Counter-Currents
Look from the bridge down into the black waters
where, corroded, rest the sunken barges.
A riddled sapper never set the charges:
the cry of birches is a wife’s or daughter’s.
Ilya Ehrenburg had opened the locks
in January nineteen-forty-five.
Mute as the dead are the raped left alive.
Now only splendid architecture talks.
The skeletons of quays rust in the spring,
their wooden floor beds long since warped and rotten.
Thorn and thistle prosper on the shore.
The opening ceremony with Hess forgotten,
the hammer and the sickle crush and sting
like history writ by those who won the war.
Cf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliwice_Canal
Enjoyed this article?
Be the first to leave a tip in the jar!
Related
-
Sperging the Second World War: A Response to Travis LeBlanc
-
On Second World War Fetishism
-
Game 101, Part 2
-
My (Belated) End-of-Year Book Roundup
-
The National Justice Party: A Postmortem
-
The Worst Week Yet: December 17-23, 2023
-
Hitler the Peacemaker: David L. Hoggan’s The Forced War, Part 5
-
Hitler the Peacemaker: David L. Hoggan’s The Forced War, Part 4