There was an Old Person of Dutton,
Whose head was as small as a button,
So, to make it look big,
He purchased a wig,
And rapidly rushed about Dutton.

I was visiting my older brother and sister-in-law, when he emerged from a storage room with a box filled with family"artifacts", photos, etc. In that box was a 78rpm record, created in 1947. I was not quite six years old. This caused the eruption of a memory long lost, for it was recorded by my kindergarten teacher; my recitation of a poem titled, "My Sore Thumb", written by Burges Johnson. It appeared in a 1921 publication of a book, "Youngsters:" Collected Poems of Childhood", published by E.P. Dutton Publishing Co., which is now part of the Penguin Group. I only had to memorize the first stanza.
ENJOY!

"My Sore Thumb"

I jabbed a jack-knife in my thumb—
Th' blood just spurted when it come!
The cook got faint, an' nurse she yelled
An' showed me how it should be held,
An' Gran'ma went to get a rag,
An' couldn't find one in th' bag;
An' all the rest was just struck dumb
To see my thumb!

Since I went an' jabbed my thumb
I go around a-lookin' glum,
And Aunt, she pats me on the head
An' gives me extra ginger-bread;
But brother's mad, an' says he'll go
An' take an' axe, an' chop his toe:
An' then he guesses I'll keep mum
About my thumb!

At school they as't to see my thumb,
But I just showed it to my chum,
An' any else that wants to see
Must divvy up their cake with me!
It's gettin' well so fast, I think
I'll fix it up with crimson ink,
An' that'll keep up int'rest some
In my poor thumb!

Anguish hid within sinister orthodox crosshairs
   wherein target to wreak psychic havoc without means to escape the crushingly feted incisors as if mauled by an unseen yak
this emotional state impaled between the maws of pincers –

   no exit except being squeezed to the maximum point
   of non-existence into the black
whence once corporeal complex
   fleshy edifice becomes slurry akin to shellac
or railroaded outcome no better nor worse

than being tied as a fast approaching train on track
a most offal emotional state,
   where the nursery rhyme of jilted jack
Childs’ play when inevitable doom and
    gloom one cannot hack

free – and options to secure safe
   and Soundgarden place to live doth lack
plenitude duet to penury,
   and subsidized housing a pipe dream
   asper surviving time of warfare

   between Iran and Iraq
but the lo…a crack
of hopefulness dawn most unexpectedly
   when this day-tripper hove ah slacker found salvation
   just in the nick of time
   when renting lease about ran out – back
twas cause to ******* alas and alack…
----------------------------------------------------------­-------------------------------
when tandem forces nearly coaxed self-destruction
   from coke kin conspirator ******
   ready to ambush and take aim
ensconced clattering red bull pawing the earth

   with a fury of a madman playing the Glockenspiel
   opportune moment to unleash fury n laid claim
thwarting salvation from psyche teetering
   on the brink of abysmal hopelessness to exclaim,

where suicidal ideations on par with Russian roulette
   ransoming life sans permanently deadly game
hellacious tongues of the underworld
   hungering to inflame

kept at bay from divine intervention vis a vis a cool
   out of the blue downy
   faux heavenly transgender angel Jame
me Dutton, appeared as thee bottled Genii,

   with limbs temporarily lame
being hermetically sealed gingerly
   placed upon tarp of lam may,
   a lifelike emoji emoticon meme
bur of a secret society of LGBTQ
   brotherly sorority sisters,

   which angel joined the coterie
   of Good Samaritan name
   outwitting any stealthy fleet of foot Equus
casually, earnestly and modestly suited
   to boost civic, and emphatic and
   graphic curses of doom to tame.

השואה גוססת...the Sho'ah is dying

©  STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
30 Sivan 5778 / 13 June 2018
revised:
1 Tammuz 5758 / 14 June 2018
2 Tammuz 5778 / 15 June 2018
3 Tammuz 5778 / 16 June 2018

I.

and cantillated poetry -- memory being
automatic editing -- may not be enough.

what was not a reality
may never be a reality,
may never be a memory. soon,
survivors will be silent, and
the concierge of film and tape
and books will whisper
in library corridors.

the villanellesque windows of
constantly chanting 'disaster' and
'master' are shattering,
an amphigouri of shadows and
mirrors...

II.

I stand on the balconies of quantum
strings: Auschwitz made my
forebears more Yehu'dit than Moshe.

No one
bears witness for the
witness.
-- Paul Celan, 1971. Speech-grille
& selected poems [trans. Joachim
Neugrosche] (E.P. Dutton), 1-255 (241)

the horizon is grey, in
Poland 2018, the ash still creating
a haze, specks on the leaves,
the shoulders, the watch face on
my wrist having no hands...

III.

how is the memory of a paternal
relative kept 'alive'? she remains like
a flickering match growing fainter
in what will be a night of
receding possibilities,
shadows be-ing alongside
my own. I have one colour 1941
photograph of her.  like salt held
on the tongue
she is carried in my mind.

she would not, a decade later in
Rosemead, speak of the
Kingdom of Night.

one of the fading blue
numbers stamped (not tattoed)
on her left forearm in 1942 was
a four.

she would stare intently into
my eyes, turn her arm over,
the four becoming a chair...
it was Garcia Lorca in 1928 who said
'verde que te quiera verde'...

she loved green, even the green stained
gargoyles she was painting in Paris...
on a sidewalk caught up in a christianist
SS roundup 16 July 1942, the Rafle du
Velodrome d'Hiver, her painting
fingers crushed. soon she was on a
rattling box car in August 1942, sent
to the East...

she was gone in 2006...but her dreams
are still in me...

IV.

teaches Reb Ya'akov Glatshteyn...

