Venice Poem by gershon hepner

To prejudice pride
has to make a low bow;
when mercy’s denied
it is time to kowtow.
Here mercy that falls
as gentle as rain
won’t dropp within walls
where Jews suffer pain,
and tables by Portia
are priggishly turned,
till, weighed down by nausea,
the case is adjourned.
Sore spirit’s excised
by the pound from the Jew,
despised and incised
and then turned like a screw,
the pound-of-flesh malice
requited with hate
within the cold palace
where Jews have no weight.