Scarlet Flower
The East is Red at the Great Wall.
My heart and soul yearningly-long
For my Scarlet Flower all day long
My love is magenta blood
It burns with crimson flames.
Scarlet, my beautiful beloved
Your dark almond eyes
Glow in tender purity and passion
With balmy warmth and devotion.
And we walk around ancient Xi’an
Kuomintang General Chiang Kai-shek
Was captured here in nineteen thirty six
At the foot of the Hills of Lishan.
Now the camera has another film roll
And you pose for the picture where long ago
Tang Emperor Xuanzong’s concubine
Lady Yang Guifei used to stroll.
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poem by Paul Hartal
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The Chestnut Tree (For Anne Frank)
On a winter morning
you climbed the ladder to the attic with Peter.
He chopped wood for about a quarter of an hour
and you watched him silently.
Then you looked out
from the open window
and marvelled at the stunning views of the city,
the roofs, the streets and the canals of Amsterdam.
An azure sky curved down
kissing a pale blue horizon
and white seagulls with outstretched wings
were gliding on the wind.
Standing bare in the inner garden
Shiny silver drops perched on the branches
Of the lonely chestnut tree
near the house at Keizersgracht 188.
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poem by Paul Hartal
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Whose Life is Worth More?
'Whose life is worth more? ' the SS officer asked.
Jacob Kogen did not answer.
In the eerie silence that ensued
the SS man drew his pistol.
'Tell me', he said, playing with the weapon,
'Whose life is worth more?
Yours? Your wife's? Your children's,
or the life of a stranger? '
'All human lives are equal', Kogen replied.
'You mean the life of a Jew and a non-Jew
has the same value? ' the SS officer asked.
'God created all human beings
equally entitled to their lives', Kogen said.
'In that case you will provide me 7,000 Jews',
the SS man said.
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poem by Paul Hartal
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Nurse in Evergreen of Absence
My nurse, my blessed nurse
In evergreen of absence
You breast-fed me, nurtured me
But now my confidence is shaken
My tranquillity vanished, taken.
I extend my arms toward you
Please, lift me up, hold me tight
Yet you just stand in the square
As I cry and weep to no avail
No matter how much I kick the air
I beg: Lift me up, hold me right
All in vain, a rope of sand
You are firm, ignore my plight.
I cry and scream and kick in rage
Still undeterred you stand your place
But now why rivers of tears pour down
From your eyes over your face?
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poem by Paul Hartal
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Angel in Transit
I arrived at the airport under dark
Overcast skies. I had a night flight to catch
From Amsterdam to Budapest.
And as I waited
Through the small hours,
The Schiphol Airport
Became quite deserted.
I felt lonely and sad.
My wife just died
And I was depressed.
I waited for my plane
In an almost empty waiting room
When suddenly, to my great surprise,
A pretty young woman seated herself
Next to my chair.
I found this rather strange
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poem by Paul Hartal
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Absurd Breast Cancer Prevention
“Surgical removal of the breasts before any sign
of cancer is one way to significantly lower the risk.”
Journal of Clinical Oncology, March 15,2005
'Changing Your Lifestyle Can Change Your Genes...
genes are not your destiny', Dean Ornish, M.D.,
Newsweek, June 17,2008
She is scared to death, so what is the answer?
Tell me doctor, please, advise her while she is healthy,
For she is statistically at a high risk of becoming ill
And afraid to contract the dreadful breast cancer.
Cut her healthy breasts, remove all hale tissue,
The good surgeon tells her, with assurance insists
That the operation solves the problem, reduces the risk
To zero, and so cancer is no longer the issue.
But the injudicious medical counsel fails to inform her
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poem by Paul Hartal
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The Silence Of Love
You talk not about your love,
For the greatest love
May envelop itself
In a lacy veil of serene secrecy.
You talk not about your love
Just look into my eyes
Silently, long
While the time resounds
And then recedes slowly
To distant shores of indigo seas
In my soul.
The wind carries quietly the clouds
No sound shatters the still of zephyr.
You talk not about your love
Only the heart throbs loudly.
Do you hear it?
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poem by Paul Hartal
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Sailing in Sinbad's Uncharted Sea
Probing the stars and the cosmos
With science, poetry and art
We expand constantly further and farther,
Exploring the shores of the unplumbed.
We are space travelers
in an endless imaginary universe and
in many ways our journeys are not unlike
the fantastic voyages of Sinbad the Sailor
throughout the enchanted Seven Seas.
Sailing the stormy oceans
of the boundless unknown
we travel in brassy ships loaded
with the heavy cargoes of refined words,
elegant forms and amorphous ideas.
Yet even the most precise tool
in our arsenal, Mathematics,
turns to be a social construct:
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poem by Paul Hartal
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Valentine Day
Six hundred and fifty six days passed
Since my wife left this world
And I still miss her dearly
For my love of her will never end.
Now she rests in a beloved land
In a remote grave
Surrounded by yellow sand,
Beyond dark mountains
And deep waters of the seas.
I am thousands of miles away from her,
In a distant city.
Crying over her pillow on the empty bed
I can embrace only her sacred memory.
Yet by her grace,
She visits me sometimes in my dreams
As the frosty wind weeps and sweeps
Through the white nights of deserted streets.
Now on Valentine Day
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poem by Paul Hartal
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The Mix-Up
One winter morning
Upon awakening from a long night sleep
All characters got mixed up with their authors
Including Pinocchio
Who could not decide what was real:
Had he dreamt of being Carlo Collodi
Or was it that Carlo Collodi was dreaming
Of being Pinocchio?
This occurred long after
Upon awakening from a long night sleep
Zhuang Zi woke up from his dream
And was at a loss to figure out
How real was real and asked:
Had he dreamt of being a butterfly
Or was it rather that a butterfly
Was dreaming of being Zhuang Zi?
The next day
As she woke up from a long night sleep
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poem by Paul Hartal
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