Anne poem : the emptiness project #12

Anne Frank

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank

Anne

The warm ovens that say crematoria
are someone you once loved–
in the lines, in the worn-out ovens

The concrete floor of the room
becomes you, a mirror
staring back at the memory
of windows and dead leaves

Falling outside your window
are dead leaves, so many colors
and you once knew all of them

Before the time of your time,
which is to say: your time.

(“The Holocaust was the World War II genocide of the European Jews. Between 1941 and 1945, across German-occupied Europe, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews, around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population.” Wikipedia) 

AWOL poem : the emptiness project # 11

Lidice massacre memorial

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”― Mahatma Gandhi

AWOL

Afterwards, you weren’t home
The war was over
We stood on your front porch
Knocking

The windows
were broken
and in my heart
a small boy
broke all the windows
but you didn’t care

It was only
the start
of somebody’s
picnic

We waited for an hour
Then we turned around
& started killing

On the hill
On the hill

On the beautiful hill

We ran
and when somebody said
“I love you”
we all of us
laughed
like hyenas
& started killing

Laughing
like hyenas.

“The Lidice massacre was the complete destruction of the village of Lidice in June, 1942 on orders from Adolf Hitler and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.” Wikipedia

Photo: Ashley Pomeroy, Sculpture by Marie Uchytilova