A Collection of Poems
By Yaacov Apelbaum
- In Memory of William Buckley – A tribute to Beirut station chief William Buckley, told from his own imagined voice.
- A Silver Mitsubishi Pajero – Chronicles the long hunt of Imad Mughniyeh, blending tradecraft detail with poetry.
- A Nightmare – An operator’s recurring dream, where personal memory collides with his professional duty.
- Cold Beer, Cheap Hotels– A gritty, humorous homage to the unsung surveillance techs, the real heroes of the Cold War.
- The Man in Room 9930 – A portrait of a double agent (modeled on Robert Hanssen), and the institutional blindness that let him operate for years.
- Russian Whispers – Tracks the ideological infiltration of U.S. academic institutions by Soviet influence agents from the 1940s onward.
- Rosa's Curse – A takedown of Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg and her ideological heirs, charting the modern rise of "soft" totalitarianism.
- Ashes of Vengeance – A prophetic reckoning poem linking the 1983 U.S. embassy and Marine barracks bombings to eventual divine justice.
In Memory of William Buckley
They dragged me fast into the night,
A pistol's kiss, no chance to fight.
A Renault door, a blindfold tight—
The sun was gone, replaced by blight.
They stripped me bare in filth and gloom,
A naked man in a concrete tomb.
No light, no voice, no hint of room,
Just piss-soaked walls and certain doom.
The first tape showed my swollen face,
Bruised and broken, stripped of grace.
I clutched a paper to hide disgrace,
A mockery filmed in Satan’s place.
They hung me up by my wrists and spine,
My tears dripped below like vinegar wine.
They shocked my flesh with copper wire,
And told me to enjoy the hellish fire.
They pulled my limbs till sockets tore,
My spirit cracked, my insides sore.
They chained me to rusted beams,
Then whispered, laughing, “Enjoy your dreams.”
Mughniyeh carved hate into my skin,
He laughed and drank my terror in.
He kissed my corpse with vulture eye,
And hissed, “Let the Yankee die.”
They laughed while bending my fingers back.
My joints gave way with each loud crack.
My hair turned white from pain that day—
They spit on me, then walked away.
But still I held the names I knew,
And though my spine was split in two,
I spit my blood, my last adieu—
Let justice blind the butcher's view.
A Silver Mitsubishi Pajero
For thirty years he slipped through the dark,
A ghost in the night, not leaving a mark.
Imad Mughniyeh, name whispered with fear,
A shadow unseen, yet always near.
From Beirut’s ruins to Damascus’ streets,
He wove his web, no defeats.
A master of terror, a dealer of death,
Each step he took, a stolen breath.
The hunted, the hunter, the name that remained,
God's messengers watched, his hands blood-stained.
Yet patience is steel, and silence is fate,
And time wove the strands of a deadly wait.
They found his trail in the city’s veins,
Through signals and tireless pains.
A fortress of guards, a life in disguise,
But no mask withstands a thousand eyes.
A silver Pajero his trusted steed,
A car that had carried him, swift in his need.
Yet fate lay hidden where none had looked,
During refueling, his tank was hooked.
Six weeks of waiting, a hunter’s game,
Thirty-two times, but never the flame.
Then came the night, the stars cold and bright,
The phantom stepped forward, into the light.
The street lay quiet, the moon stood still,
A final breath before fate’s just will.
A signal was given, a whisper, a call,
The blast took him fast—his empire’s fall.
Damascus trembled, the silence grew,
A legend was gone, his shadow withdrew.
No war came after, no storm, no tide,
For even the mighty have nowhere to hide.
The casket was carried through streets filled with rage,
A hero, a martyr, they swore to engage.
Yet the dead rat was now dust, his war left undone,
The hit team had won—without firing a gun.
A Nightmare
In alleys where diesel fumes hang thick,
And secrets stutter like a film reel's tick,
He works in silence, gloves drawn tight—
A craftsman in the shadows, out of sight.
A sardine can, a coffee cup, a toothbrush head,
A book whose cover holds coded dread.
