Some Poetry from Alicia Dobrzanski (Father Bressani)

Branded with the Star of David

Off cracked dawn
Chastised by the whip
Its golden fires were lost
Engulfed in the whirl of those around me
Stampeding hooves
Caused heaven and Earth to quake
For heaven too wailed for my fate
Hell.
There He stood
With a child by his breast
An elderly woman
A corpse
Even life fled the inferno
Abandonment.
I longed for the shadow
Who day-by-day pranced a happy gait
Yet he hid
Like when the flame is doused
Tyranny.
And although their cries
Tore into my chest and ripped open my heart
My agony bore no lips
For I too like the shadow lay hidden
Hope.


I Always Lie

It slept soundly
In the ridges of its abyss
Endowed by a promise
It swore to keep.
They bore a brightly beaming heart
Though sometimes
They would flee
And when they did I cried
Knowing that they had been broken along the way
But this one was different
I nurtured it like my little angel
Who too slept soundly
In the ridges of her abyss
Upon her awakening
It would be hers.
The promise of a haven
Would be hers.
If only I knew
That its eyes did not see
That its ears did not hear
That it cared not to deliver my promise
I’d have broken it myself
Before it broke the heart
Of my little angel.