Monday, June 30, 2008

Next ten stanzas of Deutschland Sommer 2008

XXI

Interpret
loneliness
and obsession
with greed
as a father
fails
to flee
poverty.

The patrimony
places form
against
a strategy
of lifelong
worthlessness.


XXII

Paulus
born
during Prussia's
rise
serves
culture's norms.


Cannibalism
exists
in shining ranks
as winter
falls
like wolves
on dying sheep.


XXIII

As Scholl's father,
Paulus creates
the white rose.
His fear
flings
the three hundred thousand
to their fate
and emboldened students
say what others dare not.

Personal fear
subjected to madness
threads
the string
of heresy.

What did he fear?
Frozen steppes,
Russian camps,
or a madman's rage.
Did he imagine
the blade falling
onto children's necks?

XXIV

He defended
beyond human limit.
Weakness
caused him
to wait
as dying men
scraped
flesh
from bones.

XXV

Fear brings bravery,
as a man screams
and pounds his fist
against fist.

XXVI

Childhood traumas
birth
these men
of the present,
who obsess
over
the hidden past.


XXVII


He defends order
in a chaotic rant,
the other
stands
ordered
in chaos.

Severed heads
shine
and spurt
blood,
as leaflets fall
from Liberators.

XXVIII

Constructed dreams
stand
as long
as dreamers sleep.

Awake the dreamer
with the real.

XXIX

Madness protects
the most fearful
in an ordered
amber.

XXX

The guillotine
severs
light from dark,
shuts the eyes,
and stills all thoughts.

Sharpened
and efficient
it falls
like entropy,
as the discarded corpse
begins the journey
anew.

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