THE STAGES OF LOVE

by Albert Russo

Won an Honorable Mention in the 4th Annual Writer's Digest
Poetry Awards

diaphanous blue
cloven by the Eiffel Tower
in your virgin space

a veil of dust
draping my body
the sound of your breath

velo di polvere
vestendo il mio corpo
il tuo respiro

iridescent dot
sucked into a chalice
flower tongues ladybug

the moment your lips meet
you can kiss friendship goodbye
the flesh takes over

bocca a bocca
non è più amicizia
la carne vince

skin against skin
and the magic operates
till the cells rebel

the difference between
a sex maniac and a lover
body temperature

la differenza tra
maniaco ed amante
temperatura

beware dear lovers
passion is a clash of wills
bound to implode

he fell in love with her,
but she looked elsewhere, smitten,
his heart a gaping wound

s'innamoro di lei
senza rendersi conto
solitudine

YOU SHALL MARK MY WORDS
by Albert Russo

I, Yeshua ben Yosef, son of our beloved Myriam,
turn to you who have forsaken and betrayed me,
you who claim to be such good Christians,
all the while you have tried to erase the Jew in me,
you have done that on all six continents,
and many of you are still doing it, unashamedly,
either out of habit or out of sheer ignorance,
for let it be known, now and forever:
the enemy of my People is my enemy

2000 years have passed before a pope
has asked for forgiveness
It is never too late, you will say
it may not be too late for your children
or for the generations to come,
but it is far too late for the countless brothers and sisters
who were chased, tortured and murdered
by the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitors
it is far too late for the tens of thousands of brothers and sisters
who were persecuted and killed
during the Russian and the Polish pogroms
it is far too late for all those millions of brothers and sisters
who were treated like animals, tormented then gassed
by the nazis, who thus perpetrated history's most diabolic crime
as it is much too late for the numerous refugees whom the Allies
turned away during WWII, as they desperately
sought a haven on their shores
Was then Jewish life, as a French neo-fascist still insists today,
just a mere detail, too negligible to consider?
It appeared so

I have always maintained that I was the son of man,
as is every Jew who is made in the image of his Creator
yet, you have declared that I was the Son of God
in reality, I was a simple man who loved his neighbor
as much as he despised the profiteers and the hypocrites,
and like a rabbi, I would praise the Lord every Shabbat
at the synagogue, the synagogue which you converted into a church,
though it had never been my intention to transform the House of God,
a man who celebrated the holy days
of Pessah, of Rosh Ashana and of Kippur,
the definitions of which you should go and relearn

So few of you remember what the Christian New Year means:
the date of my circumcision, which like all Jewish baby boys
is performed eight days after birth - Christmas, in my case
Had I, as your messiah, returned to earth between 1940 and 1945,
I would have been sent directly to a nazi concentration camp,
after the humiliating stripping of my clothes and the exhibition of my manhood;
would you or the pope have recognized me then, amid the horrors of war?

It was the Romans who crucified me
yet you persisted in accusing my People
as if humans could actually kill God!

Call me by my name, which, I repeat, is Yeshua,
a name you have translated into Jesus,
like the Torah, which is at the root and heart of Christian civilization,
if that is an old testament, then what are the Gospels
supposed to be? A confabulation, a plagiary?
Traduttore, traditore, as the Italian saying goes,
like all the words you have put in my mouth,
distorting some of them from their original meaning

I shall forgive you, poor sinners, yes, I shall forgive you,
the day you will love me in all sincerity,
the day you will love my People as much as yourselves
Remember the Just , who, throughout the centuries -
they were the best of Christians, of Muslims, of Hindus and of Buddhists,
the best of animists, of agnostics and of atheists,
indeed they were my blood brothers and my blood sisters -,
so often risked their own lives to save their Jewish neighbors
from the claws of their torturers, they acted out of love,
out of compassion, for every human being is made
in the image of his and her Creator,
with the free will to become good or evil,
just like Abel and Cain

HISTORY AS JUST ANOTHER BAD DREAM
by Albert Russo

When you lose a fellowman in Darfur
and see your sister being raped
by a horde of Jenjaweed
and have to lie down, soaked in the blood
of your neighbor, pretending you are dead,

When you remember the scene
of crushed skulls, buzzing with green flies
in the hills of Rwanda a few years ago,

When you wake up in a sweat
reliving Pol Pot's mass killings in Cambodia -
When was that again, the 70's, 1870,
1070, or the year 70?
When the hell did all of this happen?
does it really truly matter?

you wonder whether the fact that you are still alive
is another quirky twist of fate.

Listen to that homunculus president of Iran
asserting that the holocaust is a hoax,
promising that he will wipe out the State of Israel.

Listen to those neo-nazis in Russia and in the US
for whom black is still and always the color of doom
and gypsies ought to be sent back to the gas chambers
along with the gays and, who else, the Jews, of course.

Listen to Radio Maria and its archbishop, Archantisemite,
blaming everything on the 'Yids', when Poland,
which numbered 3.5 million of them before WWII,
has only Auschwitz left to remind him of their past existence,
it is now their ghosts he cannot suffer,
he who purports to represent Christ on earth
and who idolizes the Virgin Mary, both terribly terribly Jewish.

And what about the 5 million Congolese who died
either of famine, of disease or of torture in the last 4 years?
Yes, what about them? Where the hell are the reporters?

Selective memory seems to be the curse of the day,
and who ever said History has come to an end?
No it has not, it is the reflection of our darkest soul
and we want to bury it along with all the Auschwitzes we have erected,
so that we can build new ones without remorse.

literary websites: www.albertrusso.eu - www.albertrusso.com www.authorsden.com/albertrusso

biografia:

Albert Russo who has published worldwide over 55 books of poetry, fiction and photography, in English and in French, his two mother-tongues, is the recipient of many awards, such as The American Society of Writers Fiction Award, The British Diversity Short Story Award, several New York Poetry Forum Awards, Amelia Prose and Poetry awards and the Prix Colette, among others. His work has been translated into a dozen languages, including German, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Turkish, Bengali and Polish, and broadcast by the World Service of the BBC, publishing on the five continents, in 22 countries. He has also garnered several prizes for his photography books, Indie Excellence awards, among others. He was also a member of the 1996 jury for the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature which often leads to the Nobel Prize of Literature.

Visit his three literary websites: www.albertrusso.eu, www.albertrusso.com
and www.authorsden.com/albertrusso

albert.russo@orange.fr