Psalm for Kenneth Salzmann

What is it about our conditioning

that moves us to hate the weak

and ugly? What stories were we told

of beautiful riders and delicate girls

to make us persecutors of the lame,

the coarse, and the broken?

—Leonard Cohen, A Ballet of Lepers

Have mercy on the man

upon the bench, whose palms

lie open

for the doves—

this flock that will

adore him

though he has no seed to give.

If we loved as well as they,

he’d live until one-hundred,

teaching us to kiss

the sewer rats, the flies

upon the dung of German

Shepherds,

and even the

Deutsche themselves—

when the Holocaust

was over and the gates

gave up their ash

& living dead;

beating their sour

breasts:

We knew nothing

about it! Davon haben

wir nichts gewusst!

Then tell me

you know of anguish

more than they: oppressor

& oppressed. Gentile,

Ashkenazi. In Hell

there is no difference.

In Heaven

they’ve yet to sing.

Andreas Gripp

May 18, 2025

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