Long World war Poems
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Gonna let you all in on a little secret
My real name isn't Jack at all
Charles is the name I was christened with
A late change caused a huge falderal
My seven older sisters ended up in a furor
A last minute change by my dad
Didn't go over well with the seven of them
So this joyful event became sad
His reason for making this last minute change
Was to honour his brother Charley
Who died a big hero in the first World War
Sisters thought the change was too tardy
So they decided to call me Jack anyway
In spite of dad's last minute switch
His reason for making this admirable change
Wasn't reason to change their wish
So keep on calling me Jack my good friendlies
It's stuck with me for 79 years
If you call me Charles, I can certainly guarantee
Won't answer unless I've had too many beers!
True story!
© Jack Ellison 2015
Glide on the wing then bank to the left
Dive with the wind then bank to the right
Soar on the cloud and feel the sky
So many unanswered questions why?
See the enemy's cloud and turn to fight
Picture that love you had in the corner of your eye
Adrenaline surge in the roar of the stride
Pierce the air with steel, give them nowhere to hide
Hear the gnashing teeth under stone white eyes
Strain the body with 'G', feel the tension cry
Dodge and weave, blank out thoughts on life
Fight with all you have in this outnumbered dog fight
Hero you are, hero you will always be
One of the bravest few who saved your country.
Up to October's end
life was peaceful and delightful;
I enjoyed the strolls and chats,
going to baseball games,
seeing crowds cheer at CitiField
and I zealously wrote
about many human experiences.
Disaster as predicted,
was in store for two thousand twelve:
Italy was shaken by earthquakes,
drought and floods in the USA,
then Sandy came with fury
wreaking havoc and destroying
everything in its path.
Thankful and blessed
for not having lost anything,
greatly rejoiced for being alive,
but moved by the tears of others
whose homes were slammed
by the storm on the eastern coast...
who doesn't sympathize with their loss?
Obama has been re-elected,
will he bring those changes
he promised in the first term?
Iran has fired at an American Warfare
and vows to exterminate Israel;
Syria is in turmoil and Greece
is facing unemployment and unrest.
An unimaginable fear awaits us all:
is it another World War, or Armageddon?
They came with dust on their boots and a morning star,
Shadows of boyhood still clinging to their shoulders—
They were sons of the land, faces bright with the dew,
Carrying small, cherished photographs in their breast pockets.
They rose with the sun’s trumpet call at dawn,
A summons to arms, to fear, to death—
Yet they did not tremble,
They carried the burden like a hymn on their lips.
Mothers with hands trembling at kitchen sinks
Counted each day as an offering—
Each letter a balm, each silence a wound.
Their prayers rose with the smoke of factory chimneys.
The beaches were gardens of iron and flame,
Where the sea’s voice met the cry of youth—
The soil drank of their blood,
And the wind carried the story homeward.
O Freedom—your price is the soft hush of sacrifice,
The echo of a last goodbye in the night—
They sleep in quiet fields now,
Their names folded in the flag’s bright embrace.
Pride blooms in the hearts of those they left behind—
A tender ache, a candle that will not be quenched.
We walk in their footsteps, grateful and small,
Ever humbled by the price they paid for us all.
This was the worst ship disaster, with the greatest loss of life at sea
A German ship that was overloaded, with over 10,600 war refugees
Sank on the 30 January 1945 by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic sea
By Soviet Naval Officer, Captain Alexander Marinesko, who died 1963
Stranger than be; he was actually facing a court martial due to drink
So did this up his rankings, when as the Wilhelm Gustloff he did sink
Not so, by Oct 1945 the same year he was dishonourably discharged
After being lower from a Captain to a Lieutenant so was not life hard
No message gave that it carried refugees as it crossed the Baltic Sea
No war crime committed, carrying soldiers from the German military
The first torpedo hit the bow, as putting crew members out of action
Next hit a drained swim pool that held 373 ladies with a bad reaction
Third hit the engine rooms for Wilhelm Gustloff there is now no hope
With all of this the ship starting to portside, as began to rapidly slope
The ship carried on it four Captains, it was Friedrich Petersen's choice
To sail the ship with its navigation lights on, as the others gave voice
it was to miss a German mine sweeper convoy, coming head on in fog
This grubby weather made the rescue work of the survivors, hard flog
Though; it should be mentioned all four Captains survived the sinking
No information was found as to why, that is left, to your own thinking
Be 44 minutes after, the Wilhelm Gustloff ship was dangerously listing
Another six minutes, the ship sank bow up, her metal soul unresisting
Out of all the unlucky 10.600 passengers only 1,252 of them survived
Most lost to the very icy cold waters of the Baltic Sea, none as revived
Alas, of the 9,400 victims who died, 5,000 of them were, but, children
All those refugees wishing for a new life, they were hoping on building
After the war was over, the Soviets, returned to strip her, as in looted
Signs of hand-made damage, and detonators scarring her undisputed
Not one bit of evidence of human life on that ship was found to remain
Hiding the evidence of their blame, did though, not lessen their shame
Auschwitz
1.3 million people sent there
1.1 million died
Jews Germans Russians
Ethnic Poles French Czech
Many Others
Auschwitz I (Main Camp)
Barracks 1939
Home to Polish Prisoners of War
May 1940 First thirty prisoners
German Career Criminals
Sadism, torture, beatings
Tattoos of serial numbers
August 1941
First Gassings
Soviet and Polish Prisoners
Cell Block 11
Auschwitz II (Birkenau)
Concentration and Extermination Camp
1942-1944
Jews transported by freight trains
Death
Gas Chambers
Starvation
Disease and Torture
Executions
Auschwitz III (Monowitz)
Financed by Private Industry
Inmates employed
Spring 1941
Walking through town to work
July 1941
Factory workers
Transported by freight train
1943-1944
35,000 inmates employed
Inhumane Conditions
Daily Deaths
Exhaustion
Disease
Starvation
January 1945 Evacuation
The Death March of 9000 Inmates
Most were Jews
Transported by rail to subcamps
Jan. 27th, 1945
Liberation
We must never forget, we must teach future generations history. We can never let this happen again.
