Marcus writes (October 2012):
“My good friend the irish poet Martin Burke with his press Delphic Books 21 has just published my Bey’s Elegy written at the request of my family in Peru. In addition to the title poem (8 pages) there are 35 pages of work written over the last year. All 21 copies are being donated to public libraries in Belgium.
Martin would like to publish an expanded version of this book on the internet as a special issue of his magazine The Green Door.”
MEIN VATER LEBT
to Platon Alexiades
Mike was a long time in the hut
for his final interrogation
by the German officers
before his release.
When he finally came out
and I took him in my arms –
the thin young man in the pale brown sweater –
I knew at last death is an illusion.
Mein Vater lebt, I proudly announced
to the plump female with the horsewhip
who hadn’t wanted to believe me,
as we turned and walked downhill.
“You must stick to your agreements
from now on, papa” I warned him,
“no more unexplained disappearances
into the nebulous atrophy of war.”
Although it was a dream,
I still feel him in my arms,
that warm young muscular body,
glad to be in the land of the living.
Written on my seventy-third birthday.