Under the bunker, where the reek of kerosene <br />Prepared the marriage rite, leader and whore, <br />Imperfect kindling even in this wind, burn on. <br /> <br />Someone in uniform hums Brahms. Servants prepare <br />Eyewitness stories as the night comes down, as smoking coals await <br />Boots on the stone, the occupying troops. Howl ministers. <br /> <br />Deep in Kyffhauser Mountain's underground, <br />The Holy Roman Emperor snores on, in sleep enduring <br />Seven centuries. His long red beard <br /> <br />Grows through the table to the floor. He moves a little. <br />Far in the labyrinth, low thunder rumbles and dies out. <br />Twitch and lie still. Is Hitler now in the Himalayas? <br /> <br />We are in Cleveland, or Sioux Falls. The architecture <br />Seems like Omaha, the air pumped in from Düsseldorf. <br />Cold rain keeps dripping just outside the bars. The testicles <br /> <br />Burst on the table as the commissar <br />Untwists the vise, removes his gloves, puts down <br />Izvestia. (Old saboteurs, controlled by Trotsky's <br /> <br />Scheming and unconquered ghost, still threaten Novgorod.) <br />--And not far from the pits, these bones of ours, <br />Burned, bleached, and splintering, are shoveled, ready for the fields.<br /><br />Weldon Kees<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dead-march/
