...A Poem for You

I asked a dear person in my life, recently, "Who is your favorite poet?"

It was a life-changing experience, when, with no hesitation, she said, "You."

With love to her, with love to my readers, here is a poem for you.

It is not very nice.

Bohemia

My name is Herschel Heinz.

I was a soldier.

I was a soldier in what

I believed was

A Great War.

I believed it a Great Action.

I believed.

I joined the army in 1938.

I traveled to Czechoslovakia

When I truly became a soldier.

I believed

That I would make

My father proud,

My family proud,

That I would someday make a family.

I believed that I

Would make my

Nation proud.

I believed,

As I departed on the train.

I began to disbelieve

In my Rifle.

I began to disbelieve

In my officers

On the train to Czechoslovakia.

We arrived and we had food and barracks.

We had prostitutes.

We had wonderful beer.

Again and again,

We had wonderful prostitutes and beer.

We had what was called

A Line-Up.

The men and boys

Were taken from the towns

And executed.

This, in front of their wives

And mothers, big and little sisters,

Grandmothers, grandfathers,

Aunts, uncles,

Burgermeisters.

I did not so much mind

The executions.

Continuing lives of the men and the boys

Would create future soldiers

Who would want to kill me.

Of a morning,

My men found

A cowering dozen

Men and boys in a cellar

By the railway station.

There were men,

And there were their sons,

And there were the men’s fathers,

And we had them all,

And we would execute them all.

For hiding, were they.

How dare they

Try to escape

What was

Certain.

My officers laughed

At the foible of the men and boys.

There was to be

No question

Of their fate.

The February air was frigid.

My officers

Raised their pistols

And demanded that

The men and the boys strip naked.

Pistols drawn, the officers,

Still drunk on  prostitues and beer,

Demanded that the men

Drop to their knees

And fellate their own sons.

I had been,

Proudly, issued a Luger handgun

Upon my induction

Into the German army.

I drew my pistol.

The fathers

And the grandfathers

Were naked on their knees.

They and the boys were shivering

With cold and with fear.

I boldly overstepped

My officers.

I strode forward

To the shivering

Men and boys.

You have only

Two choices, I declared.

You may die

With dignity

Or you will die on your knees.

Each man

And boy

Stood,

Avoided my gaze,

And drew back his shoulders.

It is a hero

Who declares

His Independence

From Life

Itself.

I emptied my clip

Twice,

A shot behind the ear

Of each

Of those men and boys.

Led to a truck, was I.

Put on a train

To Russia

For the military crime

Of insubordination.

The following Bloodbath

Held no Mercy

For me or for any other.

I walked from the Russian battlefield home to Germany,

To my home, no longer.

I became a soldier

To be of a Nation,

To be of a Family,

To make my nation and my family

Proud.