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The Spirit of Ethel
Contributed by
hautebush
on
Tuesday, 28th March 2006 @ 12:39:19 PM in AEST
Topic:
mystical
|
the Rosenberg’s were executed
two days before I was born
when my watermelon mother pushed
me out my first summer morn
I have mused
I am imbued
with
the spirit of Ethel
the midwife slapped my scrawny buttocks
made me toothless scream
the waterballoon mother counted my toes
Ethel, did you rush in and fill up my skin?
From whence comes this fierce loyalty?
“oh, Julius I will die for thee”
he was a two bit
a counterfeit
spy
a green glass seeking autonomy
seeking atomic
seeking money
yet you loved him like a schoolgirl
semitic and heavy
sucked in two to his philo-sophy
statesmen called you “commie”
I will not plod to my ending behind a doofus patsy man
I aim for greater, shoot for better on my own
terms
I rise again
Oh Ethel, what would you tell me
if the two of us could chat?
on some level I have your knowing
in myself
you made sure of that
how did your spirit fly to Texas
summer solstice ‘53?
from all the wee ones coming into land that day
how did you decide on me?
I laud you for your allegiance
for your feckless legionry
Help me, Ethel
why should I douse the flames
of the fire you lit in me?
Oppenheimer had a secret
a bloody method to end the war
your foolhardy husband sought to sell it
to grab some cash to fund his store
your photo enters my minds vivid eye
curly black haired laughing girl
so in love come later so glum
if I could only hear your voice
all the books I’ve read
said
you were a singer
a bit of a big band swinger
a stupid Jello wrapper
insignificant piece of trash
brought the spying to its end
laughable hard evidence
Julius was a nebbish
weak milquetoast hard of head
a ball less tot playing hardball in a big boys nuclear spread
you walked along behind him
kissed him through the iron mesh paddy wagon wall
shackled ankle to foot chained like a slave
fodder for newshounds
scapegoat for the masquerade of the decade
poster child for that godless agenda
“She is a threat to the American way.”
you left behind your sons
Ethel, was it worth it?
Ethel, what would you have become?
your choice fixed your wagon
by and by you fried
in electric furnace hot flame
as ladies first your head burst
then gentleman Julius sat in that Ethel warmed chair
but unlike you, he kept his hair
there is sadness inexpressible at times as life goes on
there is joy to match that sorrow and a airplane hangar load of sweet love songs
the path you took to immortality germinated in Einstein’s mind
graphite black uranium stack would ignite excite and split a particle in two
the quantum remains are the remnants of you
an unknowable atom broken in half
a thing never dies but clones and inhabits and does not disband
the science is beyond me, but your spirit I understand
Thanks for living in me, Ethel
I pledge I will not let you expire
Oh Ethel, fill me
with the flame
of your inextinguishable fire.
Hautebush November 29, 2005
Copyright ©
hautebush
... [
2006-03-28 12:39:19]
(Date/Time posted on
site)
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Re: The Spirit of Ethel
(User Rating: 1 )
by SmileSkinDeep on
Tuesday, 28th March 2006 @ 09:16:22 PM AEST
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a Message)
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good write i expecially liked the very last stanza...it ended the poem well
~April |
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Re: The Spirit of Ethel
(User Rating: 1 )
by Silent-No-More on
Wednesday, 29th March 2006 @ 01:34:14 AM AEST
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I'm about to cluttter up your comment section... (do forgive me for doing so)...
"It was a queer, sultry summer, this summer they eloctorcuted the Rosenbergs, and I know what I was doing in New York. I'm stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to read about in the papers - goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.
I thought it must be the worst thing in the world."
So opens Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Her telling of it always struck me. Sylvia is a favorite of mine (even saying it that way seems a bit odd and I'll guess you'd understand what I mean by that). You'll find her in my poetry much in the same way I found Ethel here... which is to say, by more than name alone.
I applaud this, poet. Although Sylvia said the execution had nothing to do with her - anyone who reads her closely would understand that it most certainly did. I see here (if I may so bold as to say so), what it 'has to do with you' and can relate in so much as the words excerpted above, made it somehow about me as well. That's the value of writing, of poetry, I think... the experience, the moment, becomes both the writer's and the reader's... it is at one universal and insanely individual - and this felt very much that way to me.
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to YPDC!!!!!!! I look forward to reading more of your work! And for the record, I'm not usually SO longwinded - but there was much to sink my teeth into here and I couldn't resist doing so. Trust me when I tell you... this then, would be the condensed version of my thoughts here. : )
Delighted to have stopped by your page,
~Snemmy
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Re: The Spirit of Ethel
(User Rating: 1 )
by assassinatorgirl on
Friday, 7th April 2006 @ 03:25:55 PM AEST
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| *speechless* that was awesome! *sits there with my mouth hanging open* |
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