The Divine Desperation of the Human condition

Yasser Arafat is driving me to Auschwitz

Yasser Arafat is driving me
to Auschwitz.
"This is a dream come true,"
he says,
and then,
smiling at me from his
rear mirror,
"Auschwitz".

We are driving 21 days
now
from Petach Tikva, Israel
to Poland: end of the world.
He is driving me there with
his blue taxi
and the meter,
God,
I’m afraid even to look.

We are passing all Europe
to see this damn chimney.

In Germany we meet the
nicest man.
he is smiling at us,
taking his hat off,
shaking our hands.
"Hitler," he says,
"Adolf Hitler.
I invented syphilis,"
he is shaking,
then saying,
"You’re from Israel,
so this is an anxiety attack."
I am holding him up,
pushing a glass of tap
water to his hand,
he is drinking it
while I’m saying:
"Adolf, dear,
this is not an anxiety,
it’s never just an anxiety,
this thing you call anxiety
just protects you from what
you really have in you."

His eyes are sizing me carefully.
then I whisper in his ear,
"Sadness and anger,
those two are always
underneath all anxieties."