Walls, by Shelly Blankman

Wall of Remembrance at the U.S. National Holocaust Museum, Washington, by Carol M. Highsmith for Library of Congress. Exact date unknown, late 1900s.

Walls
(dedicated to my grandmother's family and and all the others who were slaughtered in the Nazi concentration camps) 

I’ve walked these halls before,

seen the dimmed faces of those

born to die because they were “Juden.”

Jews.

Time-tattered images of people

frozen in time, matted on walls

like cheap paper.

Flammable. 

Disposable. 

Eyes of the innocent open.

Eyes of the world shut.

Now I’m left wondering,

in a world once again

infested by

parasites of hate, 

if this could ever happen

again.

We cannot forget

those who now live

only on walls. 

Shelly Blankman

Shelly and her husband are empty-nesters who live in Columbia, Maryland with their 4 cat rescues. They have two sons: Richard, 32, of New York, and Joshua, 30, of San Antonio. Her first love has always been poetry, although her career has generally followed the path of public relations/journalism. Shelly's poetry has been published by Silver Birch Press, Whispers, Praxis, Verse-Virtual, Ekphrastic: writing and art on art and writing and Visual Verse.