Panzer

You spoke in whispers, held
your tongues, you let your loathing
boil and steep-and why? What reason?
Why did you believe you had to keep
her safe but stay your hand, to stop
your secrets breaking through? If all your spirits
spoke so true, so clear, then tell me:
why couldn't you just say it plainly?
Why did you stand in the shadows, hide
from me, avoid me like you chose to do?

What did I do? To all of you? I'm sorry
if I've wronged you too, and so much more
I don't know how. I hate you now-hate
all of you-I hate your coy prescriptive
quips and how I've done so wrong by you.
You could at least have asked me why,
have wondered at the things I do
and why I live my life this way.
Abrasive, vain, and weak-that's you,
all hypocrites, born, tried, and true.

#

Now the gunner speaks in lieu
and Panzer-men patched up with glue
come marching down in filed rows, the super
men of '42. They hate you too, you treacherous
Jew-they hate your lazy, careless ways,
your greed and all it makes you do. You broke
their nation, sealed their fates, and you
can't have your little shoe. You don't deserve
it, will not do. Too late, they say.
They're also through. They've come to say
the underworld, the Empire built of sticks
and glue and filled with men with eyes of blue,
in fifteen years or sixty-four,
when everything is said and done
and all your worthless ways are gone,
will simply say: You dirty Jew,
we won't have you. We're through.

6 April 2009