Aftermath

219 words

For Henri Joseph Fenet, and the Men of the Charlemagne Division — “Loyal To The End”

Your knighthood was bestowed
In the reign of fire
And phosphorous,
The weight of judgement
Already a Damocletian sword.
Thinking of home,
But now there is no home —
Only orphaned men
In a broken land.
No glasses raised
Or ballads sung,
Only Berlin’s fiery
Götterdämmerung.

A different fire consumed you
As you defended the rubble
Of Wilhelmstrasse;
White flame of Spirit-
Alchemy’s art,
In black sun forming,
Transmutes into Light.
You lived now only to fight.

In smoldering cellars
Of charnel flesh,
The whited sepulchers
Of hollow eyes bore witness
To the danse macabre.
The blood-grimed faces
Frozen in silent supplication
Of men that had known
Long years of travail.
Soon, Old Testament law
Would prevail.

In the damp cell that bled
Memory and longing,
You took the beatings —
It was understood.
Harder to take was the
Children’s hateful glare.
The years at the front had
Hardened the Will and
Burned out the dross;
Inured you
To pain and loss.

Amidst Europe’s
Via Dolorosa,
A sacred cause united
Men of race.
Perhaps the monarchs
Of a forgotten age
Would render you homage,
And honor your names.
The Republic would shun you;
You’d stand alone —
You, the brothers in arms
Of Saint Joan.

February 10, 2014