STEVEN PELCMAN

THE INNISFREE POETRY JOURNAL

Steven Pelcman

UNKNOWN FACES

Pogon, Poland, 2000

In Pogon, on a sunny day in August
58 years ago
Not far from Auschwitz
My mother was screaming
In front of her home,
When windswept away
To the stomping of feet

On the streets we now walk.
We see a corner brown house
Drenched in the summer smell
Of ragged lawn blotched
And stained by oil
From a mower in the hands
Of a man who smiles at us
With slight shoulders
And curved eye,

And greets us through a fence
With trembling hands
And whose angular face
Leads us into the house

Where "the rooms are different,
Smaller, dirtier," my mother says,
Inching along the corridor
Trying not to awaken the dead
Stopping once to press her hands

Against musty wallpaper
Full of printed flowers,
Pulling at the edges sticking out
As if peeling skin.

Steven Pelcman
Steven Pelcman is a writer of poetry and short stories who has spent
the past few years completing a first novel titled Riverbed. He has been
published in a number of small magazines. He has spent the last ten
years residing in Germany where he is a language communications trainer and
has had the opportunity to continue his writing, travel the world, and
enjoy the challenges cross cultural experiences provide.

Home
Current Issue
Submissions
Contributors' Notes

E. Louise Beach

Anne Becker

Brad Bisio

Jane Blue

John Bush

Wendy Taylor Carlisle

Grace Cavalieri

Norma Chapman

James Cihlar

Ellen Aronofsky Cole

Ruth Z. Deming

Martin Dickinson

Moira Egan

Ronda Eller

Martin Galvin

Bernard Jankowski

Hiram Larew

Lenny Lianne

Michael H. Lythgoe

Judith McCombs

Susan Bucci Mockler

Miles David Moore

Kathi Morrison-Taylor

Bonnie Naradzay

Barbara J. Orton

Steven Pelcman

Roger Pfingston

Jacqueline Powers

Julie Preis

Eve Rifkah

Kim Roberts

Teri Rosen

Helen Ruggieri

Karen Saunders

Karen Schubert

J.D. Smith

Dean Smith

Rose Solari

Margo Solod

Colette Thomas

Steven Trebellas

Rosemary Winslow

Kathi Wolfe

Anne Harding Woodworth

Ernie Wormwood

Katherine Young

More

Email this poem

Printer friendly page

Last Updated: Sep 16th, 2007 - 08:34:32