This is the promised climax of what I have been posting over the last three weeks. Some people will love it, some hate it; but it was written, as the title indicates, some 45 years ago and is, as I have just explained, only the continuation and climax of the two previous blogs I already posted over the last month. For those who find the subject matter too stressful and unnecessarily bloody-minded or celebratory, I only can say as I have said before — pass on. You are not obliged to read it. For those who do not, then read on. Still, one should not forget the lines were written barely two decades after the Holocaust. I myself find things I might wish to change, but I cannot. They are as they were written and cannot be changed.
Nor are they meant to be bloody-minded or hating anyone (in particular, not the Arabs — the Russians and others come in for equal or more criticism. They, at least, were in the grips of passion — as for the others, I do not wish to say). In any event, they are only the free-verse jottings of a young man, who witnessed the whole, felt what he felt, and saw to be miraculous events unfolding right there before his eyes. In fact, the lines were scribbled on the many pages of a section of The New York Times dated that week, which I still have today, and added to as the events unfolded.
This is what emerged, this is how and what some one felt watching from the streets of New York expecting to arrive in Israel in a short while for a University-sponsored Government Ulpan in Hebrew in Jerusalem. As I said, if the subject matter is too graphic, grisly, or celebratory, then pass on. These were the pictures we were seeing on tv screens and in the newspapers moment-by-moment as the War, which was covered very closely in the press, progressed. In any case, they are only the feelings of a young man, relieved to the point of ecstatic passion as seeming tragedy turned into triumph, awe-struck with wonder and writing in what he conceived as being "the Biblical style":
HORSE AND RIDER HAS THE LORD OVERTHROWN IN THE DESERT
A NEW SONG OF MIRIAM — THE NEW PASSOVER
1
Horse and rider has the Lord overthrown in the desert,
Horse and rider has He overthrown in Sinai, leaving their charred bodies to
decompose in the burning sun.
Tank and tankman has the Lord thrown down in the desert — twisted metal and rotting
flesh,
Leaving the burned-out hulks, the torn treads, the shattered turrets,
The scorched flesh of their combatants, lying in the shifting sands, the blistering sun,
Where first He delivered the Law unto Moses, His Commandments to the rest of the
World.
2
Horse and rider has the Lord overthrown in Sinai — tankman and tankcrew.
And with His powerful right arm He has swept the rows of their empty jet aircraft off
their runways
As His screaming jets bore down out of the North and West into the early morning sun
As they stared incredulously, shattering their hopes with rolling pinpoint explosions,
Leaving the ruined metal tubes of their new jet aircraft in little piles of twisted wreckage
and oil slicks
Along the sides of runways in villages and cities around the whole of the Arab World.
3
Horse and rider has the Lord thrown down in Sinai, tank and tankman by the shores
of the Red Sea,
Twisted Centurions and broken metal swept away in the roar of blocked-up waters
returning,
Corpses and rotting flesh has He left behind in the desert to once more reaffirm His will
to the rest of the World.
4
Call them from the East, call them from the West, I shall gather them from the North;
To the South, I shall say, "Hold not back" — it is the Lord of Hosts who speaks.
"I shall gather them up from all the corners of the Earth and return them to this Land.
So stand aside, all you Nations of the Earth, lest you get burned in the burning."
For the Lord has commanded it — He has commanded the gates of His Holy City
Jerusalem
Be flung open before the faces of His homeless refugees and bid them, “Enter!
Rebuild the ruined buildings, rebuild the waste places, make the desert bloom.”
The Lord has charged His People after an Exile of two thousand years,
After numerous tribulations and sufferings and endless trials and persecutions,
To return and repossess the Land, repossess the waste places, repossess the
desert —
The Land He promised unto their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom you all
know.
5
So stand aside all you peoples of the Earth, for horse and rider has the Lord thrown
down in the desert,
Tankman and tankcrew, halftrack and armored personnel carrier. The Lord has
commanded it —
As He did the waters of the Red Sea to part into two long waves.
