The Refugee

I am a refugee now I am running like mad across a frosty green Poland My head in a sack And the blood in my brain screaming "How did this happen?" And "Where am I now?" Who is so blue in this freeze Who is so grey with the history Rain dancing all on my face without mercy And the muscles relax And I just have to laugh Through the loose teeth and tissue The symphony builds under your boot And the horns drool in harmony Dancers all swoon This is my bloody tune My last gasp of the past My thorn in the side of the violence of time I won't scream, I won't writhe I am laughing and burning alive Like a thornbush That grew in the hot countryside Now the fire is high And I am not consumed Yes, this is the room This is the old song from memory This is the sound of the Jew Who refuses to die April 4th, 1944 I recall my old address no more I live day to day on the glossy dancefloor Of a wide countryside full of disappeared people I sleep in the churches Eat grass like a goat The calendar hangs on the wall of my memory My name is inscribed up the sleeve of my coat Here I am Take this document with you The lines that I wrote as I bled through the night In a strange rusted land I have ripped the page out It is here in my hand Here I am Person of the book But I have lost my page like so many others I am left to inscribe my own name On a torn one We will have a new book scattered far Across the expanses The scrapbook of signatures scrawled In forgotten, lost diaries Texts to recite when time's bloody boot Dances and kicks in the bone of our chest Like soft earth And our ancient hoarse voices Will echo in song And resound off the curve of a high stony ceiling The curve of the arch From our death to our birth