Then pointing with one hand through a window downstairs to two
other figures crouching beside two racing bicycles-
Two more Nazi soldiers who had suddenly appeared
&
who were taking
a newspaper "Propaganda Photograph")
-Oh yes it's also true that even that very first bright sudden
flashbulb hurt my eyes
Like a burning gas explosion; why oh yes why for the sake of Jahweh,
why did those Kapos have to do all that then, for it wasn't
yet quite midnight
-Yes it was just after dinnertime I remember
&
yet our light
was already out.
JAMES HATCH
Wiirzburg, 1944
Each time I wake, that bloody skull is screaming
In the wall. The bridge's last arch is sprung;
Airing white bedclothes out the windows
Is forbidden. The straight-backed cattle
Herd in the streets; they bunch between rubble-hills
And their forests of stiff little swastika flags.
Who will stop the leaders from lighting
Their last pyres in this flown life? Today
We caught a deserter, put
him
on trial:
His belt had been taken, his pants kept falling.. . .
Our priest wants to take the old crucifix
Whose arms and spiny hands stretch out
Towards us, off the wall to hide.-On my knees, I see
Only your knees, and your punctured feet.
