I come both tourist and penitent today
to this weed-choked and overgrown
parade ground of the damned;
cracked, upthrust by winters, crumbling,
a useless place of refuse and debris,
a metaphor of its time.
Barbed wire all in rusting heaps, unconfining,
our barracks since salvaged and moved elsewhere,
to house those we dispossesed.
How good it looks now thus disused,
abandoned and forlorn.
I heard here then one last command:
- Bataillon! Stillgestanden! –
and a thousand jackbooted heels
- all automatons –
crashed as one.
Some words were spoke, and the hellish oath -
that had become a curse unspeakable,
and bound us to his evil fully incarnate –
was revoked.
But still my sense of guilt remained, unpurged.
- Augen gerade aus! - And I see now
that I am surrounded by a ghost battalion
of my peers, each accusing all -
that we did not stand upon our beliefs,
but yielded complicit to monstrocity.
Here I did awake into life from captivity,
but so broken and confused,
wrenched bewildered as from a coma,
distrustful of my motivations,
seeking penance and reconciliation.
And on being released asked
the living silence there
if Pastor Niemoller still lived,
then turned out the gate
and crying 'sola fide'
walked the long road home.
Author notes
Oath: all German soldiers swore an oath of personal loyalty to Hitler.
Niemoller: Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller, sent to concentration camps for 7 years for opposing Hitler, survived.
Sola Fide: Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Scripture: basic confession of the Lutheran Reformation: Faith alone, Grace alone, Scripture alone.
Comments
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This poem is well written and I am delighted to see there are no spelling mistakes, such a refreshing change at Allpoetry! One needs to remember that not all Germans were anti-Jewish, not all were National Socialists and that many decent Germans fought for their country. Also one needs to remember that the Lutheran Church and the Catholic Church did NOTHING to speak out against Hitler and the Nazi party. That is what makes Niemoeller unusual.
PS: I think you'll find that "geradeaus" is one word, not two.
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A very solemn poem. I appreciated its historic nature. This was obviously more than a quick rant.
I thought you managed to portray the cognitive dissonance produced by the history of your denomination. I'm not a very good critic of free verse, but I did appreciate this poem
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