Kai Michael Neumann | + Follow Poet |
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Drawn To the Graves

Drawn to the graves

Unbeknown clarity develops like root canal treatment
festering wounds and scull bones loom on the route

In reason and feeling I have no choice but to venture
an ancient drill grinds away carbon in my father’s grave

Gravity certainty narrative German post war collective
guilt betrayal crimes against humanity ‘we only followed’

Orders commands yet propagated propaganda and demise
a generation later my prerogative to look away falls by

The wayside on the path to Auschwitz the stench the cries
train tracks total war extinction ‘Lebensraum’ final solution

My officer dad a cog in the wheel just a soldier or willing
perpetrator and I too am getting longer in the tooth of time

‘What did you do what did you not’ and on a map in the
cellar times and postings little flags of when and where

I cannot avoid the void any longer and my atrocious search
for atrocities smoulders at boiling point and the search is

On for the roots which must be exposed from gold fillings
extracted to knowledge before cavities lie filled with pain

Might be covered with exposure of who I am as my father’s child

Copyright © Kai Michael Neumann | Year Posted 2017

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John Hamilton Date: 6/14/2017 9:35:00 AM Kai, this is an excellent write, very personal thanks for sharing, sometimes our parents or grandparents did things we are not proud of, but we can certainly learn from their mistakes and not repeat them, thanks for this entry, and congrats on a fine placement! Login to Reply

Darren White Date: 5/28/2017 3:13:00 AM I understand your poem, and your note, and I will never try to undermine your feelings. But please remember that you are you! I know I am far too young to have an opinion perhaps, and I cannot look into your heart, but still... Login to Reply Darren White Date: 5/28/2017 5:31:00 AM I understand yes, and the history of my country is interwoven with yours, it's a painful history of blame and guilt here also, that has long been denied, but still is there and should be dealt with properly. I wish you strength in researching that part of your personal history for I know it cannot be easy. Kai Michael Neumann Date: 5/28/2017 4:53:00 AM Darren, you are correct of course. There is this huge thing in Germany about German Angst and trans-generational guilt and its transmission. That goes as far as that there is some evidence that the children of my generation have some gene alteration through the events of past history. And as for me, I just have to know, what my parents did and did not do during fascism. My personal search has been put off for a long while and now I am able and willing to look at that past of my history.