He speaks in death and phantom strands—
A quiet man with gifted hands.
Another city, a gray rusted Honda,
Parked next to the food court veranda.
The target’s lunch spot, a gyro stand,
A device under the gas tank planned.
He flips the phone and the relay,
No time for nerves, no room to delay.
But then—across the sunlit street,
A face appears serene and sweet.
She moves like smoke, like memory’s ghost,
The girl he’s cherished the most.
A high school love with honeyed hair,
Now slipping into death’s cold lair.
His thumb quakes, the target walks in,
An inner voice pleads, “Don’t do it, man!”
But orders echo in his brain:
“You’re just the spark, not the flame.”
He watches as the seconds die,
As sweat carves rivers, throat gone dry.
A single choice, too late, too wide—
She vanishes in an orange flame outside.
He jerks awake, breath sharp as ice,
The nightmare plays, precise, concise.
The girl, the blast, the vanishing grace—
Still flicker on her sleeping face.
Beside him lies that ghost reborn,
Her body warm, her long lashes worn.
The honey-haired, in silent grace—
Breasts rising slow in dream’s embrace.
Cold Beer, Cheap Hotels
In sewers deep or rooftops high,
They moved unseen beneath the sky.
In a dusty attic, a manhole drawn,
They worked all night and vanished by dawn.
No medals gleamed upon their chest,
Just tuna breath and zero rest.
With a tourist camera, a wink, a lie—
“Just taking photos of churches nearby.”
With Crisco-dipped drills and paint-dust hair,
They’d vanish through a hotel stair.
The night clerk smirked and turned his head—
Another ghost who paid for the unclaimed bed.
They planted mics in pots and walls,
In radios, phones, and mirrored halls.
Turned hotel speakers into ears,
Brushed their teeth with lukewarm beer.
One swapped wires where the priest prayed,
Another rewired the fire brigade.
One flipped the switch with bated breath,
Another played chess with the Angel of Death.
They tapped fiber lines and beacon,
Deployed discus radios, miniature recon
Figured out the THING, a Theremin toy,
Planted bugs in the KGB rooms, with joy.
They fought with case men, sharp in suits—
Whose plans involved helicopters and parachutes.
"Too risky," said the techs with a grin,
"Let’s crawl through vents; that’s how we win."
Behind the curtain, under the floor,
In vents and clocks and embassy doors—
They captured secrets, doubt, and fears,
On spinning reels and hidden gears.
So raise a glass to those unknown,
Who built a kingdom from dial tone.
No statues stand, no names exist—
Just scribbled jokes on a bugging list.
And in some dusty station drawer,
A label reads, “A Dead Rat Mark four,”
With solder marks and coffee stains—
The relics of those spooks with brains.
The Man in Room 9930
By day he wore the Bureau's pride,
By night, he let the red tide slide.
A suit, a smirk, a holy face—
Beneath it all, a vast disgrace.
He knelt in church with quiet dread,
While selling out the loyal dead.
A file here, a dead drop of code—
The long, slow burn of treason’s load.
A traitor with mirrored soul,
He drilled a channel, deep and cold.
To Moscow's desk he sent the prize—
The names, the schemes, the naked lies.
At home he filmed his wife in bed,
A gift for eyes from which he fed.
The righteous mask, the agent’s role—
Concealed a fractured, demonic soul.
And still the suits would sip and nod,
Ignoring signs, denying fraud.
His clearance high, his motives dark—
He passed beneath without a mark.
But somewhere deep, in dim-lit haze,
An angel burned in downward gaze.
Old Angleton, the spook divine,
Had traced the Soviet's patient line.
He warned of moles that dug deep,
Of traitors dressed in faith’s deceit.
They called him mad, they clipped his wings,
Dismissed his web and whispered strings.
They shelved his files and dimmed the lights,
Refused to see the hidden blight.
But Hanssen proved the vision true—
A ghost who betrayed what others knew.
