The Alphabet Poem by Karl Shapiro

The Alphabet

Rating: 3.1


The letters of the Jews as strict as flames
Or little terrible flowers lean
Stubbornly upwards through the perfect ages,
Singing through solid stone the sacred names.
The letters of the Jews are black and clean
And lie in chain-line over Christian pages.
The chosen letters bristle like barbed wire
That hedge the flesh of man,
Twisting and tightening the book that warns.
These words, this burning bush, this flickering pyre
Unsacrifices the bled son of man
Yet plaits his crown of thorns.


Where go the tipsy idols of the Roman
Past synagogues of patient time,
Where go the sisters of the Gothic rose,
Where go the blue eyes of the Polish women
Past the almost natural crime,
Past the still speaking embers of ghettos,
There rise the tinder flowers of the Jews.
The letters of the Jews are dancing knives
That carve the heart of darkness seven ways.
These are the letters that all men refuse
And will refuse until the king arrives
And will refuse until the death of time
And all is rolled back in the book of days.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Susan Williams 07 August 2016

There is a edgy beauty in these lines- -the silhouette of the Jew has moved across every age of man, he has been the chosen tribe of God, he has been the protector of culture, the shepherd of the hills, the downtrodden, the despised, the persecuted, the murdered.... I like this poem very much for standing up for his heritage.

3 0 Reply
Edward Kofi Louis 07 August 2016

This burning bush of life! Thanks for sharing this poem with us.

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Karl Shapiro

Karl Shapiro

Baltimore, Maryland
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