Hymn of the Hakenkreuz

WARNING: this one is inspired by stories from victims of WW2 and the Holocaust, so it's a little gory. 

 

We know freedom

Like the cockroach knows freedom:

Raw, trembling freedom.

 

We are free of tight embraces,

Friends' faces,

Warm walls.

 

Brave cowards caressing the trenches,

Men in No Man's Land, insects

In the sprawling center of a squalid kitchen

With its scalded meat and men.

 

Lain sacrificially bare

When the lights erupt,

We are scattered.

 

Free of our limbs,

Our loves,

Our pulsing blood.

 

Black, red, and white as surrender,

We are hung on the Iron Cross,

And, hanged, we are forever free.

This poem is about: 
Our world
Poetry Terms Demonstrated: 

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