Poetry: Der Kriegsglück, I-III

From time to time I will post selections from my prose or poetry. The first post is the first part of a long poem, Der Kriegsglück, focusing on World War II that was originally begun in 2003 and revised in 2006 and again in 2008. It is inspired by both T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland and Antony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin.

[All punctuation or lack there of is intentional.]

Der Kriegsglück translates basically as The Luck of War.

I.

A vision of the future...

Have not these visions left countless bones in the fields?

Cut down in accountable actions—driven

When will they tire of these vast ideas—

So massive and big, the IDEA

Careless towards all that flesh needed to achieve.

Great men with short tempers.

Hope to uplift man.

Revolution to lift themselves.

Clash, clash, clash.

Ego and steel.

They have answers. The masses need them.

The claw at their faces to be led.

Great changes that leave broken cities and lost children.

The sheep want safety—a land free of fear.

Work and sleep and love—warm beds and beer.

The Great Men know this—they will mold the fears.

Clay and marrow and blood.

National Socialism, Communism, Marxism,

Isms from here to there.

The children will embrace them.

Give me security they scream. Give them the glory they long for.

They, and only they, can assuage the lonely pit of anxiety that holds the weak

The mob holds tight to the Great Men.

But sometimes the Great Men wish to be Greater Men.

All crumbles before ambition.

Then comes trouble, death...prostration before the laws of history.

Feel the trembling of the jealous gods.

The Will of Great Men is an insatiable lust.

II.

Pete and Repeat. Nothing new.

That’s the jaded message.

The call that has fallen on ears time and time again.

Listen. We know the way.

Run and die. But most of all obey

III.

High standards—when they are too high,

The stumbling man

Falls.

Hangman—learning is a challenging art.

Trust, trust, trust.

Don’t let me down.