause of two pairs of socks
against the cold
I did not find them
I walked by the violins
and silver-handled
mirrors,
‘cause she left
those with me
that night.
To remember her by,
she said.
She had to leave,
hoped to escape, survive.
The violin and the mirror
were taken from me
and sold for a bowl
of potatoes, and she?
She was betrayed.
Arbeit macht Frei
it says at the entrance
gate to hell and
knowing her, she did.
Work hard, I mean,
hoping to be free, return to me.
It did not help her
very much, though, but
if death means freedom
and peace, she got it.
I, too, am working hard.
I work like hell, ‘cause
Arbeit macht Frei
it still tells me
today, a sad reminder.
Until I find one lock
of hair, one shoe, one tiny
something to remember
her by, and also
the place where she,
her body,
was thrown into a cadaver
pit and doused with lye,
until I can kneel and kiss
the grass, and talk to her,
I’ll work like hell to free
my soul.
Arbeit macht Frei?
It does not help me
very much, as yet.
© Deborah Rey 2006
Please, tell me
Please, tell me how
to write about it
without tears.
Please, tell me how
to live it
without pain.
Please, tell me how
to depersonalize my past,
shut up
have hope
believe again and
accept sentences and
words depicting
peace and rebirth.
In a huge pit
in one of those camps,
which people heard
enough about
it seems,
my Mother’s bones
were doused with lye,
made un-rebirthable.
I know, you do not
want it ‘face on’,
you’ve had enough
such gory details,
but….
Please, tell me how
to barricade my soul
and speak no more
about it,
but to myself.
Please, tell me how
to let the past be
just the past,
the present
just the present,
the dead the dead,
and say there was, and is
a reason for their deaths,
and see the grass that grows
on top of mass graves
as a sign of hope and peace.
Please, tell me how,
then maybe
I will sleep.
© Deborah Rey 2005
The Old Fool
In the old people’s home
the man they call
‘the old fool’,
sits and stares
out the window
murmuring names,
“Perl, Hannah, Yoisef,
Abba, Imma”.
In the old people’s home
no one knows where
he came from,
nor his name; his place
of birth and since he
won’t speak and only
mutters those names
he is labelled a fool.
All they know at the home
and can sympathize with,
is the fact
he came back from
one of the camps;
the ones people rather
not hear, speak, or
think about.
They don’t know at the home
he was first chosen to be
a Heizer, a stoker,
then one of the
Sondercommando
the Kommandant ordered
to herd people into
the communal ‘washrooms’,
take out the corpses
after a while, remove any
gold teeth, transport them
to the ovens and shove in
both his parents,
Perl, his wife,
Hannah and Yoisef,
his children.
In the old people’s home
he sits and stares
out the window.
He is no bother to the staff.
He’s just an old fool,
who insists on wearing
the blue and grey striped
uniform of days gone by.
Once he had the choice
between life and death.
Then, when he wanted
to end his life, he was forced
to live. Live with his past.
He’s waiting for his personal
‘Endlösung’.
He is called the ‘old fool’,
he sits and stares, and
refuses to take a shower.
© Deborah Rey 2006
Lark born of a Dead Tree by Deborah Rey
“I can step into the horror, with you
so brave, magnificently defiant,
trailing your lost childhood after you
like a tattered rag doll,”
she wrote.
“Your stepmother was a monster
right out of the Brothers Grimm.
Your have come through this dark tunnel
stunningly whole and so giving, that
I know your natural mother
must have been a wonderful person,
to have produced such a legacy in you.
I sorrow for the loss of that one, true anchor
at Auschwitz,” she told me, “but I know
she's right there beside you all the time,
kissing your dear forehead
and sitting beside you while you sleep.
Love survives death, I am convinced.
You are a witness and a witness
gone through fire is a prophet.”
Her letter ended with:
“I throw my arms around you,
raise you as high as I can.
You are a lark, born of a dead tree.”
All this my friend told me….
Mama, do you hear my song?
© Deborah Rey 2006
The Sea is my Mother
The Sea is my Mother,
my Mother is the Sea.
She adopted me, and
she embraces me
whenever I am lost,
have lost the way
to Life.
