ULLASTRATH <br />(THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY) <br /> <br />Here upon the Boyne’s <br />battlefield...a butterfly <br />moves through history <br />fluttering from death to death <br />as from flower to flower. <br /> <br />******* <br /> <br /> <br />In the corner of <br />this foreign field the dead – <br />go on dying their undying death <br />a breath of air snaps <br />flags to attention crosses to the horizon. <br /> <br /> <br />******* <br /> <br />WHAT HAS HAPPENED <br /> <br />The train & the heat <br />all the noise the confusion <br />the people’s faces <br />what can’t be grasped here: <br />now –the train...stops at Auschwitz. <br /> <br />******* <br /> <br />SHACHOR SHACHAR <br />(BLACK DAWN) <br /> <br />Officers request <br />the old nostalgic tunes <br />that bring to mind stars <br />over Germany yellow stars. <br /> <br />Orchestra plays Death’s Tango. <br /> <br /> <br />******* <br /> <br />* 'Heimat, deine sterne'(“Stars Of My Homeland”) popular during and after the Reich. SS officers requested it of the Auschwitz orchestra. <br />The sentimental and the savage bound surreally together. <br /> <br />** The infamous 'TODESTANGO' <br /> (an actual recording exists!) was based non the pre-war tango hit by the Argentinean Eduardo Bianco who as it happened entertained Mr. Hitler and Mr. Goebbels in 1939. <br /> <br />At Janowska camp near Lvov it took on its cruel grotesque meaning.<br /><br />Dónall Dempsey<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shachor-shachar-black-dawn-tankas/
