The Dogs of Warsaw

They slipped their chains and spread their brains On walls of bricks and mortar, Bared their teeth in their belief, Prepared themselves for slaughter. Howled aloud in the smoke and cloud That prowled the streets and alleys, The sounds they made in their parade Echoed down the valleys. They shed their blood in crimson flood, It stained the roads and gutters, And people hid and crossed themselves Behind their doors and shutters. The gunfire cracked and bodies stacked As one fell on the other, When it was done and lived there none, Each sister mourned each brother. The sun it rose, diseased and froze Out on a wracked horizon, The jackboot bastards drank their fill And cried out: “What’s our poison!” Black as soot on a winter night, Thin with eyes red to the core, The tourists armed with skulls and guns Beheld the Dogs of Warsaw. Torn like rags in a threshing mill, Shapeless sprawl on a killing floor Yet history will not forget The butchered Dogs of Warsaw.