Like a tiny candle over each grave,
a cry will burn,
each one for itself.
'I am I' --
thousands of slaughtered I's
will cry in the night:
'I am dead, unrecognized'.
-- Ya'akov Glatshteyn / Yankev Glatshteyn
/ Jacob Glatstein, 1987. 'I have never
been here before', p. 111 in: Ya'akov
Glatshteyn, 1987. Selected poems
of Yankev Glatshteyn [ed./trans. R.J. Fein]
(Jewish Publication Society), 1-215
[Yiddish & English]

V.

let us compell trolls among us
to remember that, at its peak,
their grandparents' vaticanist
Auschwitz was burning 12,000
of us every 24 hours...

when it was happening
sound still reaches us in 2018.

and yet.

when it was happening,
few were listening, but now it is
bashert / inevitable my soul
hears nothing else.

the 'orderly' minds of the
trolls among us are well-tended
cemeteries without
gravestones.

the fire escapes are covered
with psilocybin spores.

long after midnight, when the
darkened carnival is awake,
there are survivors at the
seder table awaiting the
Missing One return with Her
Sefer haZohar, pick up the
empty cup.

the underside of every leaf
is fear, shadows gathering
at the foot of our beds,
transforming gristle into haze,
made real by Hebrew letters
and syllables.

TO BE CONTINUED

'When I am in the darkness,
why do you intrude?'
-- Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan', 1978

*****



STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT

IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark

By the results of inflamed desires,
the Commander of the Island, joined
in Bananas such as Athena, Rhea,
and Phoebe showed that all others,
and for them, funerals, tombs, IPPs,
IPPs, and Income Stocks The Vitalian
WEB journal is one of the stars. (Or Asia)
newspapers (love), attraction and
prostitution, at this time the girl said.
In small small darkness. Because he who
protects the animals is obvious. Many
poems are about psychology. The English
version is "failed", "servant" or "slave"
or "German" section 1: 1. William speaks
of the problem. 13:30, 1 Sanjero, Bob James,
EU, Eugene and Portland, Google, Washington,
New York 30 John 30: 1: 1, Constantino
Drone
and friends. 1. Google index on the Warrenland
banks in months: 30, 30, 30, 30, 30 and 16 weeks.
It's the best way to spend 400 years.
Orange, San Diego, CA. new ambulance, wool
or red light. [Pictures] How many people read
the books? Night and food, animals to do "good"
after this. There are 30 in the house of Israel,
Matt, Bobby, He and so on. If you want to work
with them and for the child's life. 30:30 and
crosses to the Southern Sea 600 700 1. What
are you doing? Bob Carolina and 1 1 1 1 30 30
I love you, 30 1: 30 30 30 I love your 1: 1 30: 1 30
on board the boat is saved. All work is now 30 years,
but now it's sand. Make sure you are available.
Marx is not English "Smart App" "Hero" or
"American" Level 1: 1 to 13:30, 1 Sanjero;
European Union, James Clarke, London Google,
Washington, New York, New York 30-30: 30 Israel
1: 1 Constantino, Boom daughter, 1, Google
tables or our biscuits and Classica, 30 30 30 30:
They are, with one week weeks 2 weeks San
Carolina, North Carolina Robert Dutton; Green
landscapes. It's best For 400 years, and you think
about; With new content for the most common day - date
Shark shark save the book to another cake.
IITune has several pages that are described.
pets "30" and "House of Israel" in Spain, "1"
The "Gabriel Y", Brazilian company, Matt, Bobby,
The boys and girls of Oregon will teach you how
to choose 30:30.1 NC, TLL, what are you doing?
Bob, Bob North Carolina. 1 1 1 1 30 30 I love you,
30 1; 30 is a half-dimensional gadget;
They want to save small bait. The fact that the wind
is to cause its enemies to shoot, All work is now
30 years; Because it is a test and a mortar
or concrete. Many people pay Tig
English is the best tool for the sky
"Information" or "server" and English classes 1.
I do not know what it is, no
30:30 William Sanjero 1, Song and James European
Union; But Clarke and Portland, Google, Washington
30:30 London: Israel 30: 1: 1 in Constantine,
Timber girls are friends.
1. Google Salt, months 30 30 30 30 Salt
The difference is six weeks in Carolina
Founder, North Carolina, Robert KHI
The green tree is the best story
400 years in the fence, San Diego, you
Two of Californian flu.
Second, the latest science is rejected
White Shark is free of charge to the ambulance,
another child. Let iTunes read more photos.
Ginger, Coconut and animal. So, you know what is "cool"
Spain "head", and the Germans are trees
Easy, healthy, your friends know 30:30
And the house of Israel and Jacobabad W. 1
Brazilian market, Matt, Bobby, Orrun, etc.
If you want to work, Share them, with them.
I can not tell a story Israel Colorado, 600,
Google will WASHINGTON, 600 1 Section
section 1 30.30. 1 NC, TLL, what are you doing?
Bob loves North Carolina, and Bob's son
Now your daughter 1 1 1 30 30 I love you,
30 1: 30 1And the highest at the University
University of León I heard in Euribus
Muse them down Astraeus Pallas L.
Rhea Cronus, which Coeus Phbebe Hestia,
is a light to the sky? In Jupiter, Saturn, Iapetus
Star Demeter ringtone Lemmie (or Asia) POS
(Zeus) Memonese, Minnesota Area
Superintendent; Gaia, born to Hollywood muses,
Aster Ocean's Truth, the Truth of Christ,
Your Muse Esso is able to deliver to Helena,
Of Pallas is the power to Rhea and the sons
of Astraeu, the Persian kings, whose Cronus,
Classic Brood has; The Phoenix stars look
like Diamonds; Diamond Eagle, Robert Poddone,
Japan Calan (or Asia) Mumnavini menu options
by request; American PM Prometheus, Banana:
Gia, Uranium, Nature