See and be confounded, you Peoples of the Earth, who claim to pray to His Holy
Name
But, in reality, know only an offshoot of Him — a breath or scent of His loveliness.
Know the awesome majesty of the Lord God of Hosts, the Lord of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, the Lord of the Psalms of David.
See and be confounded, for the Lord of Hosts has commanded it
And no man — not even the Russians — can stand before His mighty will.
6
Enough you Russians, however fertile this situation might seem to you,
For the Lord of Hosts is becoming angry and you too shall suffer the affects of His
Wrath
If you continue along the path of innuendo and falsehood, you have already embraced;
For the Lord’s fury will descend upon you as well. He demands your truthfulness
now —
Truth shall be His signpost, not policy fabrications and equivocations, not
disinformation,
For the Lord of Hosts is growing very angry and His Wrath shall be kindled against
you too,
For He holds the sword of His vengeance poised above the entire length and breadth
of your land;
So control yourselves, put a break upon your tongues, and heed the words of the
Ambassador of His People Israel,
For there is Truth flowing from that tongue — Truth the serum that shaill heal the World
and set the peoples free.
7
For this is a New Age, not an age of threats or counter-threats, violence or
counter-violence,
Not an age of half-truths and lies, of propaganda violations and distortions,
Not an age of opium — any opium — so long as it soothes the misery of the masses,
a dose of exhilaration and jubilation,
A taste to cure the pent-up frustrations of their shabby lives — a sip you often
transform into frenzy.
But an age of the Lord God of Hosts and the cornerstone of that age shall be Truth —
Truth to distinguish between what really exists and what does not, so there will be
no inaccurate assessment of one’s own capabilities.
For without that vital foundation, upon which to base one’s own judgements,
there can be only disillusionment and bitterness —
A New Age, so even the downtrodden, "the Poor in Spirit", will know their own
capacities;
And, even though advancement will come slowly, their hopes will not be shattered
And there shall be no anger and frustration leading to frenzy and destruction —
But rather the progress of the world will go forward along its own independent path,
slowly, sure-footedly, steadily.
8
So enough of this blustering, these false charges and counter-charges, which do
nothing but inflame the world.
The time has come for you to cease. Beware the unrestrained flaunting of your own
power —
You go too far and provoke the Lord of Hosts, for the cries of the oppressed and
downtrodden have reached His ears.
Halt and cooperate, lest the violent anger of His Wrath fall upon you a second time this
century,
Striking down all that you have reconstructed, consuming all you hold precious.
And the end with which you threaten others shall itself be visited upon you,
erasing all your generations from the Earth.
The Lord’s Hand was in this — He has made good His promise unto Jacob, He has
made good His promise unto His People.
Tank and tank-man has He overthrown in the desert, He has overthrown their
horsemen — yea, all of them —
And scattered their bones in the drifting sands, to be picked clean by vultures and
bleached white in the midday sun.
9
Is this a Victory Song? Yes, it is a Victory Song — a celebration, a jubilation,
For the Lord has given victory unto Zion over all her enemies as He promised so long
ago.
So know, all you peoples of the Earth, the awesome majesty of the Lord God of Hosts.
He has made good His promise unto Zion to redeem His People and the Messianic Age
of the Peoples of the Universe has begun.
Know it all you Peoples and behold, for the Messianic Era has begun —
We proclaimed it at the beginning and we proclaim it at the end. The Lord has
thrown down false prophets.
He has left the bones of their people rotting in the sun, leaving the shrieks of their
insanity trail away into the desert.
10
Know you that the Lord is a great warrior.
For a moment He let the fate of His People hang in the balance, suspended by
the thickness of a single thread —
And He could have cut that thread with a single sweep of His powerful right arm
if He wished,
But He preferred not to. He chose to do otherwise — and He did this as a lesson
To you men, so you could see the awesome Power He controls.
The Lord is Magnanimous and Great, the Lord is Mighty and Overwhelming.
He preferred to usher in the Messianic Age by the thickness of a single thread,
The space of the eye of a needle — so know it all you Peoples and give thanks.
