Refrains

When I hear those old Jewish refrains,
Mirroring suffering and joy,
The ancient blood is throbbing in my veins,
Reflecting countless tears,
Forgotten hopes,
Sweet turmoil in my soul you bring,
You old, old melancholy notes.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

My Delight

My delight is the exquisite,
That perfection of beauty,
Which occasionally touches us,
Unexpectedly................

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Hypothesis

First man looked for the answer to the stars,
Puzzled, conversely did he turn towards the smallest part,
And thought the final answer atoms would provide,
Discovered, sadly, that it only was the riddles start,
Nucleons, protons and mesons did he find,
Areas within the atoms, huge spaces apart,
With strange particles of undetermined kind,
Forces more powerful than any found before,
New horizons within the atom did he find,
Still he did not know the score,
Could not find final answers,
And found himself again before a closing door.

It's strange how microcosm and macrocosm
Are both so very much alike,
Like boxes within boxes in infinite progression,
They do imagination strike,
For there are worlds within this world,
And our universe, so awesomely respected,
Might in some greater world unfurled,
Just as a maggot's tiniest part then be detected.

Though this does not lift human pride,
The fact that mortal man this comprehends,
That our minds do through the heavens stride,
Lends to our petty lives the sense.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Memories of Man

On the highway of infinity,
In an eternity of time,
Mankind is but a small interlude,
Yet, a creation noble and sublime,
If there be ever any gods,
Man is the closest to divine,
And long after he'll be gone,
Memories of his wondrous spirit
Will for eons linger on and on.....

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Racial Prejudice

't is the stark reality of some men's lives,
the burden of which they cannot face,
and thus their hateful protest viciously derides
their fellow human beings in its place.
't is why some black men do attack the whites,
and other whites attack the blacks,
the have-nots often hate the haves,
and some men even hate all pets.

Thus, did some sadly indoctrinated soul
see fit to cast some racial slurs against the Jews,
the same approach, which as a child,
I saw the racist Hitlerites once use,
but never, since I left that wretched time and land,
have I accepted such abuse.

Let me advise those narrow men,
these bigots of the racist creed,
that love, not hate, is the solution to your ills,
look for the good in men, not for the bad,
give your compassion to the blacks, the whites,
the Catholics, the Jews, the Protestants,
we all have our rights,
it was the spirit of a man like Martin Luther King,
the dreams which once a wise and brilliant Jew,
so long ago eternalized;
his name you ask, my friend?
't was Jesus Christ.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

To a Soldier Who Died for Israel - 1948

The desert was hot, the heat was intense,
And as far as the eye could see,
There was no beginning, there was no end,
There was just the desert and me,
My life was slowly ebbing,
And torture was in my soul,
And many dead were around me,
But the enemy was gone,
And gone was all the life,
And all there ever was,
In our home in the Negev,
The village of Samarach,
And, suddenly, there were voices
I've never heard before,
So wondrous, melodious and soft,
It must be a holy score,
They are the angels who sing
Of the glory of our land,
And a voice above them thundered:
"Shemah Israel to the end,
Keep fighting, hoping, winning,
Your land shall soon be free,
I am thy Lord, thy Keeper,
I'll guide you to victory."
And eternally shone the heavens,
And peace came to my soul,
As I left the world behind me,
To enter my heavenly goal.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

The Wanderers - Jerusalem 1967

Those wanderers returned to home,
Remnants, escaped from certain doom,
They worked their ancient, arid lands,
And made the deserts bloom.

They kept their faith,
To God the prayed,
And rose to meet the foe,
And all their enemies were staid,
By great Jehovah's blow.

Their ranks were swelled
By all their dead,
Succumbed in ancient past,
The gassed and burned
Their spirits fed,
And like a searing blast,
Their armies rose
And slew the foe,
A mighty die was cast.

And at the Wailing Wall they stood,
They prayed and laughed and sang,
In fever ran their ancient blood,
A falling star fell from the sky,
God's tear upon his land.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Anne Frank

She spoke for all the millions
Who had perished,
With the simple voice of a child,
A voice now stilled,
Yet never muted,
Throughout the ages of man,
The soul of innocence
In a world of brutality,
The plaintive voice of my people,
Steeped in misery and suffering,
Yet, always, always with their eyes
Turned to the sky......

