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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v112) (the November 2012 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Falling (a Down in the Dirt collection book)		get the 230 page Sept. - Dec. 2012 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Sham El Dorado

Mark Vogel

Sixty years later, in a Carolina beach house,
scenes ooze from the book,
a groggy early morning dream—
ominous shadows on Warsaw ghetto walls,
brutal rules for survival, slow torturing edges,
a naked body hung from a light pole.
The horror escapes from this easy chair,
opposite comical gaudy gold-trimmed shell art
on the wall beside matching blue red
yellow tropic watercolors. Outside the sun
rises strong above the insistent ocean, and
already crowds collect, seeking pleasure,
paying to be bullied by traffic snarl.

Still, emaciated black and white faces linger
within the cocoon, forever bullied by language
so colorful many believed they were traveling
to Bavaria, even signing contracts for this honor.
Too late they discovered soiled propaganda
squeezed too close to breathe, and people
crammed like sardines until eyes turned
from the pale naked dead, the blood soiled
garbage strewn streets, numbing walls
holding tight the narrowest stripped story.

Even before stark evidence writing a thousand
movies, muted history managed a one day
showy dream, a scoured carcass-free depot
forgetting starvation, bodies aflame. A makeover
for outsiders, a Red Cross volunteer theater
masking Nazi horror, where language as surface
so easily pushed and shoved eager blinking
belief in justice. When the living, temporarily
protected from the killing strut, emerged
from recesses, for one day fed, the observers,
ready to go home, failed to see (again)
what was right there smelling.

Here in the land of sand and heat,
when boys stir, the smiling go cart/beach blanket/
fried fish vacation in false falseness will follow
the itinerary. Soon enough in this room
cheap enough since creation, new money-spilling
believers breathing satiated myth will appear,
but now stumbling victims still cluster in the shadows
in this pretend home bruised and bleached
by wind and sun. Brochures on the coffee table
promise sailboats, fishing, golf, though SS patrols
clearly wait outside. Once beyond the door
the bright glare masks gritty truth.

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