11
And once more the Mountain of the Lord shall be established in the High Places,
The Temple of the Lord shall be established in Jerusalem and all Nations shall come
unto it;
For He has exonerated His People. He has purged them of their religious blight.
The Lord has struck down false prophets; He has stuck down His enemies
And all the host that stood against Him from among the Peoples of the World;
For the Lord abhors the language of compromise, the Lord abhors the prevaricators.
Israel among the Nations has turned her back in prevarication and compromise.
Having paid the ultimate price for its indecisiveness, now it is following the path of
absolute Righteousness.
Her example has astonished the Nations, left their mouths dumbfounded, their eyes
agape — silenced their tongues.
12
Know you, the Lord is a great and mighty warrior, know you He discomfits His enemies.
Know you, the Lord really is the Lord of Hosts — not the Lord of all hosts, but all of
the Hosts of Righteousness.
So skip, My People, dance upon the streets. Carry the news down to Eilat and deliver it
up to Degania,
Let Ashkelon, Dan, and Hebron hear of it and let it be brought up to Jerusalem.
Know you, the Lord is a mighty and great warrior — He discomfits His enemies
And leaves their bodies to rot in the desert, their bones bleaching in the burning sands
To show there is no compromise when it comes to questions of Truth and
Righteousness.
13
And so has He punished those of His people who prevaricated and held back and let
not one escape unscathed.
So He has punished the slippery-tongued and squealing hearts of the Indians
And that compromising and vacillating tiny giant America.
He has punished the mischievous machinations of the naughty and always-dangerous
Russian bear,
The adventurism of their chess games and their total disregard for Truth
And the basic concepts of decency and fairplay — to love your neighbor as yourself
and respect your enemy.
So has He punished the Arabs — Isaac’s brother Ishmael and Israel’s brother Esau,
Their wild frenzies, their romantic posturing and self-deception, their vainglorious
distortions.
What is the rhythm at present of their soul, intoxicated by the sound of its own
exhilaration,
Other than a riot of voices out of control — a voice that needs to be put under
control?
The Lord has punished all His enemies and allowed His People Israel, as foretold
long ago,
To return to their Land — He has succoured His sheep,
He has also permitted the voice of prophecy, so long still, to return among them,
This time never to go forth or be extinguished again — The Lord discomfits His
enemies.
14
And hear you this, you Nations of the Earth, for we are singing a battle song now,
a celebration — a jubilation.
The armies of His enemies did the Lord throw down in the desert —
The armies of the Ishmaelites, together with the Children of Ham,
The armies of Pharaoh did He overthrow in the desert leaving not a single one to
escape alive to tell of it.
Their bones bleach the rocks and their blood runs into the trackless wastes
coloring them red — the Lord discomfits His enemies.
Like men, the Lord abhors the language of prevarication and compromise.
And we are singing a battle song now, a celebration — a Paean to God.
15
And is it not strange that this thing should have taken place in Sinai near Suez,
Where the Children of Egypt chased the Children of Israel so many millennia ago?
Is it not strange that we have made up for that humiliation three thousand five hundred
years later
After embarking on that long, great wandering so many centuries ago?
And is it not strange that this defeat should have taken place at the hands of the
Children of Israel —
Those same former children who begged their masters to let them go,
But the Children of Pharaoh pursued them into the wilderness
And would have taken them back into slavery were it not for the intervention of their
Lord.
And now these same former Children of Israel with a mighty hand have pursued
the Children of Egypt
Into the wilderness of Sinai and slain them there, letting only a few escape alive.
And is it not strange that the Children of Israel have avenged themselves on the
Children of Ham and their wild brother Esau
In the same place they suffered that humiliation so many centuries ago?
16
The Lord is a mighty warrior, the Lord is a great charioteer.
He has let our aircraft through their radar nets without as much as a single “blip”
appearing on their radar screens.
