PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

[in memory of Anthony Hecht]

How can we offer them real liberation?

The oppressors have had their victory

upon the survivors---none of whom escape

the eagerly haunting, shadowed, memory

of uncompromising degradation.

It wears a GrupenFuhrer's grinning shape

shod in the jackboots of brutality.

How can this be assuaged in poetry?

By this guilt, all Europe is infected;

sepsis cannot possibly be deflected

The pigs of old Gadara had to drown.

The demons in them apparently did not,

but pointed to that evil, housepainting clown

who built a dominion indelibly frought

with the final refinement of violence.

This would prostrate even Dante with silence:

shocks, ours, of lack irresponsibility

driven home so sadly, so quietly.

Starward