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A Scraping of Shovels Premiere Contest Winner

Wind blows ashes all around, as men toil – bent over at an arduous task. In the place where a scraping of shovels incises the coming night, their blades incise cold and black encrusted ground. Attached to the shovels' handles are arms which are skeletons, and the arms belong to bruised, decrepit bodies. Hacking and wheezing, the men continue smiting the earth - plunging the shovels down, lifting them up with dirt, and tossing the dirt to the side. Plunging, lifting, tossing dirt – again and again and again. The men are so frail they barely can continue, but with the armed guards watching on, they dare not falter and come to a stop. Coming from the gloom are shrieks, and then comes that all too-familar stench after the shrieks have died out. It permeates the air and seeps into their nostrils, and still they toil at the trench. They struggle on beneath a sky which for a long time now has withheld from them its light, and the light of hope is but a dream that perhaps crosses their minds from time to time. Perhaps in their dreams at night as they lie on crude and uncomfortable "beds," they imagine they are digging tunnels - tunnels which will lead them away from all this misery, but their misery is a nightmare from which they can’t awake. What horror in their knowing that their own bodies might one day soon be lying too in these graves they dig. March 4, 2019 Now for pd'S 'old poems, FREE VERSE (003)

Copyright © | Year Posted 2019




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Date: 10/24/2020 6:47:00 AM
Congratulations Andrea: A stunning look at man’s inhumanity for man. Makes the golden rule never seem so more important. Luv, SuZ
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Date: 10/23/2020 2:30:00 AM
Congrats... Thanks again for sharing this... God bless you.
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Date: 10/22/2020 1:49:00 AM
Hello Andrea, I'm not doing much on commenting these days. However, I'm truly glad to see you on my list. CONGRATULATIONS, and thank you so much for this entry. At one point while reading this poem, I thought to myself, this is perfect, (in my book). However, I was not going to place the poem, because I asked for 17 max lines. LOL, I had a few who went over 17. I had to break my rules because this is really good. I also, love, love, and love the Title. Very different, if you ask me. LUV LINDA
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Dietrich Avatar
Andrea Dietrich
Date: 10/22/2020 6:23:00 PM
thanks so much for breaking your rule for me. I think it's early dementia. I keep messing up more and more with sponsors' contest rules.
Date: 3/20/2020 12:39:00 AM
Congratulations, Andrea. Such a powerful, moving story and picture of the horror of a concentration camp. We needs always remember the "scraping of shovels."
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Date: 7/6/2019 6:30:00 PM
Congratulations on your win! Another brilliant poem that is so deserving of high praises! Hugs. Pandita
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Date: 6/29/2019 8:04:00 PM
As always Andrea your amazing! Wonderful write and congrats on your win!;)
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Date: 6/29/2019 7:43:00 PM
Stunning and stirring write Andrea, really got me...thanks for your entry, congrats on a fine win!
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Date: 4/2/2019 11:37:00 PM
Hi Andrea, popping in I looked at your winner cup. You touch a nerve and depict the unbelief of mankinds utmost cruelty. Make us look my lady, make us feel. Wonderful write. Yesterday they burnt 5 people alive in my town 40 km away. Foreigners. Unthinkable. Love J
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Date: 3/16/2019 6:18:00 PM
Brilliant! The recordings of this kind of thing were a long time in my imagination and reading your poem is almost like having a memory come up, so vivid, and correct it is. Thank God, that there is also Love in the world!
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Date: 3/16/2019 1:51:00 PM
Andrea Dietrich wrote this!!! Hmmm, your comfort zone was left far behind and I like it/LOVE it because you can Obviously escape the gravity of rhyme and rhythm and with a dramatic flair at that! A very well deserved congrats earned in a true contest!
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Date: 3/16/2019 10:27:00 AM
Such a moving poem Andrea. he horrors of the holocaust will always haunt us and they should never be forgotten, many congrats on your win:-) hugs jan xx
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Date: 3/16/2019 10:13:00 AM
What a gripping, sad write, Andrea..the horrors and inhumanity of the holocaust are well portrayed in this heart wrenching act you describe. Congrats on your top win!
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Date: 3/16/2019 9:44:00 AM
CONGRATULATIONS on your well-deserved win, Andrea! SO moving and descriptive of misery! Janice
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Date: 3/16/2019 9:33:00 AM
Yay you!
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Date: 3/16/2019 9:27:00 AM
Andrea, this one grabbed me and held me from the first line. An artful write in remembrance of so much horror, the sound of death on the scraping of shovels.
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Date: 3/5/2019 6:28:00 AM
I can see this picture of the holocaust very vividly in this work. What a horrible time for all people in Hilter's path. Thanks for dropping by with a kind review of my work. Sara
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Date: 3/5/2019 5:06:00 AM
Sounds like the chain gang...but we all do it in one way or the other...Well done...
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Date: 3/4/2019 7:13:00 PM
You went long but grabbed my attention quick and held it throughout. When I realized where 'I thought' you were going, I was braced for the end so avoided crying (I surmised they WERE digging their own graves, but in my mind, I pictured them laying in them, shot, upon completion.) Great telling, great idea and written by a great spirit. Soupmail. Love ... CayCay
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Date: 3/4/2019 6:45:00 PM
This brought to my mind coal miners, and World War II. I like it when a poem brings more than one possibility to my mind. Thank you Andrea. It is wonderful.
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Date: 3/4/2019 6:43:00 PM
I imagine that the horror of that job lingered with them a very long, long time if not for the rest of their lives. How painful to have had such a job and lived to tell about it. Still, we must tell when we get a chance because it's best not to ever forget. When we forget, we risk something similar again. Well penned.
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Date: 3/4/2019 5:42:00 PM
masterfully done, andrea! you've really painted a very vivid picture of one of the most horrible episodes in human history, one which i still have trouble wrapping my mind around...
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Date: 3/4/2019 4:58:00 PM
You recorded a very horrible time in human history very succinctly and a winner for sure. I had thought about something like this for the contest but couldn't pull it together. I think I started a debate on soup with the Sponge vs Seas drying up thing. You say it would be wetter-others say it would be dryer! Whatever!!!! Best to you - Bob
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Date: 3/4/2019 3:17:00 PM
There was a time of such horror in human history...so hard to read about the sub-human conditions they endured..hope humanity has learned a few lessons since.
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Date: 3/4/2019 1:24:00 PM
A harrowing verse Andrea, I immediately thought of concentration camps and the prisoners in them. Well written. Tom.
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