This is the continuation of the poems I promised in my piece two weeks ago: "Words written after the UN Security Council Debate, May 24th, 1967 (a reminder)" (http://blogs.jpost.com/content/words-written-after-un-security-council-debate-may-24th-1967-reminder), beginning April 14th,1967 with "The Tiran Crisis" and ending with the one dedicated to Orde Wingate on June 6th, 1967, the day after the ourtbreak of the War (which I also published on "The Eisenman Line" about two years ago in the Third Part of my "Did the British Kill Orde Wingate" - http://blogs.jpost.com/content/orde-wingate-bibliography-and-poem).
I reproduce these next few poems from April 14th-June 6th, 1967 exactly as I wrote them then 45 years ago (no changes - no emendations). As the reader may recall, I also promised a Third and Concluding Part, which I hope and trust will be the climax, because it is some 20 stanzas long and could be entitled "Six Day War Triumph Poems", but I rather called it: "The New Passover - Horse and Rider has the Lord Overthrown in the Desert (A New Song of Miriam), June 7th-11th, 1967."
Please wait for that one, "Part III -The Conclusion", because I hope and promise you will not be disappointed as I still am not disappointed today; but in the meantime I hope you will enjoy the following (they are all, also, to be found in in my collection of "Anti-Beat Travel Poetry": The New Jerusalem: A Millennium Prophetic/Poetic Travel Diario, 1959-62, with An Afterword on The Six-Day War, April-June, 1967, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, Ca, 2007, pp. 455-472):
April 14th, 1967 — The Tiran Crisis
I saw two children playing today
And one was making the other’s
passage impossible —
Challenging him, confronting him,
Barring him, and then running after
him.
Is this not then the plight of the Jew
throughout the centuries —
Everyone running after him,
Challenging him, confronting him,
And then running after him again?
May 26th, 1967:
The forces of the world are roaring down the tracks
like railroad trains.
There is no escaping them; they are tearing down
their respective lines.
They are massing out of the East, the other side of
the world —
And where do you stand America? You stand
nowhere.
It is not a question of rights of passage or the Straits
of Tiran or of this or that ploy.
The question is whether you are going to stop them
Or whether you are not going to stop them —
And they are all together in this — make no mistake
about that
Or allow yourselves to be deceived; for, in time,
They will all be coming to eradicate your world —
To be sure, there is nothing so marvelous about
your world,
Nothing that should cause one to wish to save it,
But the problems that exist in it are all internal and
soluble,
If the proper attention were paid to them — which it is
not.
But the problems they are bringing in their wake are
insoluble
And will mean the end of Western Civilization as
you know it
And a return to the blood-chilling and barbaric
cruelty of the past,
Where all modern conveniences — all jet planes,
ocean-going transport,
And new means of computation and
communication —
Will simply be tools at their disposal (or yours),
Instruments behind which lies the face of man itself,
To use as they (or you) choose or see fit.
This is the problem in the world today
And this is the reason why all these forces are
completely out of control —
And, in such a world, this is also why, America,
In the end, you will have to face them
Or be swept away like all the rest — your
predecessors.
To America — May 26th, 1967:
And do you think you are in any different position
than Israel?
Do you think that after they do away with Israel,
They will not be in a position to do the same to you?
Don’t you think that one day you will be in the same
position as she?
Do you think that after they are done with her, they
will not, then, turn to you?
And that you, too, will then be surrounded by the
masses of the Peoples of the Earth —
From Russia, China, the Arab World, Africa —
And don’t you think one day they will cut off your oil,
Anyhow, when they see how easily it can be done?
And who do you think will come to rescue you then?
Do you not think that you, too, will then be alone —
And who will come to your aid and stand by your
side?
Therefore, I say unto you, stand by her now and help
her
For she is but a miniature embodiment of you —
Alone in an uncharted and unfriendly sea —
If ever you wish to avoid the same circumstance
yourself.
June 5th, 1967 — On the Israeli Invasion: The
Outbreak of the War
Fight, you bastards, fight like Hell,
For we are avenging the wrong done us
Twenty centuries ago at the hands of the Romans —
For without that wrong, there would have been no
such thing as “Christianity,”
There would have been no “Islam” —
Nor would there ever have been such a thing as “the
Arab Empire.”
Fight, you bastards, fight like Hell,
For we are making a new beginning —
We are doing the impossible and showing the world it
can be done —
Just twenty years after coming out of the
Concentration Camps —
And now, turning back the hands of time.
Fight, you bastards, fight like Hell,
For you are avenging your brothers and the defeat
They suffered at the hands of the Roman Empire —
A defeat that never should have been,
A defeat they suffered only because the other was
too strong;
And you are avenging the gas chambers —
The final effect of that defeat Twenty Centuries later.
Fight, you bastards, fight like Hell,
For we are sorry it has to be at the expense of our
Arab Brethren,
But they are so inflamed by their own excitability,
Childishly indulged by the Western Powers into
thinking themselves indispensable —
So intoxicated by the thought of their own
importance,
So infatuated by the idea of their own
magnificence —
Which never would have been except for our
expulsion
And the total inability of the West to deal with the
Middle East.
Whoever heard of a “World of Harb” and a “World of
Islam” —
Whoever heard of land once conquered that could
never be relinquished?
This is not a religious norm, this is not a rational
imperative,
This is but a conceit, a pride — this is Hubris.
So fight, my brothers, fight like Hell,
For Israel must put his wild brother Esau under
control.
This is the prophecy —
“Israel must put his unruly Brother under control.”
To Orde Wingate — June 6th, 1967
Orde Wingate, this is your day —
It is you who foresaw what we could become,
It is you who foresaw the tremendous fighting
strength latent in a Jewish Army;
And it is you who wished to lead us before your life
was cut short.
But never fear, you are with us, you are leading us;
And perhaps it is better this way —
May God forgive me for having uttered those
words —
Through the brave fighting men you prepared,
Through the men you trained, even at our Command.
Thank you, Orde Wingate, for we owe a great debt
to you.