intimacy

by

don’t tread on me….

don't tread on me

now
the old man
knew
that the privacy
of a person’s
holy book
was more
sacred
than
the prophecies
or
prophets
who wrote it
folks
were
more than
willing
to go to war
and
kill others
to protect
the intimacy
of words
from
the divine
and
all
the shared secrets
enclosed within
so
that’s
where
he hid
his gin

by

just a gypsy…

as she passed by in her traditional gypsy skirt
embroidered with sequins and coins
one man created an illusion of intimacy in his mind
while another said
beautiful yes…but she’s a 
  gypsy 
     exiled
     punishment
     harboring 
     jesus
     myth
   nazis
     systematic
     genocide
     concentration camp
     forced labor
     imprisonment
     extermination
     killed on sight
     einsatzgruppen 
     history’s largest
     mass murder
  after war
      assimilation schemes
      restrictions
      cultural freedom
      language
      and
      music
      banned
      labeled
      socially degraded stratum
      women sterilized
      state policy
had they but know her history
or that her love for country was as unconditional
as her beauty
they might have rethought their words
if not
then they are no more than fools
for seeing just a gypsy

Poem inspired by comments from http://jadepaloma.wordpress.com/