So ask not just of Hanssen’s name,
But who allowed and fed the flame.
The rot was not in him alone—
It echoed through the cornerstone.
Russian Whispers
In the forties, where scholars read,
At Harvard’s gate and Yale’s deep creed.
Through Princeton’s halls and Columbia’s towers,
A shadow crept in midnight hours.
Not with rifles, not with might,
But whispers born in dead of night.
From Moscow’s vaults, the seeds were cast,
A future shaped to mold and last.
At Dartmouth’s steps and Cornell’s spires,
They lit subversion’s quiet fires.
Columbia’s ink, a Trojan scheme,
Penn’s corridors, a Marxist dream.
They preached of homes unbound, unchained,
Of single parents, ties disclaimed.
“The family’s shackles—we must break,
For love is free, no vows to make.”
They sang of peace that knew no guns,
A world where borders blurred and spun.
No nations strong, no banners proud,
Just voices lost within the crowd.
They poured out dreams in curling smoke,
A nation's youth to weed and choke.
A softened mind, a listless will,
A people numbed, too high to thrill.
Not through tanks or crimson steel,
But Ivy halls where deals congeal.
A thesis penned, a book well-placed,
Would set the West itself ablaze.
And so the whispers took their root,
In every cause, in every suit.
The slogans changed, the years moved on,
Yet still the specter lingers strong.
For war’s not waged with bombs alone,
But in the thoughts the young are shown.
And in the halls where ivy grows,
A silent hand still writes and sows.
Rosa's Curse
Beneath Berlin’s cold streets stained red,
Rosa's specter lingers, though she's long dead.
No throne did she take, no crown did she wear,
Yet ruin and terror were left in her care.
With venomous tongue and a book in her hand,
She preached revolution, the fall of the land.
The hammer swung heavy, the sickle bit deep,
As nations slaughtered like herds led to keep.
Her gospel of class, her doctrine of chains,
Turned men against brothers, left world in ruins.
From Lenin to Mao, from Castro to Bernie,
New faces, same chains—deceptive and dirty.
Today, manicured fingers, champagne in their hands,
They sit in the Hamptons where their empire stands.
With TED Talks, they carve out the new way,
Globalist gulags, a Marxist ballet.
At Lincoln Center, they mingle and they smile,
While millions are buried in history’s pile.
On NPR’s whispers, their sermons are spun,
While freedom lies gasping, its course overrun.
Her death should have ended the plague she unfurled,
Yet still it infects the free Western world.
In classrooms, in cities, in media’s lies,
Her specter still whispers, her poison still flies.
They speak of activism, yet absolute power they crave,
Preach a better future, where millions will be enslaved.
Islamo Marxism agenda they wave in disguise,
A world where freedom is shattered, and liberty dies.
But history sees, and the truth doesn't forget,
The cost of their vision—the world in their debt.
For Islamo tyranny rises where Marx takes its root,
And freedom lies trampled beneath its red green boot.
Ashes of Vengeance
April nineteen eighty three, the sky burned red,
At the Embassy, the innocent lay dead.
Terror struck with brutal might,
hundred thirty-six souls erased in the night.
Yet in heaven, the scales are weighed,
For blood demanded the price be paid.
October came with a deadly toll,
Marine barracks fell, claiming each soul.
Three hundred seven lives were lost to the fight,
Hezbollah murderers snuffed out the light.
Vengeance waited, cold as stone,
Justice accruing, interest on the loan.
Forty years passed, and reckoning came,
A storm ignited in heaven’s name.
Hezbollah’s fortress, secure and tall,
Crumbled to dust in a violent fall.
The angel of the Lord, with outstretched sword,
brought out brimstone wrath, fire outpoured.
The earth split open, flames poured down,
Turning triumphs to ash, burning them down.
No plea, no mercy, their screams ignored,
As justice answered, the blood once poured.
Their empire now burns, a crimson pyre,
Seared by judgment’s all-consuming fire.
In righteous flames, the debt is paid,
Their wicked legacy forever unmade.