And from where did all those missiles of destruction come, from where did those
deadly wings emerge — wave after wave —
To destroy the well-ordered rows of Egyptian jet aircraft before ever they took off?
The Lord is a flight of Mirages and Mysteres, He is a squadron of Fouga Meisters.
He has littered the desert with their burned-out trucks and half-tracks and
strewn the sands
With their bodies, watering the earth with the libation of their blood.
17
And all the Egyptian homes which will be empty this night, waiting for their
loved ones to return;
For the Angel of Death did hover over all the houses of the Egyptians and
claimed all their firstborn and finest,
But the houses of the Children of Israel did He pass over —
Know you the Lord is a mighty warrior, the Lord is a missile battery,
He is a squadron of Pattons and Centurions, a brigade of mechanized infantry,
and steel has rolled over the Egyptians.
And see where He has done it, know where He has discomfitted them —
In Sinai by the mouth of the Red Sea where He caused the backed-up waters to
return
And drown the chariots of the Egyptians, horse and man — in Sinai near Suez,
Where the Children of Israel fled,
At the Mitla Pass, not far from where the Lord first delivered His Commandments
to Moses.
The Lord has thrown them down in Sinai and scattered their bones in the desert,
leaving almost every home in Egypt bereft of at least one man.
18
The Lord has prepared a table before me,
He has prepared me a place to lie down upon and opened up the Land before me.
Three weeks before my coming, He has flung open the gates of the Old City to
greet me,
He has flung open the boundaries and the Land is free again.
O Lord, is this not an incomparable gift You have given me?
And how am I worthy of such a gift — with all my cowardice and hesitation?
How am I worthy — and yet You have been bountiful and merciful opening up
the whole world before me.
19
And all Nations shall come unto us in Jerusalem, all Nations shall flow unto us at that
site.
And we shall build You a Temple there, the likes of which has never been seen before.
And we shall build it of marble and stone with a canopy a mile-square
And no one will have ever witnessed the equivalent thereof in the modern age of man.
But let us not be too vain, for we know how egocentric the works of man can appear
to future generations,
But it is in Your honor and for Your glory that we build this thing —
You who have succoured us and overturned armies in our path,
You who spread out our heritage before us and redeemed us,
You who brought us back to Jerusalem, bought back the voice of prophecy with us —
never more to be silent again.
O Lord, we thank You for this wonderful gift, we thank You for Your bountiful
generosity and love — We thank You for this great thing.
20
"I shall gather you up from the East and gather you up from the West and bring
you home again from every corner of the World,
To the Land I promised unto your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
For behold, I promised My son Israel, ''I have engraven you upon the palms of
My hands'' —
You the People of ''My Servant Israel,'' you have kept the faith through every age —
Through disease, alienation, and annihilation, through wandering as despised
outcasts throughout the Earth for two thousand years.
I have inflicted upon you every scourge I could think of and you have asked no
quarter, no compromise —
Only Life, as My servant Job before you — "So return, hardened by two thousand
years of history,
Hardened by your experiences and tempered in the fires of the furnaces of your
destruction.
Return! Occupy the Land which I the Lord have promised you as your inheritance."
21
Fling open the gates, O Jerusalem.
Spread the tidings of gladness and great joy from city to city around the World,
For the Lord has succoured His People. He has commanded His Holy People to
return —
"Return and take over the cities, take over the waste places, take over the
vineyards.
Occupy Jericho, Beth-El, and Tulkarim, occupy Samaria, Shiloh, and Jerusalem.
Throw open the gates, O My People. Blast it upon your trumpets.
Occupy Nablus and Shechem, occupy Bethlehem, Beit Jalla, and Beit Iksa,
occupy Ramallah and Jenin.
Rebuild the waste places, O My People, rebuild the High Places,
Replant the vineyards, roll away the rocks from the barren hillsides and make
of the Land a garden once again —
And plant, for it will respond to your touch and bear fruit. It will send up shoots
and vines in their seasons,
For truly I have given it unto you and your seed as an inheritance forever."
