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Jingle-Jangle Bells

Jingle-jangle bells
   Sing-song syncopation
Ambulances hurtle down streets
   of post-war Europe

Eerie bells; haunting bells
   ghosts of round-ups, of Auschwitz 
of Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen
   sounds of death and doom

Shades drawn suddenly
   blinds sealed tight
Breath held; pin-drop silence
   'Till the peril passes

Bells tear at tortured souls
   Dragnet's tentacles probing
Reaching for fresh corpses to feed
   Insatiable crematoria ovens  

Decades later, survivors flinch
   hearing jingle-jangle bells
So, too, sons and daughters
   living victims of inherited terror


          June 02, 2019
 Entry in 'What Makes You Flinch' contest
   Sponsor: Julie Leigh Rodeheaver

Copyright © Gershon Wolf | Year Posted 2019

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Kim Rodrigues Date: 7/27/2019 10:03:00 PM Congratulations, Gershon, for your poignant write. Login to Reply Gershon Wolf Date: 7/27/2019 10:27:00 PM Thanks much, Kim.

Tom Cunningham Date: 7/27/2019 5:08:00 PM Have only just seen this Gershon, the horrors those poor people must have suffered. Mankind said this must never happen again but it does. What is it in the minds of these monsters ? , there is no excuse. Tom. Login to Reply Gershon Wolf Date: 7/27/2019 10:27:00 PM The sad reality is that many of those who carried out the activities of Auschwitz and the other camps were just ordinary people. A sad commentary on man's proclivity for obeying orders, no matter what. ~ gw

Caren Krutsinger Date: 6/4/2019 9:53:00 PM I know that jingle-jangle bell sound, and it also makes me flinch. I have been indoctrinated by several movies to be frightened to the point of rigidity that cannot move when I hear the jingle-jangle bells. Login to Reply Gershon Wolf Date: 6/4/2019 10:08:00 PM Those are 6,000,000 (of my brethren) + 6,000,000 more (non-Aryans) --- 'for whom the bells toll,' as Hemingway might have it. HORRIBLE sounds... ~ gw

P.S. Awtry Date: 6/3/2019 9:40:00 AM Those first two lines set the mood of your poem perfectly for this “eerie” and “haunting” write. Adding this to my FAVs. Login to Reply Gershon Wolf Date: 6/3/2019 12:16:00 PM Thanks for FAV-ing this one. Greatly appreciated. ~ Gershon

Kim Rodrigues Date: 6/2/2019 6:37:00 PM All too real...the horror! Login to Reply Gershon Wolf Date: 6/2/2019 7:58:00 PM The real horror of the mind never fades. ~ gw

Jan Allison Date: 6/2/2019 3:30:00 PM I got chills reading your poem GW. its poems like this that keep the story alive, we should never forget the horror of the holocaust:-( hugs Jan x Login to Reply Gershon Wolf Date: 6/2/2019 5:43:00 PM Thank you so much for the feedback, Jan. I was hoping that this one might 'chill' a reader or two. I still get the chills when those sing-song ambulance bells in old movies. Best wishes, Gershon