Gunter Grass, the elderly German novelist and former Waffen-SS inductee, raised eyebrows recently with a controversial poem criticising Israeli foreign policy. The Propagandist’s crack team of investigative (literary) journalists began delving into the affair immediately, and have now submitted their conclusions. Unfortunately, they are obvious.

First, they say, Germany and Israel seem to have some kinda crazy history/ background/ story thing goin’ on. Secondly, for chrissakes, who but a German writes a poem about foreign policy? Thirdly, the following excerpts from other Grass poetry on Judeo-MidEast themes seem to reveal a certain... ambivalence on the subject.

I think that I shall never see
A poem as homely as Tel Aviv.
Poems are made by fools like me,
Poetry that analyses foreign policy
Which in German is called Poesituttheingotfermechten...

… Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falconer cannot hear Golda Meir.

Roses are red,
UN helmets are blue.
Palestinians love their children,
Don’t you?

A drop of water
Sighs. Uphold Resolution
338-A, ja?

Profileration’s
Just awful, like some flowers
In the attic, or not.

Cloud over Tehran
Spells out, please quit it with the
Bomb menacings, Jews.

(--...More >>

Be on your guard when
someone calls you poor.
It means they see you as small
for having less than they have.

They possess more of the seen
but can’t see the unseen.

“Poor” opens the door
to strangers with more.
They will not wipe their feet
when they trample in.
They don’t see anything
you would want to protect.

There is poverty among the rich
and wealth among the poor.

As the intruders begin to feel better
about themselves, you will
feel surprisingly worse.
When you resist, you will
be accused of ingratitude.

They prefer donating
to paying good wages.

The more you are given,
the less you will have.

The bondage of pity:
more powerful than chains.
What is given can cost your soul.

Lilija Valis' poetry will be featured in her forthcoming book, "Freedom on the Fault Line"....More >>

Nobody loves equality
more than the French.

Their Revolution proved it;
defined it with a blade.

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite
ou La Mort in 1793. The death part

was dropped after the Terror.
The trinity is still their motto,

even after they found out
that every threesome is a couple,

with a detached disrupter.
Liberty is married to Fraternity

and Equality tries to break them up.
The French, fond of mistresses,

naturally spent more time
with the beguiling Egalite.

The guillotine was the divorce.
Off went the heads of Liberte.

Fraternite got soaked with blood
and fled the celebrating throngs,

public rape of Liberty’s daughters,
theater of theft and death.

The mistress is never satisfied.
Even her rogue lover is not immune,

and may find himself in line,
behind the aristocrat and the priest.

Leveling needs head cutting.
Blood is Egalite’s wine.

When Egalite becomes drunk,
and debauchery sets in,

and people sicken with excess,
the usual savior shows up,

some short dictator
with a tall ambition...More >>

Politics is not politics.

It’s what you think of me
and how I see you;

it’s family and the stranger;
it’s who will do the work
and who will get the reward;

it’s how we decide
who owns what and
who the thieves are;

it’s how we act when
we see a child broken
from a beating or a dog
chained and starved;

it’s marriage and divorce
and what we teach our children.

it’s what we do when floods
carry away our lives,
when fire surrounds us.

No, politics is not politics;
it’s you and me
and how we decide
to live together;

it’s love and hate
and everything in between.

"Politics" and other poems will appear in Lilija Valis' forthcoming book, "Freedom on the Fault Line".More >>