Last Days Of A War Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

They stood in knee deep waters of the river
and madly brushed the shredded skin off bodies.
Two phosphorus grenades had caused a shiver
of panicstricken fliers in their bloody
and barely functioning old Fockers and the Schmitts.
Their own dear cousins also brothers, even sisters,
were fearing Amis and the homeland-loving Brits,
so ammunition was released, some flew like twisters
but only phosphorus was feared like death and hell.
Strong-bristled brushes needed to be scraped with skill
if one were willing to see rawness as they fell,
those large skin pieces that would mean impending kill,
it was their war, the people thought in desperation.
What right did Adolph take that brought such rampant doom,
they were too tired to defend their glorious nation,
they had been told that Germans needed much more room.
They called it Lebensraum, a space to breathe their air,
which was enriched with Aryan oxygen for masters,
they would condemn the ones who foolishly would dare
to spread their ugliness about, create disasters.
It all had been they knew that day, a bag of lies
itself a valued and expensive undertaking,
and no one worried over anxious plaintiff cries
it was the end of war, another in the making.