Munich Poem by Liesel Eva Schmidt

Their boots clatter outside the window,
The idealized paradise of my childhood has been chipped away,
Tossed off in a flowerbed as inaccessible as the moon.
My German has been perfected, though what good is it now?

Language of evil.

My thoughts scream the anthem.
Away, away, away.
The world has imploded,
The poison has spread.

The propaganda reels whirl dumbly
On the spindle, man has gone backward,
The evolution been halted. Worse than animals.
They lie on the streets, the Jews,

The irrelevant, the impotent.
The victims lie with their blood buried beneath the cobblestones,
The ancient history stripped down
To only this moment in time.

Mozart and Strauss and Wagner are beneath the cobblestones.
But there are others there as well,
The tyrants, the dictators, the murderers.
And the silenced ones.

Their perfect little Buddha bellies burst,
The blood and sustenance like poppies or tulips or papier-mache.
And I am left with the aftermath,
Only a shovel to scoop away the limbs, the horrors.

And I am left with the mess,
Only a pen to probe beneath the city cobblestones,
And uncover the grievous sin,
And touch the deadly wrong.