Lithuania by Dan Bern
I'd like to be a good American and write an elegy to
the automobile
But no matter where it takes me I don't really feel any
different
I got one foot in the black and white two dimensional
ghosts of Lithuania
And the other foot in sunny California where the people
are all friendly
As they drive their Mercedes to the mini-malls and take
a lunch
Or network with you or drive past and kill you for no
reason
These are my ghosts: Uncle Emmanuel, Uncle Eli, Aunt
Mia
And my grandparents, Jenny and Tobias, none of whom
I've ever met
I saw some letters once that they wrote to my dad in
Palestine in 1940
Not too long before they all were shot
My only link to them is my dad, he knew them, he knew
me, now he's gone too
Sometimes I want to get next to them, sometimes I want
to drive them all away
Say: You're not my ghosts, I live in Sunny California,
I drive a 1992 Red Chevrolet
I drive fast, and I drive as far west as anyone can
drive
Eight thousand miles from Lithuania and if I could
escape
By driving further then I would, but it doesn't get me
anyplace new
I guess if I was a true American, I could write an
elegy to the automobile
But when I jump in it doesn't get me any place
different
Sometimes I want to dance on Hitler's grave
And shout out: Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce, Leonard
Cohen, Philip Roth,
Bob Dylan, Albert Einstein, Leonard Bernstein, Harry
Houdini, Sandy Kofax!
And then I want to sing as loud as I can
Watch the chandeliers sway dangerously overhead
Proclaiming Kristallnacht is over
I say Kristallnacht is over!
The only broken glass tonight
Will be from wedding glasses shattered under boot heels
We're not the ones in the museum, it's you,
Your curious mustache and your chamber of horrors
I've a friend my age whose parents met in Auschwitz on
the Day of Liberation
She lives in San Francisco, a good job, just moved into
a new house
I've a friend who lies in her hospital bed
After fifteen operations from a botched appendectomy
I go to visit her with a heart heavy from the things on
my mind,
And she cheers me up
I saw my dad tell jokes, and teach me how to laugh,
|