The Sea is my Mother,
la Mer est ma Mère.
Her bluest blue,
or greenest green,
is like her eyes
that long ago gave me
her Love.
La Mer est ma Mère,
my Mother is the Sea.
She rocks me,
carries me along,
sings me gentle lullabies,
when I cannot find a way
to Live.
The Sea, ma Mère,
ma Mère, the Sea
carries me along.
The sun, filtered by
salty water, in my eyes,
my body no longer mine.
In peace.
La Mer est ma Mère,
my Mother is the Sea.
I nestle in her arms,
and carried by her waves,
I hope forever and beyond
not to come back.
Ever.
My Mother, the Sea
la Mer, ma Mère,
takes me back me to Now,
makes me look
towards the beach
and you are there. Always.
And you wave.
You wait for me. Always.
For me you wait.
Hoping, that this time again,
I won’t leave with my Mother.
You’re holding a yellow bathrobe,
and love is smiling
in your eyes.
Together, we say Goodbye.
Goodbye, for now,
to the Sea, who is my Mother.
La Mer, qui est ma Mère
is beautiful and holds
the secret of Peace.
One day perhaps.
But, it is with you
that I will go Home
today.
© Deborah Rey 2005
Waiting
White blossom on the pear trees
has turned to petal snow and
buzzing music of the bees
has stopped, but will go on
in peach and apple trees.
Birds chase one another
in kamikaze love play,
and have signed the leases
of all the nesting blocks
and hidden nooks.
The Dingo-dog proudly marks
a brand-new tree
each day,
hoping still, to mark them all
before Summer.
The music of the Ocean
is calming down
to a pianissimo
of waves, and no longer
roars its tides.
I stand in awe and, while
looking up to the blue,
blue sky, I listen for the sound
of velvet hooves.
I’m waiting for a Unicorn
© Deborah Rey 2006
Swan Song
Maybe it is true
that every poem
that I write will be
my swan song,
yes,
maybe it is true
and yet, I write
this poem and
perhaps,
no,
certainly another
one,
because if it were
true that this one
will be my last,
then how -
in heaven’s name -
did Anna Pavlova
dance the song
of a Dying Swan
so many, countless
times, made it
immortal and sang
her own, real Swan Song
when she succumbed
of an - at the time -
mortal pneumonia?
If it is true that
every poem that I
write may be - who
knows? – my
Swan Song,
I’ll take that chance,
keep tempting Fate
and simply go on
writing them until
I have to sing that
final song,
become a Dying Swan
and
go beyond.
©Deborah Rey 2007
I am a Head
Her fingers fly over the keyboard
as she screams out her anger and
frustration … her fingers still
can fly, the last part of her body
capable of any normal movement,
the rest slowed down, near frozen
in painful immobility;
legs sending signals of distress
with every step, vertebrae crunching
with all moves for lack of disks,
joints without cartilage yelling
SOS … SOS … even when she
sleeps. Nothing works, nothing
helps give life a bit of physical
fun, going out, shopping, walking
on the beach a sweet memory and
nothing more. Her mind the only
part of her still in working order.
“I am a Head,” she taps in overdrive,
“I speak my Soul, I am.”
©Deborah Rey 2007
Weeping Willow
We bought a weeping willow tree,
its stem no thicker than a broomstick,
a crown - when pruned as we were told to -
looking like a hand, with fingers
pointing accusingly up
to what others call Heaven,
or G-d.
Our little weeping willow tree
covered its accusing fingers with
virgin-green leaves. Its branches grew,
became longer and longer, and
resembled a relaxed and elegant hand that
beckoned me. “Come. Come,”
our willow whispered.
“Come, come,” it said. “I’m weeping!”
I stood and stared, then gently closed
my hands around its fragile trunk,
and leaned my head upon them.
The pendulous branches shielded me
against the sun and proudly, happily,
I wept.
© Deborah Rey 2006
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All these poems, *apart from I am a Head and Swan Song *, have
been published in The
Blue House, Flutter, Subtle Tea, Roving Dove, and in the 2006
Anthology 'Voices From
The Web' of UKAuthors.
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