22
And I call upon the religions of the World — your offshoots — to stand aside,
Stand back, lest the fury of the Lord descend upon them
As it descended upon their ancestors those many ages ago,
Searing their idols, overturning their totems and sacred groves,
For I the Lord have proclaimed it and given it. I have said to My people,
The Children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Children of Israel,
“You have suffered enough. After two thousand years and annealed in the fires of
affliction,
Return, for I have given this Land unto you and your seed
As an Eternal monument to My Greatness forever and never again,
As long as the peoples of the Earth shall live, shall you be asked to go hence or
relinquish it.”
23
And I have said unto the other Nations of the Earth,
“Relent, lest a terrible burning overtake you as well.
Retreat from your stiff-neckedness and self-importance,
Lest the anger of the Lord fall upon you, making you the Holocaust you have
attempted to make or have made of others.
Fling open the gates of Jerusalem and spread tidings of great joy
from city to city around the World,
For I have given this Land as a first-fruit to the People of Israel, My firstborn,
and all of you know this,
For you pray about it in your Churches, Mosques, and Tabernacles every day.”
24
And I say unto one of your shepherds in Rome, “Be humble and be not arrogant.
Read the Scriptures which you claim to follow by ''tasting My body and blood'' in
your services around the World every day;
For you are not the hand of God on Earth — though you claim to be —
But merely one of His many appendages. So believe in My prophecies and
be meek,
Be flexible lest the fate of the Roman Empire — whose extension you are —
Fall upon you as well, lest your very sanctuary in Rome be reduced to cinder
and ash;
And give unbegrudgingly to My people, the Jews, whom you know and have
persecuted for so long
And return My Holy City, Jerusalem, to them whose inheritance it rightfully is.”
25
And I say unto you Arabs, the Sons of Ishmael, Esau, and Ham,
“Be calm. Let your tempestuousness subside, Lest you, too, be effaced from off the
Earth,
For you are only the Servants of your brother Israel and your half-brother Isaac.
To them has gone the blessing and to you all the rest — and lest you wish more
Of the curse than you have already drunk so deeply of these many centuries,
Be generous to and magnanimous towards them, be gentle and protect them
As, indeed, being older and stronger by far you should;
For I have given the Land unto them as an Eternal resting place for My Glory forever.
To them, I have given the stones, the hills, and the religious places — and to you,
all the rest,
All the seas of the desert, under which lie such vast pools of oil and such wealth —
and the other Lands,
For Ishmael shall indeed be a great Nation and the father of many princes,
But you must put aside your anger, your pride — your venom at these your younger
brothers
Who have been chastened in the fires of affliction and annealed in the furnaces of
destruction,
Work with them, cooperate with them, for only through their hand and their blessing
Will I allow your land to blossom, your wilderness to bloom, your wastelands to regain
their fertility.
They are your charge and your legacy to protect but only through their inheritance
will you be blessed —
Indeed, you shall once again become a mighty People but only through their blessing
will yours also be fertilized;
So cherish them, keep them, turn the anger in your hearts away from them, and
put it to more constructive use.”
26
And you too, you Peoples of the Earth,
"Prepare yourselves for the wonderful ''Day of the Lord'', foretold in the Books of the
Prophets,
Perverted and turned away from, held back from and postponed, has finally arrived.
Prepare yourselves, all Nations and Peoples of the World, to come up to the Temple
of the Lord, My Sanctuary, in Jerusalem,
Kept and guarded by My People Israel, who shall once more become a Holy
People — a People of Priests.
Come up to Jerusalem," for the Messianic Age of the Peoples of the Universe has
at last begun.
By the thickness of a single thread, by the wideness of "the eye of a needle" —
A new Eternity, a new Era, a New Age of Man has been ushered in and all Peoples
shall benefit from it.
27
So come in great planeloads and shiploads,
And climb up the Holy Mountain to the High Hill of the Lord in Jerusalem
Where, as a sign of My future uninterrupted presence there, I have established
My People Israel.
