The Coat of Arms

I am seen in a landscape sometime before

the revolution.

Russia. The state. The fields.

The state unable to manage the fields.

My name is Bastian, and the Jews are in for it.

Too many nails have been hit on their heads,

too much bread has been cake

to satisfy the Tsar, the Bolsheviks,

or the Jews, who say nothing.

The Tsar is displeased, the Bolsheviks have been displeased

for some time, the Jews have been miserable

for better than three thousand years.

When the killing begins,

my father lives on,

escaping in time to a land for sale.

In my coat of arms, this land

is over the horizon, where it was.

We lived near the New York City balancing act.

He worked seven days a week,

and paid for everything.

It's his face in the crest,

looking like mine.

Were we promised we would prosper

in the promised land,

despite our lives®-I have had an education

and two wives. He had none and one.

And is the past lost?

Then what do we deserve?

Left in a world of relatives,

I have a natural wonder.

Like a buoy, I try to continue

his absolute faith:

Surely my father lives in me;

Surely my son shall survive.

A POOR JEW

When he dreams, is he dreaming

of promised lands, reached

with dry shoes and a sack-full

of unused flat crackers,

just in time to be paid?

In such lands all ends well.

Or is he forgetting himself

in planning for the day after

the day he buys out of Hell?

Either way, he looks forward

to an inevitable fixing-up-

that settling of his mind and body

amid great welcome-

but at great expense.

And he goes about getting fixed

to afford it. Love is

alright, genes

are to be expected, also

toys, games, plans and fate

are worth looking into.

But with money in your pocket,

you are wise and you are

handsome and you sing well too.