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foggy freeze dried memories
icy daggers serrated his chilly mind
memories sharp as polar bear’s claws
wielded reminiscent evocation in pain
how he longed for selective amnesia
heart and reason at war with the enemy
a battle only to be won if he surrendered
to inevitability that conflicts were useless
unless of course they concluded in cease fire
his father had fought at the Russian Front
which left his own upbringing out in the cold
no Potemkin façade could melt the chagrin of
twelve years of Germanic menace and madness
both of them prisoner to emotional deprivation
trans-generational transmission of trauma in action
it was bitterly cold in the heat of many a moment
and icicles festered in the young brain to be formed
shape up they said – fight flight or freeze
food for thought no doubt but what about feelings
many winters have passed and the old man is dead now
took many secrets and memories into his grave
the boy now in his sixties decided he needed a snow man
carrot charcoal eyes and Che Guevara’s bandana
collected drift wood from a beach of forgiveness
and danced around the bonfire of exorcised hurt
until permafrost yielded to fire and passion in time
he had been his own antagonist for far too long
Copyright ©
Kai Michael Neumann
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