the platitudes of willful resemblance

Well, Corey Haim is dead, an OD I guess but I am not going to write about that. He was 38 and knew better, he fucked up, I am unaffected.
What I did think about today is the first time I learned about the Nazi concentration camps. I was quite young, maybe sex or seven, when I saw a tattoo on the forearm of a somewhat random person in a restaurant. I asked about it and learned of the artrocity that this person had gone through. Later in life my sister married into a family contained another survivor, Helena, a wonderful, funny, beautiful lady whose life had seen more horror that I could ever live through. What she told me and witnessed is/was beyond the pale, I had nightmares for weeks and still occasionally remember in horror what she experienced. I will save you the description. These things pain the human in me that shares the same chemical makeup as those killed, tortured, and made witness (it is these my heart breaks most for) – I am also made of the same things as the murderers, torturers, the ugliest of men – I cannot reconcile these things and am unsure that anyone can. Buddhism teaches us that we are all the same, all seeking the same ends, all made of the same things and in the end all our bodies are is a combination of aggregates that make up a reclamation and waste disposal machine. I imagine the monsters that created Dachau and the people held there all had to shit and piss now and then, only the prisoners who were told that work would set them free had to live in theirs. Some of us embody the processing plant that we are better than others.
On today’s date in 1933 the first camp opened in Dachau, truly an infamous day if there ever was one.
Thank you for reading, I had to get that out of my mind.

the moon and sky

the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
they take my freedoms.
the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
there is dispensation.
the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
my voice is giving out.
the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
impertinent children are crying.

the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
there is deprecation.
the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
winter defines the lily.
the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
wars are fought again.
the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
the term ‘freedom’ is censored.

the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
five in the afternoon is forgotten.
the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
I am in pains bondage.
the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
I may be no-ones child.
the moon and sky:
those are my freedoms now that
they take my freedoms.

– I wrote this.