To The Jewish Bourgeoisie

Can we speak now

with artificial flowers on our tongues?

Can we really

with talcum powder smiles

extend manicured hands

and clasp the plastic breast of the oppressor 

to our flesh and blood bosom?

In his youth

my grandfather stood like a small Samson 

on the walls of the ghetto.

A Samson with clear eyes

he did battle with the Cossacks.

The streets of New York also

flowed with his blood

and the blood of the bosses’ thugs.

Now you want me to unclench my fists,

close the door on his memory,

strip to my Semitic skin, 

and crawl into bed with your lover,

the she-swine, mother of our miseries?

Can we really ignore

the scars branded into our genes?

Can we replace the vision of centuries

with electro-magnetic TV images?

Can we wash away

the blood of our fathers

with Ivory Snow?

In Auschwitz

my uncle grabbed the guard’s submachine gun

and took five Nazis with him

into the land of the dead.

They turned him into a pile of dust.

Soon after black boots

had stamped his ashes into the Polish soil

I was born.

We are the sons and daughters of Moses,

Joshua,

Judah Maccabee,

Jesus of Nazareth,

Karl Marx,

Hannah Senesch,

Mordecai Anielevich,

and Ben Gold!

We are fighters.

We will not pimp for any boss.

The children of God will not front for the devil.

I am a Jew,

this means I stand with the oppressed.

My flag is not powder blue,

it is blood red.

What color could it be

after fifty centuries of bleeding? 

Tell you master

his dam will break,

and he shall drown in the blood of those he has murdered.

I shall meet that flood

with a submachine gun,

and a Jewish workman’s song.

Published in Jewish Currents, Vol. 25, No. 9, October 1971