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Happy?

Beyond that proud, happy facade,
Quite self-assured and free from care,
Beneath the status symbols well displayed,
Material success, marriage so fair,
Away from all that surface ostentation,
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Felice

We met when she was just a child,
With eyes of a young doe,
And I had touched this world but lightly,
And we just looked and knew
That nothing else in life would do,
And smoldering fires burned,
While we just smiled politely,
But then our passion made its way,
And just like butterflies
We played our little game,
And all the world was bright as day.
Rich did the years thus pass,
While our love did grow,
And deep within myself I know
That when I'm old and gray,
We'll still hold hands in evening's glow,
And tell old tales till darkness touches us,
Oh God - I love her so........

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Avowal

We 'worship'
The truth and beauty
Of nature's construction,
But just change a vowel
To 'warship' and further
Nature's destruction.

Aubrey Charasz
Copyright 2005 Aubrey Charasz

Buzzards

Hark, you buzzards of destruction,
Pirates of the heathen skies,
Slyly perching on my shoulder,
Telling me eternal lies,
Incarnated by the devil,
And a thousand human sighs,
Telling me that life's a desert,
And all things are false, untrue,
And all goodness is illusion,
Each man struggling for his due,
Fighting, burning, killing, suffering,
To surrender in the end,
Cursing gods and loving devils,
In the darkness that is hell,
All your reasoning can't convince me,
Matters not what you may tell,
Found in deserts the oasis,
And I love this world too well,
Saw the morning sun arising,
Promising a fine, new day,
And defied all hell quite boldly,
For a smile that came my way.
No man ever is an island,
To himself and to all men,
Part we are all of each other,
And each soul which passes onward,
Will diminish me and them,
Therein lies the truth eternal,
In it man may find his light,
Cast aside all things infernal,
Know the bad but love the right,
Understand all motivation,
Try to comprehend each soul,
And the buzzards then shall perish,
With their miseries unnamed,
And but goodness shall be cherished,
Till the heavens stop achurning,
On the final judgment date,
And the Lord calls mankind forward,
To be judged in godlike ways,
And the galaxies stop burning,
While humanity arrays.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Brother

Today, they buried my brother,
They cremated him in the
Twin Towers of New York,
They shot him in the streets of Bagdad,
He starved to death
In the refugee camps of Sudan,
He drowned in New Orleans,
His blood stained the streets of Jerusalem,
But his eyes, his eyes burn vividly
Into the essence of my soul,
For I feel ashamed
That I could not help him,
And diminished
Because I lost him........

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

The Shape of Things to Come

Chemical manipulation,
Mind orientation,
Official interference,
Controlled system adherence,
Metabolic processes supervised,
Behavior patterns synthesized,
Individuality not recognized.

Friend, here we have unfurled
The system of the brave new world.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Auschwitz

So cold and gloomy is the camp,
The steel of its ovens,
The cement of its death chambers,
Tell us so many bitter-sad stories,
Nearby, there are the fields,
And my eye wanders
Over the bright flowers,
And life goes on as if
Nothing had happened,
But one cannot forget,
The wind rustles in the trees
With a thousand voices
Which call us from a quiet present
Into a horrible past,
They say: "Please, remember us,
Hear our lament,
Do not forget us,
Women, men, children,
The dead from Auschwitz."

The sun, so warmly it shines,
So fragrantly bloom the flowers,
But the wind, the wind
Touches my very soul
Like an icy hand........

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

A Noble Soul

His infirmity was love,
His handicap - gentility,
For in this predatory world
Of iron fist in silken glove,
True worth is disability.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz

Sumerian Warning

Tread softly on my grave,
You men of Western Lands,
Do not defile my temples
With searching unclean hands,
Do not disturb Sumerian nobles,
And irk my goddess of the moon,
Buried beneath the ashes
Of my great land
Which met its end too soon.

I was a great King once,
My name was Ur-Nammu,
Before my word the ancients trembled,
My friends I raised, my enemies I slew.

Sumerian Lands lie buried
Beneath the sands of time,
Like all civilizations
Must in this world decline.

Tread softly on my grave,
You men of Western Lands,
For some day, other men
From other places will dig
Where your civilization stands.

Alfred Charasz
Copyright 2005 Alfred Charasz