Crystal White Night

I look up at the clear racist sky,
and wonder if a lullaby,
‘bout America’s black sheep, cotton and rye
could perpetrate the age-old lie.

And what did a Nazi salute by our young Queen,
on green royal grounds really mean?
On black and white film the Fuhrer was seen,
while men admired and conspired behind the scenes.

In 1933 it wasn’t about Czechs, Poles or Jews,
fascism was the future projected on the news.
An election where people don’t really get to choose,
causes a tidal wave of verbal and violent abuse.

Today messianic maniacs are still covering their faces,
with monstrous masks and white robes in places,
across the Deep South the kuklos embraces,
the supremacy of white among the races.

And was slavery abolished or simply replaced,
by a rotten economy that seeks to disgrace
the unknown untouchables who make up the base,
for the top trumps who have resources to waste?

Not so long ago, on a far away plain,
Ethiopian children were starving in vain.
Famine festers over and over again,
they said it was due to the lack of rain.

But I don’t believe in the maniac’s game,
whenever in time, it’s always the same –
preaching and swearing in God’s holy name,
‘save our country and family from the insane’.

So the pastors and clerics go to the extreme,
talking about Shariah Law in the American dream,
‘defending’ and ‘reclaiming’ are common themes,
but everything in this world is not as it seems.

There is a thin line between fascism and fear,
we watch it play out year after year.
It starts with preserving all that ‘we hold dear’,
and ends with ‘get them the hell out of here!’

It takes me back to Crystal Night,
and Auschwitz’s fires burning bright.
Now the sons of survivors abuse their right,
using their fathers’ revenge to continue the fight.

And was Gaza defense or a show of might
to crush a failed nation’s desperate plight?
For our children there is no solution in sight,
hence peaceful poets must continue to write.

Whether Cambodia, Rwanda, Iraq or at home,
the racist sky covers us all like a dome,
while hi-tech fighter jets, missiles and drones,
are just a new way of throwing stones.

Dan Savery Raz, July 2015