04/20/2021
Written for The Last Train To Auschwitz Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Kai Michael Neumann
Radio Poem
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You, little box, held tightly
to me
during my escape,
so that your delicate tubes do not break;
carried from house to house, from ship to train,
so that my enemies may continue communicating with me
by land and by sea
and even in my bed, to my pain;
the last thing I hear at night, the first when I arise,
recounting their many conquests and my cares,
promise me not to go silent in a sudden
surprise.
Translator's Note: I take Brecht's poem literally. I can imagine him fleeing the Nazis with a radio in his possession, using it to receive the news of their conquests as his litany of cares mounted. Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956 was a major German playwright, poet, novelist, humorist, essayist, theater director and songwriter. Brecht fled Germany in 1933, when Hitler assumed power. A number of Brecht's poems were written from the perspective of a man who sees his country becoming increasingly fascist, xenophobic and militaristic. Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, poem, poems, Bertolt Brecht, German, translation, Germany, radio, tubes, valves, transmission, communication, travel, escape, flight, flying, exile, land, sea, pain, despair, Nazi, conquests, victory, victories, losses, cares, silence, war, World War II
After Their War
David J Walker
There was only desire and comfort/convenience
Laced with certain frames of entertainment
in between the crap games played with life
Everything OD green was repainted
except the screen with the
Signal filled cable
Nothing was on except a thousand reruns
From the dawn of television
And another thousand Audie Murphey movies
Mother may I borrow the View-master
Father will you be done soon with the Funk & Wagnall
The Earth will end in a thousand-year freeze
After a nuclear war Says my science teacher
who said to look it up
Marks grandfather was a WWI soldier who
Knew Captain Truman
He still Screams at night when
the bombs start falling
again
An Uncle got a fake leg after the Battle of the Bulge
He never said anything and I was afraid to ask
My Draft Number was high but
I volunteered to anyway
Did anyone contemplate life
after their war
If so
What did it look like to you
(In late June, 1914, Austria declared war
on Serbia, thus initiating the First World War.
In Paris, this was ignored, because Henriette
Callaux had been found Not Guilty. De
minimis non curat lex = "the law does not
extend to trivialities". Proust, in his novels,
wrote about his romantic affairs, but because
he was gay, had to feminise names, like
"Albertine". Boule de suif = ball of suet, the
French version, 100 years ago, of "babe".
7. Conclusion
And still, we label you the weaker sex!
Vienna drew the sabre on the Serbs?
Yes, but - de minimis non curat lex!
The crowds which crammed along Parisian kerbs
were there to cheer Acquitted Henriette.
She'd sobbed and swooned, and mooned and spooned, and won!
Her husband never placed a safer bet:
they even let her keep her little gun!
So, gentlemen, those terms diminutive,
those "ines" and "ettes" -- just leave them all to Proust.
Beware her underwear, where waits a chiv!
The merry widow's black, and home to roost!
When passion immolates you in its flames,
whenever pulses race, and blood runs high,
and (worse still!) you resort to nookie names --
my little chickadee, my cutie pie,
ma boule de suif, my little bit of fluff -
beware what's lurking in a woman's ****!
Been watching the world losing to hate
Unsure, has became the futures fate
War everywhere
Many people treated so unfair
Afraid to care
The world has lost the way
Is hate here to stay
Afraid of what I see
Who is really in charge of the powers that be
Will our tomorrow
Be filled with sorrow
So many question with no answer
Hate is a cancer
Eating at our very being
The uncertainty we are seeing
Hope starts fleeing
Society is falling apart
Breaks my heart
Words of hate
Seal this fate
What can one do
Have we forgotten, love is the glue
Can this world survive another world war
Everyone wants so much more
Fighting just to live
Afraid to give
The world needs a lift
Love is a gift
One voice
One choice
Standing against hate
Before it is too late
One voice becomes two
Love is not through
Two. Become three
We seek to set love free
We are one people, the human race
Love is grace
Puts a smile on everyone's face