For I have gathered them up from all the corners of the Earth and said to My Holy
seed,
“Return, return from the East, return from the West, return from the South. To
the North I have said, hold not back —
I have taken My seed up from Asia, Africa, Europe, and America — first by ones,
twos, and threes,
Then in busloads and shiploads, and finally as one great torrent and flood" —
That remnant promised so long ago in Ezekiel — the one-third who were to survive.
"So come up, all you Peoples of the Earth," to the Mountain of the Lord in Jerusalem
and to His Holy Temple,
"For I have chased the Syrians all the way back to Damascus and there is no longer
any doubt
That the Messianic Era has begun” — it is the Lord of Hosts who speaks.
28
The Lord reached out with a strong right arm in the early morning light
And removed all their aircraft from their runways right before their still sleep-filled
eyes.
With one sweep of His powerful right arm, He has confounded them
And wiped their empty new airplanes off their runways in cities and towns around
the whole of the Arab world,
Leaving them bewildered and helpless, dazzled and bereft.
Know you the terrible anger of the Lord God and feel his powerful concussions,
The rolling pinpoint explosions of His strong right arm —
And behind them, He has sent His armor over the desert
And caught them in their stupor, annihilating them —
Tanks, half-tracks, jeeps, and vans — taxis, buses, and men,
The soldiers of the Army of the Lord of Hosts have poured across the desert
And delivered the final blow of His overwhelming might.
While with His left hand, He removed the ramparts of the Holy City of Jerusalem
And the soldiers of the Lord God of Hosts have stormed the crumbling walls of
the ancient Temple.
And He has flung open the gates of His Holy City to His People and bid them,
once again, “Enter.”
29
After two thousand years of suffering and endless wandering,
With a single sweep of His powerful right arm, the Lord removed all the air forces of
their enemies from before His People.
In successive waves of attack, like winged Cherubim out of the past — Mirages,
Fougas, and Mysteres —
In the space of three hours at twenty-five different airbases around the whole of
the Arab World —
At Cairo, Alexandria, Amman, and Jerusalem, Damascus, Suez, El Arish, and Aswan,
At Homs, Aleppo, Mosul, and Baghdad, the Lord confounded them and left them
helpless,
Breaking their machines of war before their very eyes, flinging them down,
Like so many match sticks, in twisted piles of metal along the sides of runways,
Sweeping the unused rows of empty jet aircraft aside, leaving nothing but little oil pools
and mounds of twisted tubing.
30
The Lord with one sweep of His powerful right hand has left them helpless and
agape —
As the Angel of Death passed over all the houses of the Israelites in the night
Leaving their firstborn alive and happy, only striking the firstborn of the children of the
Egyptians;
The Lord wiped away their armor and their air-shields and they who would have
abolished Israel,
Annihilating her People, leaving her towns empty and as waste places,
Have themselves been ruined and left defenceless, their armies lost in the drifting
sands and stones of the desert forever.
31
So let this be a lesson to all who hate Israel and presume to raise their voices
Against the Lord’s Holy People, attempting to strike down her armies —
As the Lord lifted His right arm and stretched it over the Red Sea, parting the waters
To allow the Children of Israel to pass through dry-shod, then bringing the water back
again
To overwhelm the charioteers of Pharaoh, drowning them in a watery grave;
So too, in the early morning light as they stared incredulously,
Did He remove the rows of their empty new jet aircraft right in front of their still
sleep-filled eyes,
Piling them up in little heaps of twisted metal and oil slicks
Along the sides of runways around the whole of the Arab World.
So let this be a lesson to all who would pursue and persecute the Children of Israel,
Lifting up their voices against His almighty will and planting themselves stiff-necked
against His inexorable desire.
For He has chased the Syrians all the way back to Damascus
And there is no longer any doubt that the most Marvelous Era has begun.
32
Horse and horseman has He thrown down in the desert,
Tankman and tankcrew alone in the desert where He caused them to be overthrown.
