Of Mice and Mengele

Stood aside the gruelling line, His swastika eyes absorbed Miniscule details of victims As they filed past, heads bowed, Hearts crushed. Imperceptible nods potted fates, The guards watched his every move, Dragged apart the chosen ones, The ones his nods imbued with gravitas, Unnatural selections. His nostrils drew their scent, Aloft his precise black lip hair, And sensors tasted in his throat Their stench, the flavours of dirt and flesh, Their fear. Each body a genetic canvas in waiting, Drawn and doodled on with blades, Exposed with shears, Injected, gassed, sliced and dissected, Frankenstein’s clay. All the time his swastika eyes bored Like black bullets into snow, And not for one single second Did his maggot brain tell him This is wrong. For by accidents of birth And by the sick doctrines of evil They were doomed his human lab mice, In a time when the devil held sway, His apprentice, Mengele. What was lost to this world On marble slabs and in butcher rooms? What was lost to this world In theatres and ovens, in acid vats? What was lost to this world of art, poetry, science, history, life? What was lost, what was lost to this world, What he stole for a while, Was humanity.