What About the Olive people?…by Robert M. Katzman
By Robert M. Katzman © May 8, 2021
*
Who decides which colors
Are in the “rainbow” of humans?
Where is the Committee of Shades?
A shady group
If ever there was one
How can so many billions of persons
Be of so few tints of flesh?
When did our Politicians
Become Chagall, Monet and Van Gogh?
There is a reason a word
Such as ‘ridiculous’ exists
*
I am one of the Olive People
We are beautiful, too
Are we not?
A little longer in the Sun
To make us ever more delicious
Darker of eyes
Thicker of brows
Sensuous Middle-Eastern Souls
Haunting the streets of Casablanca
Tel Aviv, Mecca and Times Square
*
What of the Berbers? The Moroccans?
The Palestinians? The Lebanese?
Greeks? Turks? Armenians?
Five Hundred Native American Tribes
Has no one ever seen a luminous
Sephardic Yemeni Bride?
Surely a Garden of Eden of Silver Coins
Sheltering her come-hither intense brown eyes
*
When the once world-ruling Spanish demanded
Conversion of their Jews in 1492
Who then sought to woo their daughters
The Spanish looked at their own pale wrists
Saw their blood flowing blue
Through delicate layers of less tinted cells
Dismissed the forced “Conversos”
Saying being Catholic is NOT enough!
You must be “Blue-Bloods” as well
Wouldn’t this make anyone meshuganah?
*
This political: Black/White/Brown recitation
As if our Creator-of-Hues God
Had no imagination
Followed by the ever-increasing alphabet of:
LGBTQ
Which—sorry—somehow reminds me of:
The 1950’s slogan: LSMFT
Or, Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco
Excludes Billions of “Others”
I am “Others”
My family is “Others”
A Universe of Arabs are “Others”
India /Pakistan /East Bangladesh
Are “Others”
*
My Mother Anne was an Interior Decorator
Color charts abounded on all of our
South Side of Chicago surfaces
Even when a child, I always knew
There were at least:
Thirty shades of Black
Thirty shades of White
Thirty shades of Brown
Thirty shades of Red
Thirty shades of Yellow
And that was one corner of one table
*
The very next time
Some mindless Government Form
Requires you to select
One of two “colors”
It states that you must be
Scratch that sucker out
Write: None of the above!
No bland beige putty taupe
“Department of the Exterior”
Will ever descend upon you
You will be protected by
The Celestial Creator of Rainbows
*
In the imagination of the Blind
All of these words
Are colorless
Better we follow the
Minds of the Blind
Where all of us are a blur
For when I am sad
Am I not Blue?
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Publishing News!
Bob Katzman’s two new true Chicago books are now for sale, from him!
Vol. One: A Savage Heart and Vol. Two: Fighting Words
Gritty, violent, friendship, classic American entrepreneurship love, death, heartbreak and the real dirt about surviving in a completely corrupt major city under the Chicago Machine. More history and about one man’s life than a person may imagine.
Please visit my new website: http://www.dontgoquietlypress.com
If a person doesn’t want to use PaypaI, I also have a PO Box & I ship anywhere in America.
Send me a money order with your return and contact info.
I will get your books to you within ten days.
Here’s complete information on how to buy my books:
Vol 1: A Savage Heart and Vol. 2: Fighting Words
My books weigh almost 2 pounds each, with about 525 pages each and there are a total together of 79 stories and story/poems.
Robert M. Katzman
Don’t Go Quietly Press
PO Box 44287
Racine, Wis. 53404-9998 (262)752-3333, 8AM–7PM
Books cost $29.95 each, plus shipping
For: (1)$3.95; (2)$5.95; (3)$7.95; (4)$8.95 (5)$9.95;(6) $10.95
(7) $11.95; (8) $12.95; (9)$13.95 (10)$15.95 (15)$19.95
I am also for hire if anyone wants me to read my work and answer questions in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. Schools should call me for quantity discounts for 30 or more books. Also: businesses, bookstores, private organizations or churches and so on.