See them there, straggling in search of water, desperate bands stretched out across
Sinai,
Strung out over the deserted waste in long lines, their mouths parched, their wounds
gangrenous, their feet shredded and torn,
Because they dared stand in the face of the will of the Lord of Hosts.
Steeped in arrogance, their minds clouded by delusion and ignorance,
Groping towards any shrieking chimera — in the poverty and misery of their daily
existence,
To relieve the pent-up anger of their shallow lives, any overweening presumption.
In their blindness and bewilderment, they dared stand in the face of the Lord God
of Hosts.
In the bottomless pit of their egos, fed by spite, disillusionment, frustration, and terror,
To grasp the few sweet straws of existence proffered to them as an enticement by
their rulers,
They dared stand in the face of the Lord God of Hosts —
So has He overthrown them — as He shall all the enemies of His Divine will.
33
The Lord is a mighty and great warrior. Armies and tank corps,
Jet fighter bombers and radar nets, does He overthrow in His fury.
The Lord’s anger is very swift — it is like a white-hot fire on a blistering heat-filled day.
The Lord’s burning rage seared them into dumbness, their limbs into blackness.
In His rage He has consumed them; in His rage He caused His fire to fall upon them,
In His rage He has left them blind and forlorn, stumbling over the sand,
In His rage has He overthrown them — the armies of Egypt.
He has overthrown Pharaoh and his mighty hordes in the wilderness of Sinai
And left only a remnant of them, alone and tottering in the desert, dying of thirst
and seven-days’ sun-glare.
The Lord has thrown them down in Syria too and chased their broken armies —
The sons of Aram and Hazael — all the way back to Damascus.
He has sent the sons of Edom and the Moabites back over the Jordan to Amman
And left the armies of the Israelites standing alone and sentinel along its banks.
He has overthrown their bridgeheads so that none may return and, once more,
Broken through the walls of Jericho, scattering its inhabitants.
The Lord is a brigade of mechanized infantry, a mighty armored column,
A squadron of Fouga Meisters. The Lord is a Katyusha rocket battery —
Horse and horseman has He overthrown in the desert, tank and tankman,
Tank-crew and tank column, to once more reaffirm His will to the rest of the World.
34
The Lord is a mighty vengeance-taker full of rage — He has left them alone in the
desert.
Their shoes have they cast aside. See them there, their starved remnants
Staggering with parched-dry mouths, tired and bruised with bleeding feet,
To roam the rocks and sand of Sinai until they die of hallucination and thirst
Or are driven into insanity by the searing heat of His white-hot anger.
The Lord is a mighty warrior —
Horseman and charioteer has He overthrown in the desert,
Leaving them toothless and agape, dazzled and astonished at the burning fire of
His blistering Wrath.
35
They are straggling in the desert, their flesh is burned and their mouths are parched,
They are alone and lost without water,
Wandering the endless mountain passes and rocks — away from the road
Where they drop from starvation, exhaustion, and seven-days’ thirst.
Their bodies are lost and their bones, picked clean by vultures and worms,
Are bleaching in the sun forever, where first He delivered His Law in Sinai,
His Commandments to the rest of the World — because they have made Him,
the Lord, very angry.
June 7th-11th, 1967 —New York
(Here are the links to the two pieces that preceded this: "Words wrtten after the UN Security Council Debates, May 24th, 1967 — a Reminder" and "Six-Day War Poems Continued — The Tiran Crisis, May 14th-June 5th, 1967": http://blogs.jpost.com/content/words-written-after-un-security-council-debate-may-24th-1967-reminder and http://blogs.jpost.com/content/six-day-war-poems-continued-tiran-crisis. They are also to be found in my collection of "Anti-Beat Travel Poetry": THE NEW JERUSALEM: A Poetic/Prophetic Travel Diario, 1959-62 with An Afterword on the Six-Day War, April-June, 1967, which can also now be found on the following link on ScribeD: http://www.scribd.com/doc/126290438/The-New-Jerusalem-A-Poetic-Prophetic-Travel-Diario-1959-62-with-An-Afterword-on-the-6-Day-War-April-June-1967)